Every time she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t help but think that she looked more like a teenage boy than the sophisticated, attractive woman she had once been. The irony of it all was unbelievable. From the moment they were married, Neal’s jealousy about what she might do was what ruled his actions. Every man she encountered he viewed as a potential fuck buddy. Now, here she was, at a seedy Staten Island motel, all alone. And, after months of her husband beating her mercilessly, she was the one going into hiding for doing little more than defending herself.
Lying on the bed, she felt so lonely; not for a man, but for the life she once knew. There wasn’t a situation, an accomplishment, a painful event that she couldn’t count on her mother and her friends to help make better. Now, she was forced to make so many hard decisions without being able to reach out to her mother or her friends. She thought of friends and realized there were people she spent years working with that could be dead now. She had no way of knowing and probably would never know. She thought of Underhill and how he had mentored her from the very start. Her vocational success had been due in large part to him. He was almost like a father to her. Damita wished Underhill was here right now. With all of his connections and his reputation, he would be able to help her. She considered trying to reach him, but fear ruled out and she put the thought out of her mind.
“This is useless thinking,” she said out loud.
“You need to get down to serious planning and you can’t do that pining for the life you once had. You need to figure out how you can get a job and apartment with no credentials and how you can make the best use of the only money you’ve got.”
Damita suddenly laughed.
“You also need to stop talking to yourself, since it’s usually a characteristic of crazy people.”
“The fact that I’m wondering if I’m crazy, may in fact be the very thing that makes me sane.”
She decided it was time for her to go to sleep. She was feeling punchy and knew it was a combination of her impending new life and the fact that she was beginning to feel a bit cagey after being locked away in a motel room for close to a week.
“Damita Whitmore, you’re going to be fine. Tomorrow you will board that bus to Seattle and you will start your new life. No matter how much you may want to, you will not look back. You’re a Seattle girl now. As long as you’re smart and make all the right moves this could actually work. It had to work. As much as life with Neal felt like a prison and spending a week alone in a motel room also felt like prison, she would never survive if she had to actually go to prison.
She began to fall asleep, not feeling all that much like Damita Whitmore or Damita Westman at all. One of the few things she kept from her old life; her computer, was sitting open on the bed. She gazed at the picture on the screen. In the picture she was standing in front of a Christmas tree in her mother’s house, along with Carmella and Brandon, holding that very same computer. Her mother had given it to her as a gift. The picture was taken before any of them met Neal Westman.
Damita wondered if people realized how important the small moments in their lives really were. As she drifted off to sleep, she agonized over the fact that she would have to get rid of that computer that she held near and dear to her heart. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the value of the computer that mattered or even the work she had been able to use it for. It was those simple moments created by it that mattered most.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Since she arrived at the motel, Damita had been checking every day to see if there was any report of Neal being killed. Yet, there was none. She assumed that the news outlets were too occupied with covering the nine-eleven disaster to be concerned with a simple murder.
As odd as it may have seemed, Damita realized that what happened at the World Trade Center might have actually saved her. She wasn’t sure why, but the entire time she was married to Neal, it was like she was another person. She allowed him to do things to her that she would never have allowed anyone else to do. And, as much as she would have liked to believe that she would have eventually let him go, she wondered if the disaster on nine-eleven hadn’t happened, would things have played out the way that it did. After all, she had gone back to him time and time again no matter what he did to her. She might have done the very same thing again.
The next morning, Damita pulled out the checklist she had written on a pad she found in the motel room. She found her thoughts flowed better when she could see it in writing. Since a checklist of her escape plans wasn’t something she wanted discovered if her computer was found, she decided a pen and pad would be best.
First on the list was to check on the status of the car. She checked that off the list, since she had already done it. Next on the list was to ask the driver to stop at the first non-bank ATM she came across. Third on the list was to wait for her bus to arrive as far away from other passengers as possible.
The person at the hotel desk called to let her know that her car was outside. Damita looked around the motel room, yet another place she was leaving, and made sure that she hadn’t left anything behind. She grabbed her bags and went to meet the car.
She was happy to see that the driver wasn’t chatty like some of the cab drivers she had often gotten. He verified where she was going and that was all she heard out of him the entire trip.
Damita followed what she had written on the list and stopped at an ATM inside of a bodega. She withdrew as much cash as she could get from her collective cards, and left. She was nervous about the twenty thousand dollars that was in her backpack, especially since she noticed someone in the store watching her use her card. She had to use several cards, which meant she was holding a good deal of cash. If someone decided to rob her, they would not only get the money she had taken out of the ATM but also the twenty thousand dollars she was walking around with. When she exited the cab she considered leaving the bag with the money in the car, but she didn’t trust that either. When she was done using the ATM, she walked outside and right back into the car.
