Chapter 2
FRANKIE
“You want me to go with you, where?” I asked, staring wide eyed at my friends. Well, they weren’t really friends. Neighbors. Jasmine and Marie were inseparable besties who’d known me since I moved into the trailer park with my brother in middle school.
I stood at the top of the rickety steps of my minuscule porch.
When they’d knocked unexpectedly, I’d been pulling my laundry together to take to the shared laundry facility behind the mailboxes, not sure when I’d be able to do wash again.
My hair was up in a sloppy bun and I wore navy sweatpants and a hoodie with a smear of grease on the chest. Not many of my clothes avoided the stains that went along with mechanic’s school.
Tonight, I had no intention of coming across anyone but Mr. Butler, who always did his laundry on Saturday nights. He was eighty-two and I shoveled his stoop when it snowed.
For late November, Jasmine and Marie were in short dresses with miles of bare legs. Heels that were dangerous to ankles with the compacted snow. The only block from the cold weather were their heavy coats, but they were unzipped.
I was cold looking at them.
“Out. To meet men,” Jasmine said, smoothing down her sleek, dark hair. She must’ve flatironed it.
“You know I can’t get into any of the bars around here. I don’t have a fake ID like you.”
Marie shook her head. Where Jasmine was dark, she was fair, her blue eyes popped with some kind of smoky makeup.
“Not a bar. A house,” Marie said.
“Mansion,” Jasmine corrected.
Marie nodded. “Yes, a mansion.”
“Is it a party or something?” I wondered.
They looked at each other and giggled. “Something,” Marie answered.
Back in the day–God, high school seemed so long ago–they’d had a gaggle of friends.
I wouldn’t say they’d been the popular kids, because like me, their families didn’t have tons of money.
No one in this little pocket community halfway between Barnes and Devil’s Ditch did.
The duo made up for it with boldness and sass.
They could talk to boys. They used to talk their way out of late homework assignments.
None of us went to college. It wasn’t an option for any of us.
Always together, they went and became nail technicians, working at side-by-side stations at a salon in Barnes.
They always had gorgeous manis and pedis.
Perfect makeup. Styled hair. They always looked cute.
Then there was me.
The tomboy.
In eleventh grade, I took an auto repair class because the other elective options had been pottery and public speaking, both of which had sounded awful. I took to the mechanic’s class like Jasmine and Marie took to gel tip nails.
I’d been the only girl in the program–maybe Jasmine and Marie had missed out–but it hadn’t stopped me.
We started with how to change the oil and went from there.
I knew almost right away what I wanted to do after I graduated.
Fortunately, there’d been grant money for the local tech school and to pay the bills, I’d been able to work the front desk full-time at a chain hotel out by the highway, taking shifts in the evenings after my classes.
Unfortunately, small town Montana didn’t have tons of auto shops, which meant not many jobs. Not many open jobs.
Moving to a bigger town wasn’t an option right now.
My brother, Marcus, had been splitting the bills, but I hadn’t seen or heard from him in three weeks.
He hadn’t even left me a note, not that he’d been reliable to begin with, but he’d always covered his half of the rent.
Now, I barely scraped enough money together for all of this month’s rent, heat, food, and other essentials on my own, even in a dump like this one.
He hadn’t been the one to do any kind of upkeep or maintenance.
There was no way I had the funds to relocate somewhere with more opportunity.
Apartments wanted a security deposit, plus first and last month’s rent.
That was a shit ton of money I didn’t have.
I was stuck.
That was why, when Mr. Reid, the vo-tech instructor, had reached out to a friend whose son owned the shop in Devil’s Ditch on my behalf, I’d been so excited.
I had an in for not only a job, but a real career.
But when he called me earlier and told me the owner had said no, I’d been crushed. And panicked.
Still was.
Because I was being evicted.
The landlord, Jerky Jack–the name I called him because he really was a jerk–had banged on the door last week and handed me my eviction notice.
“Here.”
He pushed the piece of paper at me and it crumpled as I took it.
He had a cigarette dangling from his lips and his pants were falling down.
I’d never seen him without a cigarette or with a belt.
He lived in the first trailer from the road and watched everyone coming and going like an eighty-year old woman.
“What’s this?” I asked as I stared at the words. I saw the big letters at the top, but they didn’t make sense that he was giving it to me.
“Eviction notice.”
My head whipped up when I wasn’t wrong. “Eviction? Why? Rent isn’t due for another week!”
“You’re four months behind.”
I shook my head. “No. Marcus pays you on time every month.”
He took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a stinky cloud. My nose crinkled.
“Nope, he hasn’t. I told him last month what would happen.”
“He paid you,” I said again. “I gave him my portion of the rent.”
He laughed, but it was phlegmy and gross. “Then go take it up with him.”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone? Sounds like you got played, girlie.”
Had I? By my own brother?
The answer was yes. When Marcus left, wherever the hell he went, he hadn’t turned over the rent money as I’d assumed. He’d pocketed it.
Just up and left me, which was fine because while he’d been an adult and legally my guardian until I turned eighteen, I’d always taken care of myself. But screwing me over? That was new.
With my hotel job, I could just squeak by with this month’s payment, but I couldn’t make any dent on the back money I, solo, now owed.
