Dime Read online

  * * *

  They said Daddy was out on the street almost the whole time. I don’t know how I didn’t see him. When we came in, he was waiting. He ignored L.A. and Brandy and took me into his beautiful room. He undressed me so gently, and I wanted to want him, but my body hurt and I could hardly stay awake. He showed me how much he really loved me, though, because he put me in his shower and helped me wash, saying over and over, “You did real good, Beautiful. You did real good.”

  And then he laid me down in his soft, soft bed and held me close.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A MONTH AND a half ago, I never thought it would be this difficult to figure out how to write the note. I knew it wouldn’t be easy exactly, the way it was for Celie, sewing pants after pants after pants, the colors and patterns and style just flowing out her fingertips. But I didn’t expect it to be so hard, either. I didn’t expect all the challenges that would accompany every idea.

  For instance, it’s occurring to me now that a big problem with writing the note as Sex is that the kind of people I need to pay attention might be uncomfortable. Because even though Sex is everywhere, regular people pretend it isn’t. Regular people who aren’t perverts, anyway. Squares. Real ones. Squares who might be compelled by Lollipop or entertained by Brandy or upset by L.A. or bored by me. They act like Sex doesn’t exist half the time. Those people are the kind of people the note needs, but they’re also the people who don’t want to hear what Sex has to say. So I’m thinking about that a little bit, and I’m thinking, well . . . what about Sex’s other cousin? Money.

  Squares like Money as much as anybody does. Squares would be more comfortable listening to what Money has to say, at least at first. And if I write Money in the perfect way, squares might get just disgusted enough to refuse what Money suggests. And instead do what I actually want.

  Come on now, Money could write. Plenty of people love Sex, but plenty don’t. Too old or too ugly or ladies who never liked Sex much in the first place. But me, I am the bomb. Everybody loves me. You can’t deny it. Nobody ever gets tired of me. Nobody ever stops wanting me, me, me, and more of me. Money would tell Lollipop’s story more easily than Sex could, anyway. Money wouldn’t be so mad about it. He would just be writing the note for his own ego. But squares would see through it all and be shocked and do the thing I want them to do. Sex is going to bitch and moan about how he doesn’t like working with children and it puts a stress on and all that bullshit. But I’m here to tell you that I am at my most powerful when children come into the picture. It would be sickening to write, but I could make myself, knowing it might work. Because I reproduce myself faster than four rabbits in a barrel when there are kids around. Brandy and I couldn’t figure out how much Daddy made off of Lollipop, but we knew it had to be a lot, because after she arrived things changed so much. That Lollipop is one perfect example. Money would grin. I don’t know how it all went on before the Internet, but that girl earned her hotel room one hundred times over putting her little body in front of that computer camera. Brandy thought Daddy could get into a lot more trouble putting a little girl on a live feed than turning us teenagers out. She thought that the johns knew that, too, so that’s how Daddy could charge so much more for Lollipop. You wouldn’t believe how much of me got paid for a look at her. And when she was old enough, which didn’t take so long, I just exploded like a bomb. Money would be downright gleeful. All she had to do was live her life in whichever hotel or motel butt naked, doing her little girl things. That’s it. And when she graduated to bigger girl, and top dollar was paid to visit her in person, that Uncle Ray was careful not to wear her out. All she needed was two or three a week to make him rich. Lollipop even bragged to L.A. about this part. Men ordered her up from around the country to get a piece of her. One took a plane. Five rode Amtrak. Yup. She must have lost her little virginity twenty times, and that costs pretty millions of pennies, if I don’t say so myself. He loved me, Lollipop’s uncle Ray did. He would stop a minute to think over just how much of himself would be gotten if the right person read his note. So you see, he would continue, if you and I work together, if you take this package, and you do what I’m trying to tell you is possible to do, then you are going to get more of me in one go than you ever imagined possible. That’s right, my friend. Who doesn’t want easy Money? Easy me? I think it’s called reverse psychology. I think it really could work.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I DIDN’T KNOW about reckless eyeballing until I got beat up for it. L.A. tried to tell me, but I guess I wasn’t as smart as Daddy said. It was pretty soon after he turned me out onto the track. Not even a month. Still cold enough to ache my toes. Still not enough money for him to take me back into his room. Almost, he said.

  I was getting out of a date’s car around midnight. As I stepped up on the curb, Whippet was walking by. I walked around him.

  He stopped. “What?”

  None of them had talked to me before. I was scared. I looked at Whippet because Daddy had taught me to lift my eyes to Daddy’s face, so I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

  He was wearing a shiny coat zipped up to his chin. “The fuck you think you are?”

  “I didn’t—”

  He shoved me into the street. L.A. was less than half a block away, and even though I could see her through the darkness, she acted like she didn’t see us.

  Whippet was taller even than Daddy. Standing over me with his neck inclined, he looked like a vulture. “Nobody taught you nothing?”

  “I—”

  “Pimps up, hos down, ho!” He slapped me. Not a tap, like Daddy. His hand hit my ear. Even in the icy air, it burned. I tried not to let the tears come.

