Chapter 92
LIZZIE NUNEZ LAY on a lumpy mattress. It had a faint smell of urine, but she’d gotten used to that last night. What she hadn’t gotten over was the snoring from two of the three women in the dorm with her.
She’d first tried a youth shelter near Mission Dolores Park.
The woman who ran the shelter said Lizzie couldn’t stay because she was over eighteen, and there were too many younger kids there for her to let in anyone over eighteen.
That left Lizzie the choice of two adult shelters.
This one was the lesser of two evils. Barely.
But at least they were letting her stay until noon.
Most places kicked you out early each morning.
There were six rooms that each held four twin beds. Three rooms were for men and three were for women. There was a locked door between each set of three. Every bed was filled. Lizzie had gotten the second to the last open one.
Now she had to get up. No way was she coming back here. She washed up, then put on a clean yellow sundress someone seemed to have left on a night table for her. She’d be okay in the dress with her jacket. She walked into the small women’s dining area. Men had their own dining area.
The dining room was pretty basic. It almost looked like something from a military base.
The room was long and had three picnic tables with benches attached, plus a table at the far end, where two women in aprons were doling out what looked like either oatmeal or soup.
To Lizzie it felt like summer camp. Except for the surly women sitting at the tables.
After she was handed a portion of what turned out to be soup, plus a slice of bread, Lizzie eased onto the bench seat next to one of her dorm mates, a tall, thin woman named Augusta who told Lizzie she’d lived on the streets for the last eleven years.
Augusta leaned back on the bench like she was about to tell an epic story. “Doesn’t feel like it’s gotten any easier.”
Lizzie looked at her in a new light. Eleven years was a long time.
Augusta said, “Yep, since I was twenty-one.”
Lizzie did the math and was shocked. Augusta was only thirty-two? She looked like she was in her mid-fifties.
Though the needle tracks Lizzie now spotted on her left arm helped explain it. She hadn’t looked at her closely earlier because Augusta stank of tobacco. When Augusta complained about living conditions and how harsh people could be, Lizzie had to ask, “How can you afford to smoke cigarettes?”
“The city gives them out if you really need them.” Augusta took a giant bite from her slice of bread, then turned her head and said, “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing in here? You should find a sugar daddy.”
“I did, then I lost him. But I’m still looking.”
Augusta smiled, showing her grayish-looking teeth.
“I thought I had one when I was younger. Made good money. Sold H when it was still hard to get and a lot more expensive. All I ended up with out of the experience was a boyfriend shot in our apartment. Apparently he strayed out of his territory. I guess I also got a heroin habit out of it.” She giggled like she’d made a joke.
Lizzie said, “Have you tried rehab?”
That made Augusta cackle. “Sweetheart, you kids go to rehab. Us old-timers have to kick habits like this on our own. I’ve kicked it half a dozen times. Once I was clean for nearly two years.”
When Augusta had finished her soup, she turned to Lizzie and said, “You need to get out there while you’re young and beautiful.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do.” Lizzie was going to find her tall man with dark hair or die trying.