Chapter 16 Hey, Ma
Hey, Ma
I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A COMPUTER NERD. I GET IT FROM Bill.
I love to figure apps out and study algorithms. It’s all very Rain Man.
And when the dial-up modem came on the scene when I was twenty-two, I danced my ass off one night to buy myself my own brand-new computer.
I proudly turned my guest room into an office—I’d arrived.
Even if it was just a white room with a desk, a computer, and a lamp.
After a shift at the club, I’d come home sloshed and hop on AOL chat rooms with my friends—or sometimes alone to read the crazy shit strangers would post. I’d have the watered-down vodka and cran I’d drive home from the club with in one hand, and I’d type away on the keyboard with the other.
Getting behind the wheel intoxicated was probably one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Take it from me: It doesn’t make you look cool.
It makes you look stupid and sloppy. Not only are you risking your life, you’re risking other people’s as well.
Don’t drink and drive, kids. Nothing good will ever come from it.
It was like any other night browsing the World Wide Web when an instant message popped up on my screen.
SASSA KAYE: hey, i’m your mom
I snickered and rolled my eyes. It was obviously someone who had me mixed up with someone else or was playing games.
fuck off, I responded. I x’d out of her chat window. I’d never even seen the name Sassa Kaye. Besides, my mom’s name was Vanessa. But she popped up back up onscreen.
SASSA KAYE: no, this is really me. Is this miss alisa?
I froze. If someone is playing, this is such a cruel joke. I’d only ever spoken to my mom once in my entire life.
I was eight when the phone rang. I answered, and the woman on the other end said, “Hi baby. It’s your mom.
” I was scared about what Mindy would do, so I slammed the receiver down as fast as I could.
When I told Bill and Mindy who’d called, they changed our number and went on like it had never happened. No one ever spoke to me about it again.
So sixteen years later, sitting in the spare bedroom I called my office, I stared at the screen illuminated in front of me.
Bling bling bling! She kept sending messages, probably trying to prove who she was as quickly as possible before I could block her.
Pictures started popping up in the chat: baby pictures of—is that me?
, my dad and Vanessa, me and another girl I’d one day find out was my older sister.
hi mom
It was all I could say. I’d been dreaming of talking to my mom since I was a little girl. This definitely wasn’t how I’d envisioned it.
She sent me a phone number, and I jumped at the chance to hear her voice.
The second she picked up, she started bawling—it was a trait that would eventually drive me crazy. But I just listened and let her cry. I was so happy to finally hear her voice.
* * *
I’D HEARD SO MANY HORROR stories from Mindy that by the time I turned eighteen, finding Vanessa wasn’t on the top of my list. And Vanessa had left me. If she wanted a relationship, she needed to come find me.
I wasn’t even allowed to see a picture of my mom when I was growing up, so I spent most of my life not knowing what she looked like.
Somehow, I remembered her jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes from those first three months of my life—I remembered enough to know that the woman who tried to kidnap me in the bathroom at Bill and Mindy’s wedding resembled her.
Even if I was just a tiny baby, something about Vanessa had imprinted into my memory from the start.
She was written into my neural pathways, even if it would be months or years before anything else stuck.
But a month or so before Vanessa found me online, Bill and Mindy came to visit. When I dropped them at the airport, Bill walked Mindy onto the plane and came running out back to where I was waiting. He wrapped his arms around me, acting like he was going back for one last hug.
“Hurry. Take this. Hide it,” he whispered, slipping me a bag. I grabbed it and put it under my shirt. I could feel Mindy glaring from the plane.
They took off for Texas, and I raced back to my car. I flung the door open and yanked it out from under my shirt where I’d been keeping it safe.
It was a pile of pictures. I shuffled through photos of my dad posing with a beautiful woman with piercing blue eyes and a smile just like mine. They were holding a baby. I kept flipping through, my eyes wide. They were pictures my dad had saved of the three of us. That was my mom.