  “And you going to look at me too?” He slapped my other ear. Then he called out, “Whippet, yo! George. Stone!” He called out Daddy’s name.

  I hadn’t seen Whippet or George or Stone all night. But now they were surrounding me. All of them.

  “Don’t you look at none a us,” Daddy ordered. “Put your head down, ho.”

  My Daddy. My Daddy who loved me so much and took such good care of me. All I wanted was for him to let me back into his bed where he would stroke me and hold me and warm the back of my neck with his nose. Ho. That’s when I started crying.

  * * *

  “They wouldn’t of done it for just not stepping down when you still a new turnout,” Brandy told me later. “It’s because you was reckless eyeballing, too.” She was under her blanket on the couch, and I was sitting on her feet, holding a bag of frozen corn to my throbbing face.

  “What’s reckless eyeballing?” My lip stung too. I could feel it swollen.

  “Looking at a pimp,” Brandy said. “Hos not allowed to look another pimp in the face. Not ever.”

  I moved the corn from one cheekbone to the other. What else was I supposed to know?

  “Didn’t L.A. educate you?”

  I couldn’t remember.

  “She was supposed to . . .” She stopped because Daddy came in the front door. My heart sped up. I couldn’t stand the way he had spoken to me out on the street. Ho.

  “Dime, get in here.”

  I could tell by the way Brandy lowered her eyelids and tightened her lips that she felt bad for me. I left the corn and followed him to his room. I was shaking. My whole head ached. He sat on his bed, which wasn’t made. His black silk sheets shone like oil. “You a mess.”

  I stayed quiet, trying to stop my arms and legs from quivering. I was scared he was going to punch me again. Worse, I thought maybe he hated me now, and I didn’t know what I would do if that was true.

  “You going to have a hard time earning my money until your face heal.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You only been out three weeks.”

  I was fuzzy on the time. I was fuzzy on a lot of things.

  “Three weeks not so long. You still green.”

  It didn’t seem like he was going to hit me.

  “But also, you going to school, so you n
ot earning near quota.”

  I didn’t want to quit school, even though I was so tired now. And even though I felt like a silhouette of the old me. A fuzzy silhouette, which didn’t even make sense. The me before I died. My brain was like a silhouette of itself, and so was my body, except that right then it hurt.

  Still, it didn’t seem like he was mad, exactly.

  “Pimps up, hos down. You look at somebody else, they can take my coins from you, they can teach you any kind of lesson. You lucky Whippet didn’t tell you to break yourself.”

  “What’s ‘break yourself’?”

  “When you give money to a pimp, and you his after that.”

  I didn’t know anybody could do that. I wouldn’t do that for anybody else, anyway. Only for Daddy.

  “Whippet didn’t want to bother with you cause you fresh work. You not making what you cost, and I’m doing you a favor even keeping you.”

  “I’m still trying to learn. . . .”

  “I know, Beautiful.” He lifted his right calf to rest on his left knee and slid off his shoe. “That’s why I’m talking to you now and not giving you another beat-down for being out of pocket today.” He slid off his other shoe. “Come here and take off my socks.”

  I did, thinking how Janie would understand. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake beat her because he had to show her and everybody who was boss. Janie let it be because they had the most pure love anybody could have.

  “Now take off my jeans.” He was looking at me with those puppy eyes and the gold D shining. I stopped shaking, remembering how Tea Cake was so sweet to Janie after he hurt her a little. Daddy and I had a love like them. My heart hopped even faster. I took the edges of his jeans and tugged. “You still want me like that?” He was leaning on his elbows and lifting his hips so that I could pull the pants all the way off.

  The throb in my face melted down to other parts.

  He could see that I had been trying hard to contribute, to behave. He forgave me. Just like I forgave him.

  “Hard to smile with your lip busted.” He took his pants from me and scrabbled his hand into the front pockets. “Let’s see how much you made today.” He turned his back, and I could tell he was peeling off bills, counting them fast. When he finished, he spread them flat on the marble-topped bureau, then turned back around and pulled me closer to him, his big palm on my bottom. Warm. He stared at my bleeding mouth. “I did that.” He was proud. “That one from me.” Then he was kissing my lip where it was cut. Long. Hard. It hurt. And it felt good. I tasted my own blood.

  I braced myself for him to stop, to leave me desperate. But he didn’t. I tried to ask while keeping my split lip on his. “Are we going to . . .”

  He stopped kissing me long enough to answer. “You earned it, Beautiful. Now let me do you right.”

  Finally. It felt so good.

  Chapter Seventeen

  HERE’S HOW IT works, Money would explain to the squares reading my note. Money would think all his boasting about how much everybody focused on him would make the reader want him too. L.A. earned the most of me and so she was the Bottom Bitch, in charge of the household after her Daddy. He had been in a talkative mood once after I had made him happy trying something new in between those sheets. I heard a lot of things that afternoon. He used to work his hos around the clock, but he changed that up back when Satin was with him due to multiple mishaps. He decided, rightly, that it was safer with all of them on the track together and then all of them going back home together. He decided it was safer and also more cost-effective, in the end. But I would be the one writing Money, and maybe I could get the squares upset by him. Upset enough to do the opposite of what Money would be suggesting. Upset enough to do the right thing instead. The more I think about it, the more I think this might be my best plan yet.

