5
D o you have any experience working in a pizza restaurant before?” asked the manager of Picassos Pizza, who was only a couple of years older than me.
“No, but I have eaten enough pizza…” I noticed her eyes glaze over as if she’d heard that a thousand times before. “I’m a fast learner.”
“Ah, we’re looking for people with experience, as we stated clearly in the recruitment advert. You also don’t have any references.”
The bane of my life was producing evidence of my past when my past was as a different person. The only people I could think of to provide a reference was Judith and the family I lived with when I went underground into hiding three years ago. “I haven’t had a job before, so I don’t have a reference. And I have to start somewhere.”
She shook her head. “I'll keep your details, and if a new entrant job comes up, I’ll call you.”
“ Please. I promise I’ll be the best and hardest working pizza worker you’ll ever have,” I begged because I so desperately wanted to buy a car.
Judith warned that the financial leash would be cut when I turned twenty, and I’d have to be financially independent. That meant Riley Laws must find a job and start saving her money.
“I’m sorry,” she shook her head. “The advert clearly stated we wanted an applicant with experience working in a pizza kitchen.”
“Okay, thank you for your time,” I said before rushing out the door. I walked down the street to the Stop & Shop to ask for a job there, and like the Picassos, they took my details and said they’d contact me if something came up. While in there, I spotted Carly, the director of Hallen Hall, down the cereal aisle, and I quickly slipped away so she didn’t see me.
I confronted her earlier about the word TRAITOR being removed from my door, and she responded by looking at me as if I was insane.
“That’s strange. Perhaps it was mistaken identity,” she tried to console me, even though I interpreted her reaction as disbelief that someone would break into my room to write TRAITOR with a red marker, then go back the following day to wipe it off.
Even to me, it seemed farfetched, so avoiding her to save face was my plan for the next few months since she appeared to be questioning my sanity. Or maybe she thought I did it myself for attention. A loner girl with no friends, who felt invisible, created a drama for attention.
Annika might do stupid things to ruffle people's feathers, mostly Gunner, and just for fun, but this was not Riley Laws’ style. Riley Laws was quiet and reflective, with the need to blend into the background.
My last stop before returning to my accommodation was Harvest Organic Store, a short walk down the street. I preferred a job on campus, but every other student desperate for a job likely thought the same thing. Perhaps I needed to look further afield in Gothenburg city center.
The fruit caught my eye, and as I started filling a paper bag with three oranges, a breathy voice said, “Hey,” behind me. I swung around to find, to my disappointment, Shaun looking sheepish but smiling as if his charm would make my knees go weak. “Sorry, I haven’t contacted you.”
I glanced behind me, feigning confusion. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yeah,” he rubbed his chin that only a few days ago would’ve driven me wild, but today, he’s a certified asshole.
How did I fall so quickly for this deceitful man? Upon reflection, it always returned to a hunger for affection, which could lead girls like me into hurtful or dangerous situations.
“I’m busy,” I snapped, moving out of his space toward the checkout.
“You don’t look that busy,” he pointed out as he followed behind, and I had a hunch that he was horny and wanted a girl to ejaculate into. “How about I take you out for a coffee?”
“No, thank you,” I replied brusquely so he’d get the message that I was uninterested.
I couldn’t forgive him for abandoning me on Saturday night at his stupid frat party, and I was left to walk home alone at night. A true gentleman never did that to a girl he respected, but I wasn’t dealing with a gentleman, and he made it clear that he didn’t respect me.
I filed in behind me at the checkout while I ignored him, hoping he would disappear. He was just as persistent last week when he approached me and played nice, eager to show me around. He asked questions about my private life, and I gave him my usual rehearsed answers.
“Let me buy you a coffee, Riley?” he insisted, and my cheeks burned because he said that in front of the checkout operator, who was pretending not to notice his attempt to pursue me.
“No, thank you.” I turned my back on him to show my disinterest and dislike of him being this close to me.
After the operator processed my oranges and I paid with my shrinking cash, I walked briskly out the door. Unfortunately, his heavy footsteps were hard on my tail, making me both nervous and annoyed.
I stalled and swung around, and he almost banged into me. “Don’t you know the meaning of the word no,” I snarled at his smiling face, obviously enjoying this.
“How are you getting home, Riley?” he asked smoothly.
“None of your business,” I growled as my feet stopped dead near the bus stop, and I started walking across the road so he couldn’t tell that was how I wasn’t returning to Hallen Hall.
“C’mon, Riley, please . Let me buy you a coffee as an apology.” Realizing that I had just stalled outside a café, I turned away, finding that this side of the road was nothing but cafes and eateries. So, I crossed the road again while he followed, pissed off at how uncomfortable he was making me.
“No,” I stood firm, looking him directly in the eyes. “No.”
Then I spotted my bus coming down the road, so I positioned myself in front of the bus stop again for a swift escape. His phone beeped as the bus closed in, and he quickly looked at the screen before gazing down the road. I didn’t see who he was searching for, but it only motivated me to distance myself from him.
Just as the bus pulled up, he seized my shoulders, turned me around to look at him, and then swept my hair back as I wrestled him off. I quickly jumped on the bus and sat at the window on his side so I could watch him. His head was down, his thumbs typing on his phone screen. Then, he glanced down the road again and gave a ‘thumbs up’ to whoever he was signaling.
I stretched my neck, trying to see who he was communicating with, but the angle at which the bus was parked reduced my viewing range.
As the bus finally drove away, Shaun waved to me with a smirk, holding a secret he refused to share. In a suppressed rage, I flicked him the bird, and that smile stretched wider, and I started to reconsider my motivations.
