Now, though, my having such a life or doing such normal schoolgirl things seems so far-fetched it strikes me as absurd.
After using the rusty hotel bathroom down the hall, I unpack my small suitcase into an old wooden dresser. That takes about one minute. Now what? I’m anxious to look for work, but it’s only 2:00 P.M., and Carla said the best time to check at restaurants is between 4:00 and 6:00 P.M.
I wish I could take a nap, but I’m way too wound up. I could read the paperback I got from my counselor. You Can Heal Your Life. Sharon knows I think such books are full of shit and have nothing to do with my life. But I flip through a few pages to make sure it’s the same old easy solutions and sentimental crap I hate. Sure enough, my eyes immediately fall on a page, some of which is in all caps:
When we really love and accept and APPROVE OF OURSELVES EXACTLY AS WE ARE, then everything in life works. It’s as if little miracles are everywhere.
Seriously? I imagine little miracles like butterflies floating around my head as I trip along through my easy life where everything works, all because I love myself. Then my eye falls on another sentence on the same page:
The very person you find it hardest to forgive is the one YOU NEED TO LET GO OF THE MOST.
Oh, really? I’m tempted to throw the book across the room, but I don’t. Partly because it was a gift from Sharon, and partly because it’s still my fondest secret hope that someday I’ll become the kind of person who can believe this shit and make it work for me.
I’m way too restless to read, anyway. It almost feels like I’m waiting for something huge to happen—but supposedly it already has. I got released from Echo Glen. So why does it feel like my happy balloon got popped seconds after it was full?
I’m already at loose ends and I’ve only been free less than three hours. I could go to eat somewhere. But earlier at my going-away party, I ate a bunch of cake along with lunch, so I’m not at all hungry.
I set the book aside and get up and try to open the one window, but it has been painted shut. I finger the crumbling windowpane and look out at the sunny afternoon, trying to recapture the wave of joy I felt earlier. But all I feel is empty, which I just can’t understand. I gaze down at the heads of people on the street directly below me. I can’t see their faces, but I can tell by the purposeful way they walk that they know where they’re going. They have things to do and people to see.
Eventually, it dawns on me, the reason I feel this way. The transition program at Echo Glen taught me all kinds of practical life skills for when I was free. Like how to type. How to keep a checkbook. How to cook a roast. But clearly they forgot to teach me the most important thing, which is how to get a life in the first place.
* * *
—
AFTER A WHILE, I realize that I do have somewhere to go. I need dress clothes—especially if I am going to look nice for what Doug called “job-seeking.” I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress.
By the time I locate the nearest Goodwill in the phone book and trek there on foot, I’m sweaty and irritable. Inside, it smells musty, like stale perfume and old ladies. The clothes are organized by color. I start in the purple to magenta section. One of the first dresses I find that fits me is a high-collared belted dress of scratchy fabric. Once I have it on, I realize it’s reminiscent of one Inez used to wear.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I bought a dress my mother donated?
I have more luck in the blue section, where I find a plain navy Brass Plum shift dress in a size 6. It’s sleeveless with a scoop neck, and the material is light enough for the warm weather. When I try it on, it’s a little short—because my legs are a little long. I also realize that I will need to buy a razor. There wasn’t a reason to shave much at Echo Glen. But Annette Higgman is going to be the type who probably shaves almost every day. And uses skin lotion, too.
In order for the dress not to be too short, I need some dressy but flat shoes. The selection in my large size is dismal, but I finally settle on a pair of black patent-leather sandals that are a little tight but will go with a lot.
Obviously, I should look for a restaurant that provides uniforms—or I’ll go broke buying clothes.
By the time I get back to my hotel room to change, it’s past time to hit the streets. As I walk down Broadway, I pass a couple of taverns—but the dark windows and seedy atmosphere keep me away. And the men. I know I don’t want to work around a bunch of beer-bellied, leering men.
