Part 2
On the Map
26
Reed
“Where’s the new guy?”
“Here.”
I step forward and face Mr. Longino, the maître d’, which I just learned is a fancy name for the head waiter. This guy doesn’t look fancy, though. He’s tall and thick, with a sweaty, bald head and arms that look like stuffed sausages. Still, I have been warned about his strict rules for The Rose staff, and I’m not about to blow it on day one. Not if I can help it. I hold my breath while he inspects me from head to toe and pray the small fortune we shelled out for this uniform was worth it.
“You’re ready to work hard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Harder than you’ve ever worked before?”
“Yes, sir.”
Okay, that’s a lie. But, seriously? This can’t be harder than harvesting potatoes back at Windmill Bay, can it?
“I need you to do what I say, when I say it. No fuss. No argument. No delay. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nods, like he’s agreeing with himself. “Plenty of others would like this job if you can’t handle it.”
That’s not what I heard. “I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
He calls to someone over my shoulder. “Seth?”
A skinny guy with a pockmarked face and quick feet appears. “Yes, boss?”
“Show the new guy…what’s your name?”
“Uh, Clyde.”
“Show Clyde what to do. And, Clyde? As far as you’re concerned, if Seth says it, I say it. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He turns away. “Let me know if he’s going to work out.”
Seth gives me a tour of the kitchen, and I pay attention like it’s all I need to know in the world, focusing on the doors, the traffic pattern, where things are stored, and how to operate the dishwasher, which will be my primary function. It kills me to be this close to Lexie while not throwing open doors to look for her, but Riley and I agreed I should focus on the job first so I can get a layout of the place.
The guy at the hiring agency told me they have a lot of turnover at The Rose. Maybe it’s due to Mr. Longino’s exacting standards, but it’s more likely because the bus ride out here takes more than an hour, and not too many people want to pay the toll to travel through the UDR gate twice every day for work when they could just as easily earn a living in Slick. He also told me my fears about Riley working at The Rose were justified.
“I’m just glad you’re not another girl looking for work,” he told me.
“Why?”
“Girls? Well, let’s just say they usually end up on The Rose’s staff instead of mine, like it or not.” Then he laughed and I had to resist the impulse to punch him in the nose. When I told Riley what he said, she just crossed her arms over her chest and muttered something unintelligible under her breath. Still, she didn’t fight me on it. I hope the work she’s given at Chen’s Tea Shop will keep her restless feet busy until I can track down Lexie and get her out of here. But if it takes longer than I hope, it will just be a matter of time before she’s fighting me about it again.
Tonight I spend six hours loading dishes into the big dishwasher, then stacking them on carts so they can be filled and messed up and returned to me to be washed again. By the time my shift ends at two in the morning, I’m drenched in sweat and my arms feel like limp noodles from lifting the loaded racks all night.
Maybe this is worse than digging potatoes after all.
I shiver miserably on the bus, all the way back into Slick City, barely noticing this time as I pass through the UDR gate. I need to buy a second uniform, I realize. And a coat if I want to survive the changeable weather in this area. Sure, it’s still summer, but some nights it dips pretty close to freezing by the time I’m on my way home. Riley, who decided to take over management of our meager funds, is going to be ecstatic about the extra expense.
I am beyond grumpy by the time I unlock the door to our tiny room, but as soon as I see Riley curled up on a blanket on the floor, all because she stubbornly insists on taking turns with the narrow bed, my anger melts away. She left a light on for me, and it shines just enough to let me watch her sleep. She’s so often angry, frustrated, worried, or scared, I rarely see her brow smooth like it is now, or her mouth turned up in what almost looks like a smile.
I swear, it’s like she can hear my thoughts, because her face suddenly crumples, and she begins to cry in her sleep.
“Riley,” I whisper, quickly crossing the room to sit next to her on the floor. “Riley, shh. It’s alright.”
She blinks, sits up, and rubs her face. “What time is it?”
“Almost three in the morning. Are you okay?”
She nods. “Just a dream,” she mumbles. “My mother was there. Then she was gone. Dead, I think, and I felt so…”
Her voice shakes and I can sense her terror. Heaven knows I’ve had that dream too. I put my arm around her and hold her in the dim light until she starts to breathe normally. I try not to worry about my damp uniform, covered with food stains. I must smell horrible, though. I definitely need a shower. Eventually, the idea that I’m disgusting is something I can’t shake.
“How did it go tonight?” she asks.
“Well…” I push myself several feet away and lean against the wall. “Exhausting, actually.”
“And you didn’t see…” She’s already shaking her head.
“No, I didn’t see Lexie. All I saw was the kitchen and the service corridor. No…um, escorts at all, just kitchen staff.”
She sighs. We knew it was unlikely, but I understand her disappointment.
“It’s a huge place, though, Riley. And not…”
“Not what?”
“Not what I imagined.”
