My Name Is Venus Black(31)



I turn in the application, feeling deflated. After getting turned down at a few more places, I can feel a terrible blister forming on my heel from the Goodwill dress shoes. On the way back to the hotel, several men whistle or make comments. I flip each one off—until one of them starts to follow me, saying, “Yes! I will fuck you!”



After that, I realize the best way to handle this kind of thing is to look strong and unafraid and just keep walking. This is what I learn on my first night of freedom and the first day of my life as Annette Higgman: Men on the outside can be just as disgusting as boys on the inside.





The next morning, I wake up amazed. I stretch out my arms and legs like a snow angel and roll all around the enormous queen-sized bed, making happy groaning sounds. Even though this bed is lumpy and old, it feels pretty wonderful after sleeping on a hard, narrow single for more than five years.

As I lie there, I still can’t believe I’m never going to wake up at Echo Glen again. I’m never going to hear morning call, never going to file into the pistachio-green cafeteria for runny eggs and soggy toast. Never going to tromp through the rain to morning classes.

Not that Echo Glen was near as bad as I anticipated. Most of the time it didn’t feel like a prison but more like a super-strict boarding school stripped of frills and fun. We were treated like students, stayed in cottages, six to a building—separated by gender, of course. We all wore regular clothes, most of them donated.

Despite my bitterness at being there, I liked most of the staff, as well as the teachers. There was a lot of turnover among the employees, but thankfully it was usually the mean ones who didn’t last long.

At first, I couldn’t believe it when I found myself doing the same old thing—excelling academically, trying to impress my teachers, and making sure most people liked me. Sharon told me once that she thought I needed adult approval I never got at home.



But I disagreed. I never cared about getting Inez’s approval, and it was the last thing I wanted from Raymond. I think I got on well with teachers and staff because when you live with mini-criminals, it only makes sense to be friendly and cooperate with the few people not in that category.

It felt weird last night to walk around not knowing who is good or bad, kind or dangerous. Twice I was pretty sure that people did double takes or looked at me funny. Not necessarily because they recognized me, but perhaps because I was so conspicuously alone. How come being all by myself felt somehow weird or wrong, like something to be ashamed of?

Oh yeah. Shame. Why am I lying here in bed when there is potentially so much more shame to be had?

I jump out of bed and throw on some clothes before I race downstairs. There’s a newsstand just outside the hotel—the morning paper, the Post-Intelligencer. As I insert my quarter, I note with some relief that I’m not on the cover.

This probably means I won’t be front-page news when The Seattle Times comes out later this afternoon, either. I’m sure Everett’s Herald will put me front and center, though. One of their reporters has asked me so many times over the years for an interview; she was probably there at the bus stop yesterday.

I decide not to look at the paper on the street. I go back to my room, grab my purse, and walk to a bakery I noticed yesterday when I got off the bus. It stood out because of the name, the Big Dipper. Even though the logo is a doughnut being dipped in coffee, naturally my mind went to the constellation.

The place is kind of funky inside, with bright-orange walls and turquoise upholstered booths. They have a large selection of baked goods in a glass case, but there’s also a small breakfast and lunch menu.

I order an omelet—unheard of at Echo, by the way. And then I can’t resist adding a bear claw, along with coffee and cream.

After I pay, the girl at the counter hands me a number on a stick. I take it, but my confusion must show. “We bring it to you when it’s ready,” she explains. She has long blond lashes and no mascara.



“Oh!” I say, feeling so dumb. Before Echo, most of my eating out happened at Herfy’s or McDonald’s. I take my number 23 to a corner booth and sit on the side facing the wall. Then I wonder if I’m making myself even more obvious by trying not to be.

I remind myself that I need to act like a normal person, not someone in hiding. Then again, normal people aren’t reading the morning paper to make sure they’re not in it. Taking a deep, nervous breath, I open the front page and quickly scan the spread. Nothing. I keep turning pages until I get to the “Local News” section, and there I am: RELEASE OF TEENAGE KILLER REIGNITES CONTROVERSY.

Shit.

Under the headline there’s a picture of me standing at the bus stop in Issaquah yesterday before I spotted the reporters and before I got my hair in a braid. It’s a full-body shot, showing off my high-water jeans, which makes me cringe. Next to that picture is the original mug shot from my arrest at thirteen.

I look surprisingly the same in both pictures, except in this new one, my hair—by far my most prominent feature—is blowing in the wind, so I look even more…scary? That’s how it hits me. I look like a tall, skinny, scary person.

The other thing that jumps out is the thickness of my eyebrows, which seem to take up half my face. I make a mental note to buy some tweezers. I’ve never plucked my eyebrows in my life, and now I realize that doing so might do a lot to change the way my face looks.

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