At Echo, I endured a lot of unwanted male attention. I got so sick of the ogling, the comments, the jokes about my body. Granted, I didn’t have to share a room with the boys, but I had to attend school with them. Eat with them. I got so tired of glaring that my eyeballs ached.
Eventually I come to a Mexican restaurant and go in the front door. A Mexican woman at the hostess stand asks, “Uno?” A quick glance around the restaurant confirms the servers are all dark-skinned. I turn around and walk back out, my face flushed with embarrassment.
In the next hour, I visit an all-night diner, a loud steak house, a fancy restaurant with a French name, and a casual Italian restaurant with blue-checked tablecloths. No one is hiring, but the steak house allows me to fill out an application.
Under “job history,” I’m tempted to list my kitchen duty and extensive experience with an industrial-sized dishwasher at Echo, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t impress anybody. So I take Carla’s advice and list the restaurant in Renton, claiming to have worked there as a busser for six months.
When I answer the question about felonies, I put “None.” Where it asks about schooling, I find myself stuck again. While at Echo, I graduated high school with straight A’s and then went on to complete enough credits for almost a year of college. But I wasn’t about to list Echo Glen High School. I realize I should have figured out in advance where Annette Higgman went to high school. Based on the address, I take a stab and list Snohomish High.
Answering this question is painful because it reminds me of everything that stands in the way of my fondest dream. I desperately want to go to college and study science and astronomy, but even with financial aid, I couldn’t afford it. And even if I could, since my GED and other transcripts are under the name of Venus Black, I’d have to go as myself, which I’m not about to do.
I turn in the application, feeling deflated. After getting turned down at a few more places, I can feel a terrible blister forming on my heel from the Goodwill dress shoes. On the way back to the hotel, several men whistle or make comments. I flip each one off—until one of them starts to follow me, saying, “Yes! I will fuck you!”
After that, I realize the best way to handle this kind of thing is to look strong and unafraid and just keep walking. This is what I learn on my first night of freedom and the first day of my life as Annette Higgman: Men on the outside can be just as disgusting as boys on the inside.
The next morning, I wake up amazed. I stretch out my arms and legs like a snow angel and roll all around the enormous queen-sized bed, making happy groaning sounds. Even though this bed is lumpy and old, it feels pretty wonderful after sleeping on a hard, narrow single for more than five years.
As I lie there, I still can’t believe I’m never going to wake up at Echo Glen again. I’m never going to hear morning call, never going to file into the pistachio-green cafeteria for runny eggs and soggy toast. Never going to tromp through the rain to morning classes.
Not that Echo Glen was near as bad as I anticipated. Most of the time it didn’t feel like a prison but more like a super-strict boarding school stripped of frills and fun. We were treated like students, stayed in cottages, six to a building—separated by gender, of course. We all wore regular clothes, most of them donated.
Despite my bitterness at being there, I liked most of the staff, as well as the teachers. There was a lot of turnover among the employees, but thankfully it was usually the mean ones who didn’t last l
ong.
At first, I couldn’t believe it when I found myself doing the same old thing—excelling academically, trying to impress my teachers, and making sure most people liked me. Sharon told me once that she thought I needed adult approval I never got at home.
But I disagreed. I never cared about getting Inez’s approval, and it was the last thing I wanted from Raymond. I think I got on well with teachers and staff because when you live with mini-criminals, it only makes sense to be friendly and cooperate with the few people not in that category.
It felt weird last night to walk around not knowing who is good or bad, kind or dangerous. Twice I was pretty sure that people did double takes or looked at me funny. Not necessarily because they recognized me, but perhaps because I was so conspicuously alone. How come being all by myself felt somehow weird or wrong, like something to be ashamed of?
Oh yeah. Shame. Why am I lying here in bed when there is potentially so much more shame to be had?
I jump out of bed and throw on some clothes before I race downstairs. There’s a newsstand just outside the hotel—the morning paper, the Post-Intelligencer. As I insert my quarter, I note with some relief that I’m not on the cover.