The driver continued on to the bus station. She paid the driver in cash and left. She remembered the notation on her checklist about keeping to herself while she waited for the bus and stuck to it. Unfortunately, within minutes of arriving she noticed there was a man watching her. At first, paranoia took hold and she was sure that he was an undercover police officer sent to find her and arrest her for murder. Then, she remembered that even with the short hair and the hood pulled sharply around her head, she was still an attractive woman. He wasn’t sent to find her. He was checking her out.
Finally, the bus arrived and Damita’s plan was to sleep through the entire trip. She found a window seat, close to the back and threw the backpack she was carrying in the seat. She had already given her larger bag to the driver to put under the bus. So, all that was left was to settle in. Her plan was to spend as much of the time on the bus sleeping as she could. If and when she made it to Seattle safe and sound, she would have a long road ahead of her. The long bus ride might be her only opportunity to simply sit back, relax and let someone else do the driving.
Unfortunately, she thought her plan might be ruined, when the man that had been staring at her while they waited for the bus, got on and sat right next to her. Surprisingly, all he said to her was hello. He pulled out a book and began reading.
After six hours of trying to sleep comfortably on a Greyhound bus, Damita was well aware of how flawed her plan to sleep most of the way really was.
She decided that instead of sleeping, she would use the time to think. She pulled out her notepad and began writing. She made lists for everything; things she might need where she was going, what her next steps should be. She found it helped her pass the time and she figured if it helped organize her thoughts then that was even better.
Her brain in overdrive, sleep finally overtook her. When she woke up, the man sitting next to her was holding her notepad.
She frowned. “Is that mine?” Damita asked agitatedly.
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry. You dropped it while you were sleeping and I considered putting it on your lap or in your bag, but I didn’t want to take any chances that you would either drop it again, or that you would wake up just in time to see my hand going toward your lap, and scratch my eyes out.”
“Thank you,” she said apprehensively.
He smiled. “Are you always so guarded?” he asked.
“Wow! Do you always make assumptions about people you don’t know?” she countered.
“Only when I’m clearly stating the obvious,” he responded.
He returned to his book and Damita returned to her notepad without further conversation.
The bus driver announced a stop and both Damita and many of the passengers got off the bus, including Damita and the man sitting next to her.
There was a fast-food restaurant and she went in and got a burger and fries.
“That stuff will kill you,” he said.
Damita shook her head. “Are you still watching me? Isn’t there anyone else here you’d like to play close attention to besides me?” Damita asked.
“Not that I’m admitting to watching you, but I will say that there is no one else here worth watching more than you.”
“That has got to be the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard,” Damita said, laughing.
“It may have been cheesy, but at least it made you smile. Not only did you smile but you actually laughed. I didn’t think you were capable of such a feat.”
“Yes, I do laugh on occasion; especially when I don’t feel like I’m being stalked.”
He smirked. “Someone’s a little full of herself.”
“Well, isn’t what you were doing the definition of stalking; to pursue or approach stealthily?”
“Not bad, Halle. I like them pretty and smart.”
“Excuse me? What did you call me?”
“Well, I called you pretty and smart.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Why did you call me Halle?”
“I’d think that would be obvious. You remind me of her, you know?”
“Are you really going to offer me yet another cheesy line?”
“What cheesy line? You really do remind me of Halle Berry.”
“You know what, that line is right up there with, excuse me, are you a model?”
“That was going to be my next question.”
Damita scrunched up her face in mock disgust and once again laughed.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked.
She laughed again. “Please, no, stop it. What do you have, a book full of these things? The title must be something like the top twenty-five things to say to get a girl talking.”
“I actually don’t have a book like that, but if I did, I would say it was worth every penny.”
“It would be at that.”
They walked together back to the bus and Damita remembered her notepad and one entry in particular in which she reminded herself not to get too friendly with anyone; especially men. Over the last several months she had already proven that her instincts about men were terrible and given her present condition, she couldn’t afford to put her life in jeopardy.
After two days, they were finally in Seattle. She looked around and realized she had done it. She had left New York without being stopped, arrested, or approached in any way by anyone connected with her old life. As soon as she got there she remembered she had no place to stay. She hadn’t wanted to book a hotel in Seattle with her own credit card and figured it would make more sense to find a hotel once she arrived in Seattle. Once she was there she could pay in cash.
She wondered how difficult it would be to check into a hotel in Seattle without using any identification. Even the low-budget motel on Staten Island, in New York, had wanted to see some identification. She was able to get around it by paying a large enough additional deposit so that the desk clerk in New York didn’t bother her any further. She wasn’t sure if it would be quite so easy in another city.
“Well, so-long, Halle,” the guy sitting next to her said.
“So-long, cheesy lines guy.”
He stuck out his hand to shake hers. “My name is Lester Jones, by the way.”
“Hello and goodbye, Lester Jones.”
“You know, usually when someone introduces himself, the other person offers their name as well. It’s one of those societal give-and-take things we’ve all grown so accustomed to.”
“Just call me Halle,” Damita said.
“Happy trails, Halle,” Lester said, as Damita exited the bus.
