Lost Girls

by Robert Kolker

  The whole train ride home, Maureen was angry, and not just about Patrick. That weekend, nearly all the calls had been for Sara—not for Marie, but for Monroe. Maureen was a little jealous but mostly indignant. She felt like she had absorbed a financial loss for introducing Sara to the profession. Toward the end of the ride, Maureen asked for a 20 percent commission of everything Sara had earned that weekend.

  Sara flipped out. “Fuck that!”

  “Well, I introduced you to Vips,” Maureen said.

  “You shouldn’t have taught me how to post, then! I can break off from you right now, and you can’t say shit to me! I’m not giving you shit!”

  Maureen dropped it. But Sara, fully empowered, went back to New York the following weekend. She brought a friend with her, a guy named Matt, as a chaperone. Vips, noticing that Maureen wasn’t with her, took the liberty of squeezing her for more money, raising his rate to $250. Sara decided to post her ads herself. To avoid Vips, she changed her Craigslist name from Monroe to Lacey. She switched hotels, too, to the Super 8 on Forty-sixth Street.

  The following week, Friday, July 6, 2007, Maureen was back in town. All was forgiven. Sara and Maureen were friends again.

  Keeping New York Plan B and not Plan A was another one of Maureen’s rules. “You don’t want to make it a full-time job,” she said. Maureen had told Sara that she’d worked as an escort practically full-time before she got pregnant with Aidan. That was when she learned that you needed the break. Otherwise, the sex could make you jaded. Ninety percent of her clients were married. Some of them didn’t take off their rings. The calls could feel like an assembly line to Maureen—like work. That was the worst. That was why Maureen’s demeanor changed in New York. She was on guard.

  But Sara was still infatuated. Everything about the work was fun for her—the sex, New York, and especially the money. While Maureen was gone, Sara made twelve hundred dollars over just a few days—more money than she had ever made in such a short time—and she held the bills in the air and told Matt, “See? Take a picture.” Then she saw the look on his face, his eyes blazing, and Sara felt something shift—in him and in her—that she liked. “I’m never coming back to Connecticut!” she said.

  By now, she knew almost as much as Maureen did. In her weeks at the Super 8, working independently of Maureen, she had seen a lot of ethnic men with heavy accents—straight off the boat, it seemed to her; Asians and Middle Eastern men—waving lots of money around. They came in seconds. Hiring an escort was less about sex, she thought, than the chance to show some power. She also saw three police officers, all of whom swore they were off-duty, and to whom Sara refused service as politely as she could. (That was yet another Maureen rule: Always ask if they’re cops. They can’t lie, because that would be entrapment.)

  The problem was that the money never lasted. After weeks in the city doing calls, Sara had held on to practically none of what she’d made. It went to hotel bills, shoes, and clothes. It went to makeup from Sephora, including twenty-three dollars for what turned out to be, essentially, ChapStick. It went to Sara’s new prized possession—a $160 fitted Yankees cap from Lids in Times Square, decorated with sterling silver and cubic zirconium.

  When Sara and Matt went to meet Maureen at Penn Station, they saw that she had brought a chaperone: Brett, her roommate. While Brett was friends with Maureen’s ex, Steve, he had a vested interest in Maureen making money. In just a few days, they were due to appear in eviction court—on Tuesday, July 10. Maureen knew if she couldn’t pay their back rent and the eviction went through, Steve would make a play for custody of Aidan. That weekend Maureen had come to New York on a mission. She needed eleven hundred dollars or she would lose her home and her son.

  Sara and Maureen tried posting together, without the assistance of Vips, on Matt’s laptop—two girls, snow buddies, which meant they did coke. From the start, they ran into a problem. Almost as soon as they posted the ads, they were flagged as “offensive content” and pulled from the site. They tried it once more, and the same thing happened again and again. Someone had to be monitoring the Adult Services page and flagging the ads. Clearly, Vips was being vindictive.

