No Place Safe Read Free

to a small child even though she looked older than I did.
    “Who the hell are you? Whoever you are, I don’t want you touching me.” She looked fifteen, but her mouth sounded thirty. “How old are you? You don’t look like a real nurse.”
    “I’m not a nurse. All I want to do is take off your makeup. The nurse will be in soon to get you ready for your exam.”
    “All right, but don’t touch the lashes. They fake, and it’s hard as hell to get them on just right.”
    “They have to come off, too.”
    “You try and I’ll slap you.”
    I saw at this point that I was no match for the woman-child, and decided I’d remove everything but the lashes. The nurse could handle that. I tried to make conversation, and besides, I was dying to know what a ten-year-old was doing in the gynecology ward.
    “What procedure are you in here for?”
    “None of your damn business.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared at me while I wiped cotton over her clown-red cheeks.
    “You know I can just look at your chart.”
    “Then why you asking me?”
    I realized that was the end of our conversation and removed the rest of the makeup in silence, a little embarrassed that the woman-child scared me. I didn’t scare easily—I’d been in more fights than a girl ever should, had a knife pulled on me once by some high school girls, and hid in a closet while a man who had been stalking Ma broke into our house. But this ten-year-old made me nervous.
    When I finished removing her makeup, the girl touched her lashes to make sure I hadn’t tricked her. She watched as I walked to the end of the bed and picked up the chart hanging there. I avoided her stare but felt it just the same. The doctors in Emergency had her admitted because she had gonorrhea. I wondered if she’d have to get the D&C procedure that made grown women cry out. I’d seen the makeup on their faces, knew of the diagnoses with women who had the disease so advanced that it had spread throughout their bodies, but would have never connected those women  and their self-described profession to this girl. I bet none of the candy stripers in the shiny, new suburban hospitals ever removed the makeup of a ten-year-old prostitute.
     
    *
     
    I’d thought about the doll-sized prostitute throughout the rest of my day, wondering if she was afraid of being in the streets since those two boys had died. Did it make it any more dangerous for her, or was her world scary enough that two dead boys she’d never met were the least of her problems?
    Ma was reading the paper that night after dinner while Bridgette and I watched TV. Normally, talking to Ma while she had the paper in hand was not a wise thing. She’d shush anyone who disturbed her while she watched the news or read the newspaper—my grandparents, houseguests, it didn’t matter. But thoughts of the girl in the hospital wouldn’t let go of me.
    “Ma, guess what happened today.” Right away, I knew I should have just told her, and the look she gave me over the newspaper confirmed it. It said, I know you don’t want me to play guessing games while I’m reading the paper. I pretended not to notice. “I had to take makeup off a prostitute’s face.”
    “Mmm.”
    “She was wearing fake eyelashes and said she’d slap me if I touched them. She just about jumped out of the bed when I tried to take them off.” I thought I should liven up the story a bit to get a better response.
    “You should’ve let the nurses take care of it,” she said from behind the paper.
    “The craziest part of it is that she had gonorrhea and is only ten years old.”
    Ma said nothing, just kept reading the paper like meeting a ten-year-old prostitute with the clap happened every day. I was getting mad, and wished I had the nerve to tear the paper from her hands. My story was every bit as interesting as whatever she was reading.
    “Don’t you think that’s something?” It was more a demand than a question.
    Ma just said, “You