It had been almost the whole week the landlord gave me and I hadn’t heard from Marcus.
I’d asked around at places he liked to hang.
The Roadside, where I talked to the owner.
The off track betting place out by the highway.
His job at the canning place on the other side of Barnes. HR there said he’d quit a month ago.
No brother. No money for rent. I had to be out tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Thus, the panicking.
The pile of belongings I was going to fit in my old car wasn’t much. I wouldn’t miss the thrift store furniture and chipped dishes.
“Look, we know things are tough for you right now, but we’re trying to help,” Jasmine said. Her bare legs quivered from the cold.
Tough? They had no idea the extent of it. Marie lived with her parents and two younger sisters. Jasmine lived with her grandmother, mother, and aunt. They weren’t the Kardashians, but they were doing ok.
“By going to a party?” I countered.
“By getting you the money you need to pay Jack the rent. We know it’s been tight with Marcus flaking like he did.”
“I’m not selling drugs,” I snapped. I didn’t do that shit. Period. Not after my mom.
Marie shook her head and Jasmine put a hand up. “Nothing like that, I swear. It happens on the last Saturday every month. A party where guys–rich guys–can pay for…” Marie bit her lip, as if afraid to tell me.
“Sex,” Jasmine finished for her.
Sex?
I was well aware they had sex, and often. They overshared and their escapades, unfortunately, lived rent free in my head.
“You’ve never mentioned this before,” I said.
Marie tugged her jacket around her. “That’s because we knew you wouldn’t be interested. It’s not your thing, and that’s okay. But now?”
Now, I was desperate.
I tucked my hands in my hoodie pocket. “I’m supposed to go to some mansion and have sex with a guy for money?”
They glanced at each other, then nodded. “Pretty much.”
I raised a hand. “I’m–”
“You can pay your bills,” Marie said. “Even better, just shaft Jerky Jack and use the money toward getting to a bigger town to get the job you’ve been wanting.”
That sounded like a good idea. While I wasn’t entertaining the possibility of prostituting myself, I didn’t like the idea of using any money I made to give to Jack. That would be a waste. But to get out of here?
I glanced around the rundown community. The trailers had seen better days. Because of the incessant winds here on the prairie, old tires were on roofs to keep them from blowing off. Every place needed some rust repair. New windows.
“Can we do this inside? I’m freezing my vag off,” Marie said.
I rolled my eyes, then stepped into the trailer. While I kept the heat set to really low, it was still warmer than outside. They came in behind me and the door slammed shut.
They saw my pile that I was leaving with. While they knew I was struggling with rent, I hadn’t told them I was being evicted. They had no idea how dire my situation was.
“I mean this in the nicest of ways, but I can’t believe you have sex for money,” I said. I could, maybe a little, and I was a little jealous. To be so bold and pretty that men would want them that badly.
Marie set her hands on her coat covered hips. She didn’t appear offended, but it seemed I was missing the point. “We’re getting out of here, too. We’re saving up to move to Phoenix. Where there are palm trees and it’s hot all the time. No more snow.”
“Really?” I asked, suddenly envious of their plans. “That’s so great.” I couldn’t even get to Missoula, let alone Arizona. Maybe it was time to rethink my approach of working the hotel’s front desk, because it definitely wasn’t working.
“This is how we’re making it happen,” Marie said, swirling her finger over her stylish dress, as Jasmine nodded.
I frowned. “By having sex with strangers?” I wasn’t sure if it was the smartest idea, but I wasn’t the one with nail tech jobs, growing savings and a plan to move to the desert.
Marie shrugged. “We do it with guys we meet at The Roadside. Fun quickies. Why not get an orgasm and make some cash?”
Jasmine stepped close, took my hand, her dark eyes meeting mine. “We like sex, Frankie. These guys are fun. Why not make money at the same time? It’s safe. It’s not like we’re standing on a street corner.”
Even so… “No one is going to want to have sex with me,” I muttered, looking down at myself in my baggy sweats.
“Looking like that? No,” Jasmine said. “Underneath all that fleece, you’ve got a hot little body.”
I sputtered.
“You do. I’d kill for your boobs. And that hair,” Jasmine pointed to my crazy locks.
“You need to get out from under a car and under a guy instead,” Marie added.
“Even if I was considering this, which I’m not–” I held up my hand to stop them from squealing with excitement because I was clearly insane “–I’m, well, I’ve never had sex before.”
I didn’t want to admit it, because it was personal and it was really none of their business, but I had fallen so low, I didn’t really care any longer.
Their eyes widened.
“You’ve never–” Jasmine whispered as Marie eyed me critically.
“Makes sense,” she added.
“I’m nineteen, not thirty. I’m sure there are a lot of women who haven’t had sex at my age.”
Their faces said that they doubted it.
“Who’d want to pay for someone who has no idea what she’s doing?”
“Every single guy,” Marie said and Jasmine backed it up with a vigorous nod. “God gave you a virgin pussy. Why not use what you’ve got to get your ass out of this place?”
That was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, but… valid. After tonight, I was going to be living out of my car. I wasn’t in a place to walk away from a chance to change that.