  L.A. was unhappy because Dime going to school meant Dime worked less. Then again, L.A. was happy because it meant she was always going to earn more me than Dime. L.A. was thinking she would earn enough eventually to square up with her Daddy. She was certain he would take her down south and marry her, the two of them quitting the life and living large with every room of their house as fancy as Daddy’s bedroom. L.A. was planning on having her Daddy’s babies. He told her that, just like he told each of them the lies they wanted to hear. Daddy never told me anything about his lies. I figured out that part on my own. L.A. was smart in some ways, but she was foolish, too, so she had her heart set on down south. She worked her tail off to bring me home to Daddy and make her dream come true.

  Now Brandy, on the other hand. Brandy didn’t care that Dime was staying in school. Brandy had no interest in school. She wasn’t trying to bring home the most of me and piss off L.A. by doing so. Brandy just wanted her couch and her food and her Daddy to always take care of her. That was all Brandy wanted. With what she went through after her grandmother died and before her Daddy scooped her up, she didn’t want more than that: no trouble with L.A. No trouble with Dime. Peace. Well, actually, Brandy did want a phone, and after Daddy once promised a trip to Disney World, she realized she wanted that, too. L.A. already earned a phone, even though she did not have a lot of minutes. Just enough minutes so that their Daddy could check up on her and the others. He said if Brandy brought home a certain amount of me, she would get a phone and a trip to Disney World. She was working on it: working hard. That’s how Money would present himself. I am hoping if I compose the note just right, the squares will be outraged.

  * * *

  Things happen differently when you are in the life, even if you stay in school. The days and nights run into each other, and you only notice time passing by how the decorations and the light changes and by what’s on TV. Red balloons and chocolate-box covers stapled to the hallway bulletin boards at school. Pastel heart-shaped candies on the coffee table. BE MINE, VALENTINE, I LOVE YOU. L.A. put them there. It began to stay light longer as the last traces of blackened snow finally melted. Kohl’s commercials began showing women with diamond necklaces and fancy handbags: Mother’s Day. Little American flags appeared in bunches at the corner newsstands: Memorial Day. Then it was warm and buggy, and it didn’t get dark until you had turned five tricks, and there were more squads out, and George got into two shoving matches with a pimp from downtown, trying to move in on our track with his girls who looked like boys and boys dressed like girls. I’d seen that on HBO here and there, but I thought those were people made up for TV. Noticing a few of them not much older than I was bothered me, but everything was jumbled and spinning, and I couldn’t slow it all down or think, and then it was the first day of June. A hot day. I turned fourteen.

  “Guess what?” I said to Daddy when he was holding me.

  He was surprised to hear me begin a conversation. “Huh?”

  “It’s my birth—”

  His phone rang. He didn’t have a song for his ring tone, like L.A. had, changing it just about every week. He just used the ascending notes that came programmed in already. He held it to his ear and unwrapped himself from my body, standing up and motioning for me to get up too. “Uh-huh,” he said into the phone, and I had to take my clothes and leave.

  I tried again on the way to the track. “Brandy.” I stayed so quiet most of the time, I gave Brandy the heebie-jeebies. That’s what she said once when she was doing my hair, but she said it like she thought I was funny, not aggravating.

  Now she looked at me. “What?”

  “It’s my birthday today.”

  Brandy shook her head. “I tried to run you off the first night I laid eyes on you, Dime.”

  I remembered her serving herself the last of the rice, just after Daddy had asked if I wanted more.

  “You should have went away right then.” Brandy sighed. “Now you already growing up.”

  I wanted to ask her why it was okay for her to be there but not me. But I never did talk much.

  Brandy sighed again. “I would have made you a cake.”

  * * *

  I kept my head down an
d worked hard for Daddy’s money, and he had no cause to beat me again. He wouldn’t take us unless we made quota five days in a row. He took L.A. the most and then Brandy and then me. When he took me I was usually woozy tired, but I still wanted him so much I didn’t care. He told me he loved me the best. He told me L.A. had to be kept happy and Brandy didn’t turn him on like I do, plus neither of them were as smart as I was. He told me how I was so mature and how he had such big plans for me and he kissed me long, so long and held me tight after, and I wanted him to keep his arms wrapped around me forever.

  Time passed, but with the fuzz and the silhouette it was hard to keep track, and it didn’t matter anyway. I was with Daddy, and I wasn’t going anywhere, so none of it mattered.

  * * *

  It was the last week of school. Trevor and Dawn didn’t think I had worked up to potential.

  “Didn’t you used to be smart?” Trevor asked, raising his eyebrows at the grade on my last math test. If one pizza palace makes ten thousand dollars in four days, and there are twenty pizza palaces, then how much does the entire franchise make in thirty-one days?

  I shrugged.

  “She used to be smart in English, that Dominican girl told me,” Dawn said. I hadn’t known her and Trevor until the beginning of the school year. Dawn had moved here from Pennsylvania, and Trevor and I just never noticed each other. “Didn’t you win the spelling bee in fourth grade?”