  All through Friday night, Maureen and Sara couldn’t make a dime. They hung out in one of the hotel rooms and smoked a blunt and started talking about what Maureen might do if she did get kicked out of her apartment in Norwich. Maybe fate was telling her to stay in New York. With nothing better to do, they fantasized about a whole summer in the city as business partners, doing incalls and outcalls from their own apartment. Maureen surfed a different corner of Craigslist, responding to an ad for a sublet on the Upper West Side. The rate was $749 a week, a bargain compared to the Super 8. Maureen smiled dreamily just talking about it. Sara felt she saw her friend coming back—the real, warm Maureen shining through.

  Vips must have grown bored flagging the ads. They got a few calls the next day, so they didn’t really see each other. They worked Sunday, too. But later that day, their ads were getting booted again. They’d made just $700. Maureen was $400 short. There was nothing left to do but have some fun. They decided they needed new pictures for their ads. Sara needed a fresh look to go with her new name, and Maureen hadn’t changed her photo in three years. The occasion called for a full makeover. Sara got her nails done and her eyebrows waxed. She went back to Sephora and spent two hundred dollars in an hour, buying all kinds of colors that would look good with her eyes, plus glitter. Sara also sprang for outfits. Maureen came with her to Macy’s, on Thirty-fourth Street, and all Sara could think as they walked in and went up the narrow wooden escalators was Oh my God, I’m in Mecca. When she saw the women’s shoe department, Sara practically collapsed.

  For decent photography, Maureen called a friend she’d made in the city, a graffiti artist of some renown. When they arrived at his place, Maureen and Sara told him they wanted him to do their makeup, too. Maureen had her face done up as an old Hollywood glamour queen, and Sara had hers done all crazy, with green, blue, and purple eye shadow and some sparkles. Their hair was done to match, sprayed in place to fend off the smallest imperfections. He took Sara’s photos first, then Maureen’s. They hung out there for a while and then walked back to their hotel through Times Square, the city lit up on a hot summer night. They had on jeans and T-shirts, but from the neck up, they were impossible to ignore. Random guys in the street were hitting on them both. Sara’s original makeup design got a lot of attention. “Is that a tattoo on your face?” someone asked. Sara snorted. “No, it’s not a tattoo—it sparkles.”

  The longer they stayed out on Broadway, the more exhilarated they felt. Sara imagined they were supermodels, or princesses, or goddesses. She felt like nothing and no one could touch them. Maureen seemed happy, too—lighter, for once. Of all the moments Sara shared with Maureen, this was the one she would revisit the most—spending all night walking through Times Square, the center of attention, not a care in the world, the rest of the summer laid out just for them. For years afterward, she wouldn’t remember a happier time in her life.

  Back at the hotel, they saw that they weren’t the only call girls staying there. Standing outside smoking a cigarette, they met a guy with dreads. “Are you guys working?” he asked. “Where’s your pimp?”

  Sara sneered. “We don’t have one,” she said. “We aren’t owned. We’re each other’s.”

  Midtown Manhattan. July 9, 2007.

  Monday morning arrived sooner than they’d hoped. The plan had been for them to go back to Connecticut—Sara to see a friend, Maureen to face the music in eviction court. But they were still thinking of changing the plan and staying another day. It was only Monday; an extra night would give Maureen more time to make the money she needed. Maybe she could wire it to Brett in time for court on Tuesday. She had heard back about the Upper West Side sublet and had made an appointment to see it the next day, assuming they were in town.

  Sara went up to the sixth floor to tell their chaperones to head back without them. Brett couldn
’t believe it, and neither could Matt. As the three of them argued, Matt was especially persuasive—he simply didn’t want to leave them alone. It wasn’t safe. Sara saw the look of concern on his face and went back down to the fourth floor.

  Maureen was lying in bed, the TV on, the curtains drawn. They both had been up all night, and Maureen was finally crashing. She looked up at Sara. “Where’s your stuff?”

  “Matt doesn’t want us to stay,” Sara said. “I’m going back. You need to come back, too.”

  Maureen shook her head. “I’ll just stay here in the hotel room.”

  Their roles had reversed. Sara was the responsible one now. She’d feel guilty about going back alone.

  “Please stay,” Maureen said. “Please.”

  Sara went back up to Matt’s room on the sixth floor. “I’m gonna stay. We’re just gonna stay in the hotel room.”