This probably means I won’t be front-page news when The Seattle Times comes out later this afternoon, either. I’m sure Everett’s Herald will put me front and center, though. One of their reporters has asked me so many times over the years for an interview; she was probably there at the bus stop yesterday.
I decide not to look at the paper on the street. I go back to my room, grab my purse, and walk to a bakery I noticed yesterday when I got off the bus. It stood out because of the name, the Big Dipper. Even though the logo is a doughnut being dipped in coffee, naturally my mind went to the constellation.
The place is kind of funky inside, with bright-orange walls and turquoise upholstered booths. They have a large selection of baked goods in a glass case, but there’s also a small breakfast and lunch menu.
I order an omelet—unheard of at Echo, by the way. And then I can’t resist adding a bear claw, along with coffee and cream.
After I pay, the girl at the counter hands me a number on a stick. I take it, but my confusion must show. “We bring it to you when it’s ready,” she explains. She has long blond lashes and no mascara.
“Oh!” I say, feeling so dumb. Before Echo, most of my eating out happened at Herfy’s or McDonald’s. I take my number 23 to a corner booth and sit on the side facing the wall. Then I wonder if I’m making myself even more obvious by trying not to be.
I remind myself that I need to act like a normal person, not someone in hiding. Then again, normal people aren’t reading the morning paper to make sure they’re not in it. Taking a deep, nervous breath, I open the front page and quickly scan the spread. Nothing. I keep turning pages until I get to the “Local News” section, and there I am: RELEASE OF TEENAGE KILLER REIGNITES CONTROVERSY.
Shit.
Under the headline there’s a picture of me standing at the bus stop in Issaquah yesterday before I spotted the reporters and before I got my hair in a braid. It’s a full-body shot, showing off my high-water jeans, which makes me cringe. Next to that picture is the original mug shot from my arrest at thirteen.
I look surprisingly the same in both pictures, except in this new one, my hair—by far my most prominent feature—is blowing in the wind, so I look even more…scary? That’s how it hits me. I look like a tall, skinny, scary person.
The other thing that jumps out is the thickness of my eyebrows, which seem to take up half my face. I make a mental note to buy some tweezers. I’ve never plucked my eyebrows in my life, and now I realize that doing so might do a lot to change the way my face looks.
Out of nowhere, a waitress is at my table, and I quickly slap the newspaper shut. She sets my food down, and I notice it’s the same girl who took my order. Her name tag says JULIE. She seems in a hurry, so maybe she didn’t notice my overreaction.
Once she’s gone, I dig into the omelet, which tastes amazing. I scan the P-I story, which holds no surprises. There’s mention of Leo and the mystery surrounding his disappearance. As usual, there’s an inference that I was somehow involved, because of the timing, so close to my crime. Otherwise, it’s mainly an overview of the controversies my case stirred up at the time. A lot of folks got upset when the prosecutor tried to have my case moved to adult court. They accused him of grandstanding for the media, and they shared Betty’s contention that I was way too young to be tried outside the juvenile system.
While the judge kept my case in juvenile court, I was still convicted of murder one because my crime was determined to be premeditated. But rather than receiving the maximum sentence—thanks to Betty and all the mitigating circumstances—I got five and a half years when I could have been locked up till I was twenty-one. Some folks in the legal world questioned the legitimacy of the mitigating factors in my case. A small but vocal camp insisted that I should serve more-serious time. They worried if I wasn’t punished severely, it would send the wrong message to other kids: If your parents piss you off enough, it’s okay to kill them.
I’m guessing a number of asshole stepdads were shaking in their J. C. Penney slippers.
Others wrote editorials in the opposite direction, and a bunch of women’s-rights types practically made me their hero. They used my story to raise awareness—outraged that what Raymond did wasn’t technically a crime at the time.
But did anyone ever consider that I might not want more attention brought to my case?
