“You sure this is where you want me to let you off?” the driver asked.
I nodded and smiled. “Yeah. This is it.”
I opened the door and grabbed my belongings off the floor as the driver climbed out of the vehicle.
“I’ll start bringing your things up to the front door,” the driver said.
“Thanks,” I said, walking up the steps. There was a gate at the base of the stairs and it was open. “But you don’t have to…”
“Orders from Mr. Fletcher,” the driver laughed, holding up his hand to stop me from continuing.
“He’s very persistent,” I muttered.
“You have no idea.”
When I reached the top of the steps, the front door opened, revealing a very stern woman. Her hair was long, stringy and brown, framing her harsh features and hazel eyes. She wore a pair of jeans, an orange t-shirt, and white flip-flops. Her eyes stayed on me for a beat too long and a funny feeling crept over me.
“Who’s he?” she asked, looking over my shoulders.
“My driver. I—”
“You had specific instructions,” the woman’s voice cold and callous.
“I know. I’m sorry, but my truck broke down and…”
“Don’t let it happen again,” she responded, as the driver brought up a box and left it on the steps.
“You’re Nancy?” I asked.
“I am.”
“I really should help him,” I said, setting my things down on top of the box. I marched back down the stairs. This wasn’t the warm welcome I’d hoped for, and it also told me that maybe my new beginning wouldn’t be full of Lukes.
When I reached the SUV, I grabbed my suitcase and hauled it out of the vehicle. The weight of it landed on the sidewalk with a thud. The driver was already carrying his third load up the stairs when I glanced back toward the front door, and Nancy was no longer there. I grabbed my chair and managed to hold it in one hand as I carried the suitcase in the other.
As I walked back up the stairs, the driver was coming down and he stopped. “Doesn’t seem like a particularly friendly gal you’ll be rooming with.”
I pressed my lips together and gave a slight nod of agreement, but I kept walking.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I wheeled my suitcase into the entry of the home and set the chair down. The brown tile was cracked in areas, and the walls were painted a dingy, pale yellow and in need of a fresh coat of paint. Walls didn’t exist like this where I came from. Every chore to keep the properties up was handled, and if it couldn’t be taken care of by the occupant than it was doled out to one of the other residents.
“Miss, I carried the last box up. I’ll be on my way if there isn’t anything else you need,” the driver said.
I turned around feeling sheepish for not having any extra cash to tip him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have…”
“Mr. Fletcher has taken care of everything.” He nodded, smiling.
“Ohh… Well, thank you. No. I don’t need anything else. Thanks for your help.”
I heard voices behind me and watched as the driver walked down the steps. I glanced behind me and didn’t see anyone, so whoever was talking must be in another room. I walked outside and began pushing the boxes into the entry when a female appeared in front of me. She looked to be around my age and far kinder than the official greeter.
“I’m Rikki.” She came outside and began pushing a box inside to help me, which I was grateful for. She had blond hair, but it wasn’t as light as mine and her eyes were hazel. She was dressed in frayed jean shorts and a black camisole.
“I’m Hannah.”
“I know. We’ve been expecting you. And don’t mind Nancy. She’s a bit of a militant but completely harmless.”
We finished getting my belongings inside when Nancy reappeared.
“Hannah, I see you’ve met Rikki. I’ll show you around and to your room. This house has rules, and I expect everyone to abide by them…no matter what the reason. You already went against one of the first rules you were told to adhere to, which was to drive yourself here. That makes me wonder about your understanding of the situation you’re in.”
“I know and I apologize. It won’t happen again,” I replied.
Nancy gestured for us to follow her. The hall was in disarray with items stacked haphazardly on shelves, and piles of shoes and coats strewn about. The kitchen was no better. The cracked white tile on the counter was piled high with all sorts of magazines, papers, plates, and cups. It looked like someone needed to come in here and give this place a good cleaning.
“This is the kitchen that everyone shares. I keep the fridge stocked, but there’s a quota per person. You can have one cup of milk, two tablespoons of butter to use how you wish, two slices of cheese, and four slices of bread per day. If you bring in your own food, make sure to mark it, to not cause confusion.”
An allotment of food? What had I gotten myself into?
“You can have one tablespoon of peanut butter as well.” Nancy looked at me and crossed her arms in front of her. “You understand why our rules are in place?”
I glanced at Rikki, who rolled her eyes.
“To make sure everyone gets enough…”
“To make sure we’re all safe. Everyone here is running from something or someone, and if you can’t stick to the rules, no matter how small, you’re endangering everyone else who lives here.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do,” Nancy said, as she began walking out of the kitchen.
I followed her down another hall and Rikki was right behind me.
“This is the main bathroom for everyone to share. A shower schedule is posted. If you miss your time, you need to wait until the next day,” Nancy said, flipping on the bathroom light. There was a clipboard with several names written down the side and times listed at the top.
“I haven’t had a shower for far too long. Since I just got here would it be okay if—”
“You don’t get it. Do you?” Nancy snapped, her brow arching. “It isn’t about a shower.”
