Chapter 19 #2
She straightened. “Oh. Well, we don’t really have a public phone, but there’s no harm in you making a quick call, if you need to.
” She led me inside, stopping at the end of a long counter.
She turned a strange boxy object toward me and lifted the top section to hand to me.
“You have to dial nine before the number.”
It wasn’t anything like the shiny thing James had held, but I recalled something like it in the movies I’d seen. People held this part to their head. I lifted it there. The woman moved farther down the long counter.
A set of buttons with numbers on them must be how I put in the digits James gave me.
I would figure this out.
After opening my notebook to Penny’s number, I pressed the first digit, and the woman said, “Don’t forget to dial nine first.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know how to get rid of the number I’d already done.
I needed help. I had to admit it. “Do you mind showing me how to do this?”
The woman looked me in the eye. “No landline at home?”
“No.”
“Gotta love Gen Z. Okay.” She stepped close and took the phone from me. She set down the top part of the phone and picked it up again, pressing it to her ear.
“You dial nine, otherwise you’re calling within the library.
Then you punch in the numbers here.” She turned my paper to look, then tapped out the numbers.
When she was done, she handed the top of the phone to me.
“Ask for the person you want to speak to. The manager probably won’t answer the phone. Somebody else will.”
I nodded and pressed the phone to my ear.
A voice came on the line. “Thank you for calling your friendly neighborhood Shelfmart. If you know your party’s extension, enter it now.”
Party? Extension? How did I enter?
The woman watched my face and then took the receiver.
“Oh, these automated systems. If you press zero, you get a person.”
She pressed the zero, then spoke. “Is your manager, Penny St. Martin, there?” She nodded. “I think they’re getting her.” She passed the phone to me. “Good luck.”
I didn’t want her to go. She was the only thing that had gotten me this far.
A woman’s voice spoke into my ear. “This is Penny.”
Time to do this. “My name is Ava Roberts. Frank at the Shelfmart where you used to be hired me as a stocker, but James said you might need someone at your store.”
“James is a good kid. I always need more stockers. What shifts can you work?”
I had no idea what a shift was, so I said, “I can work anytime.”
“That’s great. I lost a day stocker. You’re not in school?”
“No. I’m eighteen.” It felt strange to say it. Only yesterday I’d been sixteen.
“Great. Can you be here this afternoon? We’ll get the paperwork done and you can officially start tomorrow.”
“I will. Where is the store?”
She gave me an address, and I carefully wrote it in my notebook.
“Thank you,” I said. “Tell Frank I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. We trade people all the time.”
The phone clicked, then made a strange, even sound. I guessed the call was over.
I held the phone for a moment, my body feeling like sparks were firing inside. I’d done a big thing. I had a job. That had to be the hardest part. I’d get paid money. I could shop. Now, I had to find a place to live. It sounded like this store was really far. Mother would never find me.
I set the top of the phone back in its resting place. The woman who helped me drifted back over.
“Did it work?”
“It did,” I smiled. “I have a job there. I need to figure out how to get there. I don’t have a car. I suppose I could walk.”
She turned my notebook around. “That’s in Austin proper. Way too far to walk. We can look up a bus schedule.”
“Does the bus cost money?” I hadn’t thought to steal any from my mother, not that she’d have any. We spent it at the store.
Her crystal-gray eyes searched my face. “You’re in a real tough spot, aren’t you?”
“I am.” Before I could stop myself, words tumbled out in a rush. “My mother didn’t want me to have a job. I had to give her a sleepy pill to escape. I don’t know how to get online and this was the first time I’ve ever used a phone.”
The woman pressed her hand to her throat. “Do you have any other family in town?”
“No. It’s only me and my mother. But she was lying to me. Something bad is happening. I just can’t remember.”
“Come here, child.” She led me behind the counter and sat me in a chair. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” I pulled out the folder and showed her my birth certificate. “I didn’t know I was eighteen until last night. She told me I was sixteen. I think she did it so I wouldn’t run away.”
“Good Lord.”
The woman glanced around the room. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for.
“Should I call the police?” she asked.
“What will they do?”
“Ask you questions. Try to help.”
My body trembled. “Aren’t police for jail?”
“Your mother has probably already called them.” The woman bit her lip. “There’s a women’s shelter in Austin. Let’s see if they’ll take you in. They can help you straighten all this out.”
“What’s a shelter?”
“They help women in trouble. Let me look up their number.”
A long-held breath escaped from my chest. A place where people didn’t know me, but still, they’d help. I had no idea such a thing could exist.