Of course, I didn’t know about most of this until much later, when my counselor, Sharon, told me about it. She reassured me that justice had been done, and she emphasized over and over that I shouldn’t feel guilt about what Raymond had done to me. What I never heard her say once, though, is that I shouldn’t feel guilt about what I did to him.
Which, of course, I did. Even as I raged against him, I was horrified that I had killed a man. Even at my young age, I knew Raymond deserved to be punished but he didn’t deserve to die. To her credit, Sharon helped me see that I could take responsibility for killing Raymond—without letting Inez off the hook for her part. And I could admit the enormous guilt I felt—without wishing Raymond were still alive.
Taking a bite of my bear claw, I look for the section with the funnies, and my eyes slip over to the horoscopes. I don’t actually believe in astrology, but I always read it, anyway. The one for Pisces says “your career will take a positive turn today.” Great news if I had a career.
My eyes drop down to the entry for Leo—and guess what? If he’s alive somewhere, “a financial venture may prove lucrative.” Why do I bother reading these things?
When I first arrived at Echo Glen, all I could talk about was Leo and what could have happened to him. I clung to the hope that he was still alive and badgered the staff for news. I even begged random people like the maintenance man to make the police do their job and find him.
At night, I’d lay awake, imagining all kinds of dark scenarios—scenarios that seemed increasingly possible now that I went to school with a good number of young pervs and violent offenders. Once I finally got to sleep, I’d have nightmares where Leo was in great danger and pain and begging me to rescue him but I couldn’t because I was locked up.
It was a bad dream that always came true.
I thought I was going to die of missing Leo and wondering about him, until one day something clicked. I remembered the epiphany I had back at Denney about doing time and how being anxious for it to pass is how they punish you. And everyone knows nothing makes time drag more slowly than hoping and waiting for something.
That meant if I wanted to survive my sentence with my sanity intact, I couldn’t afford to keep hoping for Leo. But hope is hard to kill, so the best I could do was pretend to give up on Leo so other people would shut up about him.
In the meantim
e, I never really bought the idea that Raymond’s brother took him, which was one of the early theories the police went on. They named Tinker a person of interest, partly because he was an ex-con—he’d done time in Monroe for burglary—and because he seemed to have left the Everett area shortly after Leo disappeared.
But what would a guy like Tinker want with Leo? The idea that Tinker might be a pedophile or want to sell Leo to one—it’s possible, but it just felt wrong. The few times I met him—he and Raymond never got along, so he wasn’t around much—he struck me as kind of an idiot, not evil. Plus, he had showed zero interest in Leo.
While I couldn’t bear to keep hope alive for Leo’s safe return, Inez dealt with losing him in the opposite way. She kept badgering the press all the time to do follow-up stories—at least that’s what Sharon told me. Come to think of it, Inez is probably to blame for the fact that there’s even a story about me in the paper today. She’s been so determined to keep Leo’s story alive, she’s kept mine alive, too.
The realization is like an unexpected gift—something new I can blame on Inez.
Done eating, I force myself to turn to the “Help Wanted” section. Why didn’t I start here last night? I find postings for a lot of dishwashers, cooks, and bussers. The one that pops out is a hostess job at what sounds like a fancy seafood place. I like the idea of being a hostess. But then I think about the hostesses I met last night, and I realize they were all beautiful, bubbly types who were practically jubilant to see you.
The opposite of me, in other words. Plus, greeting every single customer would only raise my odds of getting recognized.
“Ma’am?” It’s Julie the waitress again, and she’s holding a coffeepot. “Can I give you a refill?”
“Sure,” I say, trying to seem relaxed this time. It feels so strange to be waited on like this. It’s also weird just to be allowed to have a second cup of coffee. At Echo we couldn’t drink coffee until we were sixteen, and then we were allowed only one cup—but you can see why, since most of those kids needed to calm down, not rev up.
My Name Is Venus Black Page 10