Perhaps I should’ve gone out with him to investigate what he was doing. Something was not right with him. Even though it hurt like hell, I was resigned to believing that his mischievousness and cruelty were just some stupid frat prank to target the shy girl with glasses.
I’ve had boyfriends before, but when they asked too many questions or when I would trip myself up on my lies, I’d have to end the relationship. Several short-lived, dissatisfactory relationships summed up my dating life.
My phone beeped, and a message from Shaun flashed across my screen, reminding me that I needed to delete him from my phone and buy a new one if he was going to continue to harass me like this.
Shaun: Hot girl, come out with me?
Me: Wrong number.
Shaun: Don’t make me beg.
Me: Wrong number and get lost.
My phone fell quiet, and I put it in my bag, hoping I had achieved my objective. A tiny voice in my head urged me to take up his offer for curiosity’s sake, but I was only going to get played. I had enough of heartache for now.
Relaxing into the seat, glad I had rid myself of his pestilence, I fell into my imagination while gazing out the window at the busy streets of students congregating in groups—the normal people.
Gunner’s face always stormed my mind first when I returned to Larsson in my mind. We had so much fun together, and then I’d see Sylvie Kaiser's disappointed face and how badly I hurt her. What I did was unforgivable to her, but they didn’t know the truth, and I doubted that there’d even be a place in time where Gunner and Sylvie would sit down with me to talk it out.
Lastly, Mikael. Even sitting here, a thousand miles away from the prison he’s held in, I still shudder in fear when I think of him. Even when he was helpful and kind, I found him terrifyingly intimidating. He carried an aura that screamed dangerously and was someone, like my foster father, you’d never want to cross.
But I did.
Even though painstaking effort was put into Annika Kaiser vanishing into a new alias, location, and life with meticulous detail, I still couldn’t entirely trust the process or the people who organized my demise. There was always a stone that wasn’t unturned or neglecting to clean up a paper trail or incorrect or misreported information.
My heart was still pounding when the bus pulled up at my stop, thinking of the last time I saw Mikael. That penetrating stare, under those dark eyebrows, as if he could read my mind and knew that he was about to be arrested because the police were breathing down his back. And his arrest and imprisonment were because of me.
I pulled myself back into the present and rolled my shoulders to dispel the prickly nerves traveling down my spine. That was how my body reacted to Mikael Kaiser. Even with him behind bars and out of harm’s way, my body had a visceral reaction as if he were only two feet away.
A blue Student Job Search sign caught my eye, and I gravitated toward the brick building with a wooden planter box out the front blooming in daisies the same orange as the fruit in my bag. The space was crowded with students, and the walls were lined with hundreds of advertised job cards.
I perused the walls, most of which were filled with waitressing, factory, and low-paid jobs. A group of pretty and confident girls gravitated around one particular section I couldn’t see properly until they took the Job Title Number and moved on to the registration desk.
The jobs were for adult dancers in various clubs who must be over 21 years old. Even if I was over 21, I wasn’t confident enough to apply, and let’s face it, they’d never hire a girl like me with the flexibility and gracefulness of an African Rhino.
Shelf stacker, checkout operator, and factory worker were more appropriate jobs for me, maybe a waitress, although I wasn’t overly swift on my feet. A kitchenhand job appealed because I liked the idea of busily working behind the scenes rather than in front of the house.
One particular kitchenhand job stood out to me because it was in a club. It didn’t say what type of club it was, but I liked the idea of working in a dark, seedy place where no one knows your name, and you can be anything you want when the husband or wife isn’t looking.
“Oh,” I gasped aloud when it read that it was for age 21 or over, and my shoulders slumped.
“I can help you with that,” a small voice whispered nearby.
“Cheetos?” I asked in case I was mistaken. The Cheeto-eater girl, my twin, wore glasses like mine, had long, straight brown hair like mine, and a painfully shy expression like mine.
“Yeah, I guess you can call me that,” she stated dryly, not bothered by the name I gave her.
“I’m sorry. My name is Riley.” I held my hand for her to shake, but she refused, leaving me hanging like a doofus.
“I can organize something for you if you want to apply for that job,” cutting to the chase, not interested in being friendly or sociable, which I appreciated.
“Do you know this club?” I pointed to the card.
“No. But I can organize a fake ID for you,” she explained, straight-faced, hugging her books.
“Really?” She didn’t look like the type to commit illegal acts, but maybe her nerdy image was a cover-up.
“I’ve done them before. It’s the line of business I’m in,” she admitted, looking past me to the girls applying for the Adult Dancer jobs and rolling her eyes.
“Okay. How much would it cost?” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a second alias, but then I’d have to remember two fake names and birthdates.
“Fifty dollars.”
I wavered, knowing that I couldn’t afford to part with fifty dollars, but the sacrifice must be made to get a job to bring in money. “Okay. Deal.” I offered my hand again, but she refused to shake it.
Rejected, I found my wallet, took out a fifty-dollar note from there, and handed it to her. Strangely, she pulled her sleeve down over her hand and took the note in the fabric so she didn't have to touch it.
“They’re pretty germy, aren’t they?” I sympathized, and she squirmed like she smelt fresh sewage.
“I’ll need a recent photograph of you,” she said, taking out her phone and snapping a shot before I could say anything. We’ll need to exchange numbers, too, so I can tell you when your ID is ready.”
“Oh…kay. Is that all you need?”
“Yes,” she responded and swiftly left without a goodbye.