The guy at the employment agency told me The Rose was next to a military base in an otherwise abandoned city that had once been a suburb of Slick. The town was all but razed during the second civil war, along with most of the other suburbs that used to spread north, west, and south of Slick. “The Rose is a mile from the base, and was one of the only places left standing,” he said. “I suppose that’s why it was renovated into an entertainment venue.”
I don’t know what I pictured, but it wasn’t what I saw when the bus drove us by the front entrance.
“It’s a church,” I tell Riley.
“A church? What do you mean?”
“An old church building,” I say. “It’s made of brick, has a white steeple, columns in the front, with wide stairs leading up to double doors, lots of stained-glass windows—just like you see in old books and movies. A church.”
“But why?”
Because it’s the most profane thing they could do to a place once set aside for worshipping God?
That’s probably what my dad would have said, but I just shrug. “Because it’s there? I don’t know. There is an old school next door—once associated with the church, I guess. They’ve turned it into a dormitory for the escorts. The kitchen is attached to the back of the cathedral and there’s a new…well, a hotel tower built on the other side. The dining and entertainment all happens in the salon—in what used to be the church’s main sanctuary, where there is this huge stained-glass window of a rose. It’s all lit up now and bordered with neon lights.”
“And that’s why it’s called The Rose.”
I nod. “Basically, it looks like a church that has been turned into a casino—but it’s actually worse than that.”
Riley shakes her head. “Xoey would be…”
“Horrified?”
“Yeah.”
“So am I.”
For the next half hour, I describe what I saw in greater detail, everything from where the bus dropped me off, to how many exits are in the kitchen and where they’re located. I can only speculate on the number of visitors since I wasn’t allowed in the salon. I could hear them, of course. But what’s the difference between forty and a hundred rowdy men, volu
me-wise?
“You could count dirty plates,” Riley says.
“I…” I frown. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
We want to draw a diagram of The Rose, but without a tablet and only limited resources to rent one from Mr. Chen, that’s not an option. I wish for old-fashioned paper and pens, or even the old chalkboard we used in the Hidden Library back at Windmill Bay. Since we have neither, we try to commit what I saw to memory.
“Any one of these details might be the key to rescuing Lexie,” Riley says.
I break the news to Riley that we need to spend more money on a second uniform, then head down the hall to the bathroom, where I take a short shower. By the time I return to our room, I’m so tired I feel like I could nod off on my feet. Riley still looks worried, whether from her dream or her concerns about Lexie, I don’t know.
“Seriously, Riley,” I say, “take the bed. I could sleep anywhere right now.”
She nods and gets into bed. I turn off the light and settle down on the floor below her. Only a few seconds pass before she whispers into the darkness.
“Reed?”
“Yeah?”
I feel her hand, touching my arm, her fingers moving down until they are linked with mine. “Just until I fall asleep, okay?”
“Okay.”
The next night is the same. Hard work, dirty uniform, and noodle arms, followed by a miserable ride back to Slick City in the middle of the night. After six days straight, my arms are stronger, I finally get paid, and have a day off. Riley and I celebrate by ordering two meals instead of sharing one from our favorite street cart, then by buying a pen and a roll of vintage wrapping paper from the junk shop on the corner. It was expensive, especially considering it was crushed, torn in places, and covered in fat reindeer, but we decided to splurge since it turns out we are both miserable at memorizing the layout of The Rose. Tonight, we are lying on our stomachs in our rented room with the wrapping paper upside down and spread out in front of us. Riley has the pen, but I’m itching to take it away from her.
“The door to the supply closet is here?”
“No, there.” I touch the paper, then reach for the pen. “You want me to—”
She leans away, holding the pen out of reach. “I can do it.”
“Well, of course you can.” I struggle to sound indifferent. “It’s just that I’m the one who has been there.”
“No, it’s just that you’re a control freak.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.” She nudges me with her shoulder. “Now back off!”
Days pass and we keep adding to the map. It takes two full weeks of work before I even catch a glimpse of The Rose’s salon, and that’s only because one of the table bussers sprains his wrist while trying to catch a falling tray. I’m the lucky guy who gets to fill in for him.
“It’s easy,” says Seth, handing me an apron. “When customers leave a table for the night, you clear it off. All the dirty dishes, glasses, and cutlery…put it in one of these.” He holds up a gray bin. “Then you pull off the dirty tablecloth, wipe down the table, and set it. New tablecloth, napkins, the works. And each table has to be done in less than a minute. Customers don’t want to see waiters, much less bussers. We need them focusing on the escorts. Got it?”
I see the maîtred‘ frowning at us from across the room. “Yes, sir.”
“And another thing,” Seth says. “Don’t talk to the girls. No words, no eye contact, nothing. If they talk to you, do what they ask quickly and go about your business, okay? Those bouncers are watching everything.”
“Got it.”
It’s harder than I thought, mostly getting it all done quickly. I barely have time to look around the dim salon. I try not to dwell on the things I do see.
I smile at the thought of telling Riley about my promotion. I just pray it becomes permanent so I can keep coming back into the salon. Riley is getting antsy and bored waiting for me to make some progress. Neither of us thought it would take this long to even set eyes on Lexie. At least today I’m closer than I was yesterday.