Apparently, I didn’t get it. I was twenty-two years old and wanting to take a shower didn’t seem like that big of a deal. I understood the food thing because it had to do with money and making sure everyone had enough to go around, but a shower? That just seemed like a power trip.
“If I made things easy for you and everyone here, do you think any of you would ever want to leave? This isn’t a spa. It’s a place for you to get your shit together and leave. So no. You need to wait until your allotted time tomorrow to take your shower. Just imagine how grateful you’ll be when you finally get it.” Nancy pursed her lips together and scanned the list. “We’ve got you on the list at eight o’clock in the morning.” She flipped off the bathroom light and began walking down the hall.
“This is your bedroom.” She opened the door and turned on the lights. “It’s one of the smaller ones, but it’s all we have available.” Nancy walked into the space and I followed behind.
A twin bed was pushed into the far corner of the room, and a faded pink quilt was thrown on top of the mattress. The window above the bed had bars on it. I wasn’t sure if that actually made me feel safer or not. Baby blue wallpaper with tiny white flowers was pasted on the four surrounding walls, but it, too, was in shambles as strips of the paper curled near the corners. There was a chest at the end of the bed and that was it. On a positive note, I’d be able to stack all my boxes in the room just fine.
“Have your sheets stripped every Sunday by ten o’clock in the morning, and they’ll be washed. If you don’t, they won’t. Okay, follow me to the great room where most everyone is watching television. I’ll do a quick introduction and then you can get to unpacking. I want everything out of the entry in an hour. We need to respect the common spaces by not leaving things out.”
I wondered who was responsible for littering the kitchen. Maybe the rules didn’t apply to her.
As I followed Nancy back down t
he hall, she stopped abruptly and turned around to face me. “Just remember this. The longer you take up a bed in my house, the more you’re making it impossible for me to help the next person. So the quicker you can find a job and get on your feet the better. There’s a lot of people in this country who need fresh starts and new beginnings, and the longer you stay here, the less you make that possible. Got it?” Nancy’s expression never changed as she stared at me, waiting for a response.
“I got it.”
She nodded and started walking again. We went back through the kitchen, passed by a bathroom, and then moved into a large space where several women were watching television. The worn, brown couch looked like it was about to collapse into itself as four women were piled on it, and the recliner in the corner didn’t look much better. The shade on the lamp looked like it was from several decades ago and so did the television set that sat right next to it. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and my nose began to tickle.
“Who’s been sneaking cigarettes inside, again?” Nancy barked. Her eyes fell on the woman in the recliner.
“It wasn’t me. I went outside. Maybe the scent just lingered,” the woman said.
“That’s another rule,” Nancy said, looking at me. “No smoking inside the house.”
I shook my head. “I don’t smoke so that should be an easy one to follow.”
“Girls, I want you to meet our newest resident, Hannah,” Nancy said. She pointed at the woman in the chair. “That’s Claire.”
Claire smiled at me, tightening her ponytail before she said, “Nice to meet you. Hope you like the Housewives.” She motioned at the television, and I had no idea what she was talking about.
“And that’s Sherry.” She pointed at a woman, who had dyed black hair and was sitting on the far end of the couch. “That’s Hilary.” Nancy pointed at the woman sitting next to Sherry. “Unfortunately, she’s set on breaking all kinds of house records. The first disappointing one is length of stay. What are you at now?”
“Six months,” Hilary said, beaming. The woman on the other side of her jabbed her with her elbow.
“What’s the average stay?” I asked.
“Six weeks. And that’s Reyna and next to her, Liz,” Nancy continued.
“Nice to meet you all,” I said, wanting to do nothing more than hide in my room and come up with a way to get out of here. I wasn’t sure I’d last six days here, let alone six weeks. The sooner I found a job, the quicker I could find a different place to live. But first, I needed the internet to find out what happened with my bank account.
“Do the residents have access to internet?” I asked Nancy.
“This isn’t the dark ages,” Nancy scoffed as I followed her to the kitchen.
Could’ve fooled me.
“There’s a house laptop in the kitchen or if you have your own, I can give you the wireless password.”
“I’ve got an old netbook that I’d like to set up,” I replied, glancing at my boxes.
Nancy began writing down the password on a piece of paper, and I thought about trying again with her. I’d never been one to go against the rules or try to cause trouble, and somehow, she’d managed to put me in that bucket immediately.
“Again, I’m sorry for breaking the rules you gave me. My debit card didn’t work, and my truck wouldn’t start right after I found out that my card was toast so I wasn’t really thinking straight. A nice guy offered to help…”
“Everything has a price,” Nancy said, tearing off the paper for me.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t let me pay him back or—”
“You, my dear, are beyond naïve,” she laughed. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
“I won’t. I just need to get online and figure out what happened with my bank account. I had plenty of money in there and I need to get my truck towed.”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed on me. “So your debit card was denied?”
“For a cup of coffee,” I said. “So it’s got me worried. I knew it wouldn’t be able to cover a tow and repairs so I let someone call a car service for me.”
“That’s not good,” Nancy said. “Did you tell anyone back home that you were leaving or had an account?”