  Matt flipped out. He wanted Sara to come with him, with or without Maureen. Sara pushed back. “I’m not your girl,” she said.

  Matt softened. “Yes, I know,” he said. “You’re my friend. And as a friend, I’m telling you I do not like that idea.”

  Sara thought of Maureen’s first little rule: Always follow your instincts. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. She went back to Maureen. “Look, man, I’m not trying to have this argument. Get your shit, and let’s go.”

  Maureen didn’t move. “No,” she said, “I’m just gonna stay here. I’ll wait for you.” She looked at Sara and tilted her head. “You are coming back on Wednesday, right?”

  Sara said yes.

  Maureen smiled and stretched out. “I’ll keep the room for us.”

  CHLOE

  The girls grab at the arms or shoulders first. It’s best to start by touching them. They’ve spent all night at a strip club, where the women can’t go too far.

  Hey, sweetie, what’s your name? Where are you from?

  They answer: Oh, I’m just visiting . . . This is my vacation . . . I just came here on business. They’re almost always from out of town.

  Really? Yeah? Would you like a nice massage—a nice back massage? Hot towels? Lotion?

  Sometimes they’re interested. Sometimes they’re disgusted. Sometimes they smile. Some guys play along smugly: “Oh, but why do I have to pay when I can give you the best night of your life?” Melissa and Kritzia would look at them and be like, Oh, please, fuck you.

  But some guys get excited. That’s when you say you’ll give them a blow job. Then you touch them again. Then you make the deal.

  Kritzia Lugo was small and round, with lush lips and big eyes and a gift for gab. In Times Square, she was known as Mariah, a salute to her idol, Mariah Carey. Melissa Barthelemy was known as Chloe. Friday and Saturday nights were slow, too many families clogging up the sidewalks. But almost every other night, Melissa and Kritzia would hang outside Lace, the strip club on Seventh Avenue north of Forty-eighth Street—Melissa with a cigarette and Kritzia with some weed; their pimps, Blaze and Mel, standing a safe distance away, across the street or around the corner—waiting for men to come out.

  Their workday began long after the Broadway theaters went dark, just as the few strip clubs left in Times Square were getting ready to close. In the new New York—after mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg helped make over the porn palaces into a family-friendly tourist hub, as safe and secure, almost, as a theme park—the escorts and their pimps have to be discreet. The girls dress a little more modestly. They’re a little quieter. They walk longer lengths up and down the block so that, technically, they can’t be accused of loitering. The pimps are still there, but at a remove, able to watch the girls work and to bolt if need be.

  Times Square at three A.M. is a complicated place: volatile and dangerous but also, in its way, like any other workplace, with protocols and procedures, a social hierarchy, and intra-staff dramas. The McDonald’s on Broadway, south of Forty-seventh, was like the company commissary. Melissa knew that many of the drunkest guys stumbling out of the strip clubs ended up there. Even some of the homeless guys were part of the social hierarchy, rounding up guys and bringing them to the girls in exchange for a finder’s fee. Melissa and Kritzia would throw them a big tip so they would come back. Around the corner, on Forty-seventh between Sixth and Seventh, was the break room: a tiny open-air public plaza with a few metal tables and chairs and some slate decor. The girls called it the Batcave. One time Melissa braided Kritzia’s hair while they sat there talking, helping her tighten her extensions and curl them at the bottom with a curling iron. She often boasted about her beauty-school training, like a physician boasting about medical school, and then she’d laugh and threaten to cover Kritzia’s head with bald spots, chasing her around the Batcave with the curling iron.

  When she first saw Melissa in Times Square sometime in 2006, Kritzia didn’t talk to her. This skinny white girl, always laughing at something. What’s so funny to you? Kritzia thought. But when Kritzia stared her down, Melissa gave as well as she got. That broke the spell, and they became close friends, sharing the same irreverence and attitude. Then Kritzia saw the risks Melissa took—she’d go with anyone who would rent a room—and she thought that Melissa wasn’t built to last, not even a year.

  Melissa proved her wrong. She was in New York for three years, until 2009. When Kritzia heard about her family in Buffalo, ready and waiting to take her home, she would wonder why she was here at all. Melissa would say only, “I’m here because I want to be here.” In those moments, Kritzia thought maybe she and Melissa weren’t such kindred spirits. She figured Melissa had been this wild since she was a little girl, and when she got that taste of something else, she wanted more.