“But the salon isn’t the best place to actually see people,” I explain tonight after I get back from my shower.
“What do you mean?”
I describe the room to her: a long rectangle with a kind of raised area on the far end under the stained-glass window. We both know that’s where someone once preached sermons about God. Now, it’s a bandstand with a piano, drum set, bass, guitars, and microphones for the singers. No one was performing by the time I got in there tonight. Seth says a house band called the Thorns plays six nights a week until one o’clock in the morning.
“Columns run about a meter from the outer walls of the sanctuary, but they are draped in red velvet curtains,” I tell Riley. “Behind them, private booths line the walls, each with a curtain that can be drawn open or closed. A dozen enormous chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and there are wall sconces here and there, but none of that is meant to light up anyone’s face. The same goes for the tiny lamps in the middle of each table.”
“Of course it’s not,” Riley says. “They would be ashamed to sit in a place like that if it was lit up like a cafeteria.”
“There’s enough light for me to count people,” I say, “separating them into customers and escorts, civilians, and men in uniform. But unless I’m right next to someone, it’s impossible to see anyone’s face.”
Riley stares at her hands. “Do you think she’s changed, Reed? I mean, they could have made her cut her hair, get tattoos, tint her skin… What if you don’t recognize her at all? Or what if she’s not even there anymore? What if some…some sick pervert has taken her into private service?”
“We can’t worry about that. Not yet, Riley. It’s too soon.”
“But if she’s not?”
The possibility fills me with hopelessness. I smile to cover it up. “Then we’ll track her down. Find out where she is. We’ll keep looking until we find her.”
Riley gets up and starts pacing. “The waiting is driving me crazy, Reed. Sitting here, doing nothing while you work.”
“Mr. Chen’s—”
“It’s only a few hours here and there. Most of the time I’m here”—she spreads her hands—“waiting for you. Worrying.”
“It’s important to stay in contact with Sam and the others,” I say. “I make enough now to pay for more time at Mr. Chen’s. Reach out to them more. Any intelligence we share with each other could be useful down the road.”
“But I came here to find Lexie,” she says.
“And we will. I got in the salon tonight, right?” I smile and take her hands. “And even if I can’t see well, I can listen… Maybe I’ll hear Lexie’s name.”
“But—”
“I could see Lexie any day now, Riley,” I interrupt. “Tomorrow, even. And I’ll know her. I know I will.”
Riley nods and turns toward the window. I resist the temptation to keep trying to reassure her, instead leaving her alone with her thoughts. Before long, we turn off the light and I settle down on the floor with my blanket.
But I can’t fall asleep.
The truth is, I haven’t told Riley everything about my night in the salon. Mostly because…I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to describe what I saw, what I felt.
Even if I did, I would probably be too ashamed to say it out loud.
By the time I started bussing tables, it was 1:30 in the morning, but there were still several customers scattered around the salon. Men by themselves, watching the escorts wandering among the tables, beckoning them closer.
Most of the escorts are dressed in…well, dressed in next to nothing at all. Seeing girls my age wearing clothing like that was like a jolt of electricity running through my body. I know why they’re here—how they were forced into service and what they must do behind closed doors to stay alive. But seeing the reality of it right in front of me was something I cannot describe. It made my stomach turn—horrified me that Lexie was there at all
, much less that she was there because of something I did. It scared me even more to imagine Riley sucked into that fate.
And yet.
They are beautiful girls. Desirable. And I felt it, twisted together with my disgust: attraction. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is, making my shame greater than ever before.
A long time ago, way before Jaxon and I ever dreamed of climbing onto Lexie’s balcony, my dad and I passed a group of girls standing on the street corner near the Presidio. They called out to us, offering something I was too young to understand. My father stopped and talked to them. I heard him tell them where our church was, offering refuge, if they ever needed it. But they didn’t respond the way I expected. With pretty faces twisted in scorn, their responses were peppered with words I wasn’t allowed to say.
After we walked away, I saw Dad wiping his eyes.
“Why are they mad at you?” I asked.
“Working girls like that were brought to sorrow a long time ago. They are hurting and scared, which blinds them to kindness.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Pray for them, son. And give help when you can but be careful when you’re older.”
“Because they’re pretty?”
Dad smiled. “Yes. Many men find the temptation of their company too strong to resist. Those girls are falling down a deep, black hole. I try to help. I pray they will reach for the rope I offer or learn to climb out themselves. But there’s danger there too. Those who linger too close and too long will likely be pulled in, as well.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant back then, but his words came back to me tonight at The Rose. I forced my eyes away from the pretty escorts and focused on the wet rag in my hand, scrubbing as if I was cleaning something other than a table. A few minutes later, one of the escorts passed me, her arm linked with a man in uniform. I looked up and our eyes met. Hers were deep pools of hopelessness that haunt me still as I try to settle down and sleep.
27
Xoey
Weeping Justice Page 19