I broke down, alone in that parking lot, and sobbed like a baby. I studied my mom’s face, and she felt so familiar, even after all those years. For a moment, I had a flash of anger at Bill for blindsiding me, but then I pictured Mindy losing her mind. It was better this way.
So just a few weeks later, I had my mystery mom on the phone. Maybe I’d belong in her world, and I could finally have a real family. And she came with an older sister—it was a dream.
We talked for hours, and neither of us wanted to hang up.
* * *
I LEARNED VERY QUICKLY THAT the one thing that won’t leave you—and would never tell you it doesn’t love you—was money.
My hustling was unmatched. I started escorting and dancing every single night to stack money and make sure I always had cash in my hands at all times.
I was never again going to be the broke little girl walking the Strip with nowhere to go.
For me, trauma has always shown up as a need to do more, more, more. So I decided to also get another square job—something stable. I was married to the game and loved it, but at the same time, I craved some sort of normalcy. I signed up for real estate school.
I flew down the 215 to that first day of class, my stereo bumping Brotha Lynch.
I was feeling proud of myself—sure, I made thousands of dollars every night dancing for skeevy dudes, but it didn’t make me feel accomplished.
It was just a hustle—it was survival. This would be something real.
I pulled up to the school on two tires, figuring I’d make a grand entrance like always.
I needed everyone to know I had arrived.
There was no one in the parking lot.
But head held high, I marched up to the classroom.
I scanned the room for an empty desk, and my eyes locked with a beautiful brunette sitting at the back of the room.
She had long hair, tan skin, green eyes, and freckles kissed all over her face and body.
She was gorgeous. I instantly knew we’d be friends.
The only open seat was across the room from her, and for the next few days, I threw myself into absorbing every word the teacher could possibly tell me.
I wanted to soak up all the knowledge and be the best real estate agent that I could ever be, because remember, I’m very competitive—but mostly with myself.
The hottie in the classroom and I hadn’t spoken to each other yet, but I could tell we were feeling each other out.
In one of the lessons, the teacher asked if we would be willing to sell a house to a couple with a young child—if a pedophile lived next door.
A convicted pedophile at that. The sale would be a huge payout for us as agents.
Everyone in the class nodded yes—they wanted that big chunk of money.
I was totally appalled. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Absolutely the fuck not,” I said. Loudly. The classroom went dead silent, all eyes on me. “You’d be willing to risk this child being molested—or even worse—just for a sale? That’s bad juju for one thing—and just morally incorrect.”
The teacher glared at me.
“Aw, look. We have a hero in the room.” The class laughed, and I felt my chest turn red with anger, and before I knew it, I was arguing with the entire classroom.
The teacher smiled at the chaos, and the fighting was so intense, I even questioned if I was in the wrong.
Sooner or later, the teacher and I were exchanging verbal character assassinations.
He went low, but I went to hell. You could never outinsult me.
“She’s not wrong,” said the sassiest drawl from the corner of the room. “What’s wrong with y’all? Risking a child’s innocence for a payday. Y’all are fuckin’ disgusting.”
I whipped my head around to see who had my back. It was the beautiful brunette. Now that I had someone on my side, the teacher kicked us both out of class for the remainder of the day. We both giggled profusely as we walked out of the classroom.
“Thanks for that. Sorry I got us kicked out,” I said.
“It pissed me off watching them gang up on you,” she said with that beautiful smile. “I’m Grace, by the way.”
“I’m Alisa.” I smiled back.
“You a stripper, too?”
“How did you know?”
“I can just tell,” she said. “We all stick together.”
She was right. And then . . . we were inseparable.
Over the next few weeks, Grace opened up to me slowly.
She’d been a call girl in Texas and fell in love with one of her tricks.
They called themselves boyfriend and girlfriend and lived together in a fancy townhouse on the west side of Vegas.
I didn’t believe in dating tricks, but it didn’t bother me that she did. Different strokes, right?
We both ended up dropping out of that real estate class—things went from bad to worse with the teacher. It didn’t take long before we joined forces and became a dynamic duo in and out of the clubs.