“No. Not a soul. I’m hoping it’s just a glitch.”
My best friend knew, but she was killed.
“Don’t count on it,” Nancy replied. “If your money’s gone, I can lend you the tow amount to get your truck here and if it needs to be fixed…”
“I can’t do that.”
“It might be your only option,” Nancy said. “I’m guessing whatever you might need to borrow can be paid off in a paycheck or two, once you find a job. I’ll be sure to get my money first. You can count on it.”
I nodded. “I understand. I just hope that’s not what it comes too.”
I walked to my suitcase in the entry and rolled it into my bedroom. I heaved it onto the bed and ran back and forth between the entry and my bedroom fitting all my belongings into my tiny room. Unzipping the suitcase, my heart rate began pounding as I got closer to finding out what happened with my checking account. I turned on the netbook and typed in the wireless password. As I waited for it to connect, my mind wandered to all sorts of scenarios, but none readied me for the reality.
As my bank website flashed on the screen, I entered my username and password, and my account came up with a zero balance. I clicked on the account number detailing transactions, and my heart fell to my stomach when the transaction listed at the top of the screen showed a withdrawal and the words “account closed” scrawled on the screen. Someone closed my account today.
How was that possible? Who knew I had an account there, and how would they be allowed to close it? Someone had to have impersonated me. The nausea in my stomach increased with every passing second as I thought about who’d done this. They were obviously sending me a message. I just wished I didn’t have to decipher it. I picked my suitcase up and dropped it onto the floor. Climbing onto the bed, I looked out the window, which overlooked the main street, but I couldn’t help but gaze at the bars locking me inside my new personal hell. What had I gotten myself into?
Maybe I could have survived at home, played along like nothing was wrong, act like I didn’t see anything, didn’t know what they were talking about. I would still be surrounded by the people and places I knew; the familiarity of a life that I understood around me. Maybe that was what I should’ve done. I could’ve kept the secret, held it tightly to my chest and nothing in my life would’ve changed, but it was too late for that now. I had to deal with the consequences of running.
I heard a rumble of a diesel engine outside and glanced toward the street where a tow truck was pulling up to the curb, my blue truck attached behind. My heart started hammering as I thought about who called for the tow. Sliding off the bed, I ran down the hall and out the door as the tow truck driver was unhooking my truck. He wore a navy baseball cap and jeans. His thick fingers unhooked the chains as he flashed me a quick smile.
“You Hannah?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, nodding.
“Great. I’ll have you sign off on this,” he said, grabbing a clipboard from the truck seat.
I glanced at the paperwork and noticed Luke’s information in the billing section. Why was this stranger being so kind? I quickly signed my name, almost forgetting to sign my new last name. When I handed him back the clipboard, he handed me two business cards.
“This is a good mechanic I know. Trustworthy. And here’s my information if it needs a tow over there,” he replied. “The doors are unlocked so I’d make sure to lock it up before you head back inside.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
I watched the driver climb into his truck as I headed over to mine. Opening the driver’s side, there was an envelope on my seat. Ripping it open, a note and a Starbucks card fell out.
I noticed you didn’t take your coffee with you, and I wasn’t going to have that happen for a third time.
I had to get it to you somehow. And here’s a little something to make your next coffee trip a little less eventful.
Best,
Luke
I shoved the note and gift card back in the envelope and couldn’t help but soften a little more toward Luke. I glanced at the Starbucks coffee cup and decided to take a leap of faith. I doubted very much he’d put something in it, and if he did, maybe I’d have a nice sleep for a change.
No. That was a horrible way to look at the world. I didn’t want to become that cynical person that wandered around, doubting everyone’s motives, and making snarky comments about people’s true intentions. There were bad people in the world, but there were more good people to outnumber the bad.
There had to be.
Taking a sip, I spit it out onto the street. Milk and sweetness had filled my mouth instead of black coffee. I glanced at the cup and noticed it was another new drink, which explained why it was still warm. He’d managed to get me a caramel macchiato, which happened to be my favorite drink but was far too expensive for my blood. I let out a sigh and took another sip, this time enjoying the magnificent flavor as it slipped down my throat. I’d only had Starbucks maybe ten times in my life. It had been when I’d accompanied one of our groups to run errands in the next town over. I’d manage to sneak away and grab something, and it was such a victory. How odd was that? Ever since I’d hit the state line into California, it felt like my old life wasn’t even real. The events too bizarre and horrifying to be anything other than imagined. But I knew that wasn’t the case. It was all very real.
I took another sip and felt the delicious flavor coat my mouth. At this point in my life, I needed some sort of positive sign that things were going to be okay, and for the moment, this latte was that sign.
I looked up the stairs and saw Nancy with her arms crossed as she shook her head at me, obviously disgusted by the kind gesture that was now sitting outside of her house. I climbed the stairs and smiled, holding my latte tightly.
“Don’t be fooled,” Nancy said, her glowering eyes taking me in. “There are always strings attached. Don’t you ever forget it.”
Hidden Sins Page 3