CHAPTER THIRTY
When Damita got off the bus, she could see there was a hotel close by. She retrieved her luggage and walked in the direction of the hotel. Suddenly, someone drove by honking the car horn. She turned to look and it was Lester Jones.
He rolled down the car window. “If you’re heading to that hotel, it’s a lot farther away than it appears.”
“To pursue or approach stealthily,” Damita repeated.
“You’re a real funny girl. I like funny girls.”
“Goodnight, Lester Jones. It’s been nice knowing you.”
“I could help you with that list of yours.”
Damita’s face changed from amused to angry. “You snooped through my notebook?”
“Technically, it’s not snooping if the information is on the first page. I picked it up and there it was. One look at that list and I knew you were a woman on the run.”
Damita’s face wrinkled into a frown. “And you chose to capitalize on that fact, I assume?”
“That’s not what I want to do at all. In fact, I can help you. I believe you had a notation about establishing an identity? I know what you need and who you need to see.”
“What are you going to want from me if you help me with my little dilemma?”
“There’s nothing in it for me at all. Well, practically nothing. I may get a little finder’s fee from the guy I bring you to, but other than that, there’s nothing in it for me. The guy I’m going to take you too helped someone very close to me once.”
“Who says I need whatever help it is this guy offers?”
“Halle, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck. I can recognize a woman in trouble when I see one. You’re most definitely a woman in trouble.”
“I suppose you’re here to take all my troubles away, huh?”
“No one can do that. I’m here to lighten the load, but only if you let me. Come on, Halle. If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to have to trust somebody first. It might as well be me. Believe me. I’m one of the good guys.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“I’m guessing it would be easier if it was a woman you were trusting, so I tell you what, I’ll make it happen.”
“So, what are you going to do now, morph into a woman?”
“Even better, I’m going to go get that person who is close to me, who needed the same assistance.”
“Are you always so cloak and dagger?” Damita asked.
“Sometimes in life we have to be. And, Halle, whatever or whoever it is you’re hiding from, you’re going to have to learn to adapt to some of those cloak and dagger ways as well.”
“I suppose you want me to come with you?”
“No, because you won’t do that. I’ll take you to the hotel. That is where you were going, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“It’s a short drive and there is enough traffic between here and there that you’ll feel relatively safe in my car.”
“What do you mean by relatively safe?”
“Yes, relatively safe. You and I both know that in life there are no guarantees.”
“You got that right,” Damita agreed.
When they got to the hotel, Damita once again began to worry about checking in.
“Do you want to check in or wait until I come back?” Lester asked.
“I’m really tired. I would like to check in, but I can wait here.”
“Are you afraid you won’t be able to check in without identification?”
“That is, assuming I don’t have identification.”
“Okay, Halle, you can wait here until I come back.”
“Why did you ask?” Damita asked.
“I could use my identification to check you in.”
“Then it would technically be your hotel room. It’s okay. I’ll wait until you come back.”
Damita sat down in the lobby of the hotel. She endured looks from hotel personnel and one even asked her if she needed assistance.
“I’m waiting for my other party. I lost my identification on the way here and I’m assuming I won’t be able to check in without identification,” she lied.
“Oh, well, feel free to wait. If your other party doesn’t show up, you can leave a larger deposit and check in without waiting for them to get here.”
“Do you accept cash?” Damita asked.
“Yes, we do, with a deposit.”
“Great. I lost my credit cards along with my identification.”
“Come over to the desk whenever you’re ready and we’ll get you checked in.”
Even though she was told said she would be fine checking in, she couldn’t truly relax until she had a key in hand and was safely in her room.
By the time she walked away from the desk, she had extracted over $1,000 to pay for the room. Most of it was in security deposits, because she didn’t have identification or credit cards, but she didn’t care. She at least had someplace to lay her head for the night, until she could figure out what her next move would be.
Damita quickly scrawled a note on a piece of paper and left it at the hotel desk.
“This is for a man named Lester Jones. If he stops by, please give him the note.”
“We’ll be sure to give Mr. Jones the note. Goodnight, Ms. Berry.”
Once in her room, Damita chuckled at her use of the name Halle Berry. She had always admired the beauty and talent of the actress.
She thought she would be exhausted and ready for sleep by the time she got to her hotel room. She wasn’t sure if it was so much sleeping in strange places or worrying about how she would take care of herself, but she was wired beyond belief. She turned on the television. Damita flipped channels and thought about the fact that she felt like she had watched more television in the last week than she had in an entire year. Before everything happened, she seldom watched television. She was always too busy with work and when she wasn’t working she was using her available time to spend it with family and friends. By the time Neal came along, she barely had enough time to breathe. There was always a new client, or a promotion. Downtime was something that Damita Whitmore did not have much of. She hoped that now that she was in Seattle she wouldn’t have more downtime than she could handle. She would have to find work and a place to live. She couldn’t afford to live in a hotel forever. The money she had was dwindling with each day and she was uncomfortable knowing that besides the money in her pocket, she had no other source of income.
On the Other Side Page 19