After an hour or so, a taxi came for me. The woman at the library said I wouldn’t have to pay for it. After a long ride, we stopped at the biggest house I’d ever seen. There was a locked gate outside. Mother couldn’t get to me here.
A kind, gray-haired woman let me in and told me to wait on a sofa, and someone would get me settled.
While I sat waiting in the living room, women walked in and out, some of them plopping beside me to talk.
Some were angry. Others were sad. They told me stories of men who hurt them.
Boyfriends. Husbands. Fathers. Compared to them with their bruises and broken arms and endless tears, I wasn’t sure my life had been so bad.
Eventually, a woman in jeans and a T-shirt, with short curly hair and bare feet, sat by me on the sofa. “Ava, right?” Her voice was soothing, like a trickle of water.
“Ava Roberts. I’m eighteen.” I opened my folder.
“I’m Sheila. The police are here for you.”
I snapped the folder shut and held it to my chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” My voice sounded strange.
“You did not. You did nothing wrong. And I plan to send them away, but I need to talk to you first.”
She wasn’t sending me back to Mother. I drew in a shaking breath. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re going to stay here for right now. But your mother marked you as a special needs person who should be returned. What is she talking about?”
I opened my folder again to show her the hospital papers.
“I have epilepsy. She wouldn’t let me get a job because she said I was sick.
But I got a job. I’m supposed to start working for Penny St. Martin at Shelfmart tomorrow.
But she said I couldn’t. But she also said I was sixteen.
But I’m not sixteen. I’m eighteen. She lied.
I don’t know how a phone works. I don’t know anything. ”
Shiela squeezed my arm. “That’s okay. You’re going to be just fine. We’ll get you to a doctor right away. I’ll take you to Shelfmart. We’ll get your new job handled. Don’t worry, Ava. You’re an adult, and you can find your way.”
“But the police are here.”
“Can I borrow these papers for a minute? I’ll explain things to them. It will be okay.”
Could I trust her? I looked into her eyes. They were brown and kind, with creases in the corners. She reminded me of Mary Poppins, but only in the eyes.
“Okay.” I passed her the folder.
“I’ll be right back.”
I sat on the sofa, waiting. A woman in a chair in the corner watched me. “Mothers are hell, girl. Good on you.”
Sheila came back and told me the police were gone, and I would not be returning to my mother for now. They would not let my mother know where I was. I could return to her in my own time, if I chose.
She showed me a room with both low beds and high beds. I got assigned washing dishes and putting away the dinner food. These were things I knew how to do, and I was happy to help.
Some of the women had children, so as the days passed, sometimes I did their chores for them, too. I didn’t mind. I liked the noise and the talking and the TV with way more than four movies.
I started my job at Shelfmart. I couldn’t figure out why James said Penny was so terrible.
She let me work the hours I wanted, and I enjoyed arranging the colorful bags of chips and cookies and treats Mother never had the money to buy.
I learned to ride the bus and navigate the different schedules. I could go anywhere.
The world was so big!
I asked Sheila if it would be okay if I got a phone. There was one at the shelter that everyone could use, but to have my own in my pocket seemed like the ultimate independence.
She suggested one where you only pay for the minutes that you use, since the other kind was expensive and required credit cards and an address to send the bills.
So I got one. Penny was the first person to get my number. Then I gave it to Sheila.
As soon as I put together enough money, Sheila said she would help me find a place to live. She showed me how to make a budget for how much I could pay for rent, bills, and fun things.
I saw a doctor, and he confirmed I had epilepsy.
He told me I’d been in the hospital when I was seventeen and had started new meds.
They were very important because they would prevent the seizures that would make me lose my memory.
If I didn’t take them, I could have a seizure at any time and forget who I was.
When I picked up the pills at the Shelfmart pharmacy, I didn’t recognize them. Mother gave me sleepy pills and vitamins. But never these. And they were expensive. I didn’t have to pay for them because Sheila got me on some sort of medical assistance plan. But why hadn’t Mother gotten assistance?
Maybe she hadn’t wanted me to take them. If I knew I was eighteen, I would have left her. My anger burned hot. More lies. She hadn’t kept me safe at all.
I had the pharmacist check to see if I had taken this medicine before. He said yes, he’d found a prescription from a year ago. But it stopped being refilled.
No medicine, no protection.
Mother let it happen.
She wasn’t the man behind the curtain.
She was the wicked witch.
Obviously, my old boyfriend hadn’t been any help. No one had helped me. And no one would now. I had to take this road on my own.
I couldn’t dwell on Tucker or Grandma Flowers or the friends I mentioned in my notes. I lived for today. For my job. For the women I helped at the shelter. The only thing I really knew for sure was to stay far away from Mother.