  Where you worked in Manhattan depended on how you looked. The fast-track girls—the ones on Ninth Avenue or the West Side Highway, waiting for guys to pull over—were usually the hard-luck cases, strung out and ragged. The girls who ran around Times Square were average, like Melissa and Kritzia. Prettier ones—tall, skinny girls—had better luck on the East Side. Within each of those worlds, there was a pecking order: The girls with pimps hated the girls who worked for escort services; the girls who worked for escort services couldn’t stand the girls who worked solo on Craigslist. If you had a pimp, your money wasn’t your own, but you had protection. If you were with a service, you were often working harder than a lot of hos who had pimps, and you were making a lot less. Strippers were at the bottom, mere geishas, catering to the vanity of any man who walked through the door, and the men are not permitted to touch. The streetwalkers like Melissa and Kritzia played such games for only the briefest of moments, as long as it took to get a client to say yes. They had sex as soon as they could and as fast as they could, and they moved on. It always annoyed them that the strippers had the more dishonest job—they were the biggest teases—and yet were the ones on the right side of the law.

  From Kritzia and some of the others, Melissa had learned the parameters of the stroll. You couldn’t look at other pimps. You couldn’t talk to other pimps. When there was a pimp on the sidewalk, you had to walk in the street; if you stayed on the sidewalk, they could touch you. If they touched you, that meant you were out of pocket, and if you were out of pocket, the code dictated that they could take your money.

  You weren’t supposed to talk with other pimps’ girls, which was obviously a rule they broke every day. It was insubordination, pure and simple, but Melissa had nerve. She had swag. The big entertainment of the evening sometimes was waiting to see what nasty things came out of that little white girl’s mouth. She would make fun of strippers: Dance, dance, dance, dance all night long, for next to no money; who would waste their time like that? She would even make fun of her pimp. Like the time she said, “I don’t give Blaze all my money, I keep my money,” and pulled out her credit card to show them all. Blaze thought he controlled Melissa, but for as long as she could remember, Melissa answered to no one but herself.

  When Melissa would come home to Buffalo for a visit—not often, but neve
r less than once a year—she and her mother, Lynn, Lynn’s boyfriend, Jeff, and her aunt Dawn would all go out to a club or a corner bar where they could talk and drink. When the bar closed, they’d come back to Jeff’s parents’ house, where Melissa would sit up on the kitchen counter and keep talking. There was none of the old friction. Melissa was a grown woman, making her own decisions.

  They would laugh about old times, and whenever her current situation came up, Melissa would be guarded about how things were in the city. Jeff thought that she wasn’t making as much money as she wanted to—not enough to afford to start a business, not nearly. That didn’t stop her from coming back with gifts: She sent Amanda five hundred dollars to shop for new clothes for school when all she needed was a hundred. Several months after moving, Melissa told Lynn and Jeff that the hair salon had closed. Now, she said, she was dancing in a nightclub. They struggled with how to react. No one they knew in Buffalo had ever done anything like that.

  “Is it stripping?” Jeff asked.

  Melissa was nonchalant. “Oh, yeah, we just take our tops off. There’s no touching.”

  Lynn wasn’t sure what to say. “You know, I’m not around the corner. It would take me eight hours to get to you.”

  Melissa reassured them that she never worked alone, and Lynn knew Melissa all too well to force the issue.

  Melissa didn’t talk much about men. She did say that her old childhood boyfriend, Jordan, was history—that she’d left him soon after arriving in New York, for Johnny Terry, the guy who had lined up the hairstylist job for her before she moved. On the phone with her mother, Melissa would laugh and say, “Oh, Johnny and Jordan, they can’t stand each other.”

  The summer after Melissa moved, Amanda asked to visit her in New York. Despite everything that Melissa had told them, Lynn was all right with it. Amanda was so different from the teenager Melissa had been—docile, even-keeled. Rather than worry that Melissa would be a bad influence, Lynn hoped that Amanda would keep Melissa in their orbit and maybe even persuade her to come home.