Page 4 of My Super Sexy Spy
I started to walk past him when he reached out and circled my wrist. “You going to be okay, Beth? You know I do care about you.”
Was I going to be okay? I was going to survive. I knew that much about myself. “I’m always okay, Jared.”
Then I shocked the shit out of him by pulling on the bottom of my nose and turning my piercing out so that the knobs now dangled from each nostril. He gasped and that was sad, too. Two years, and he’d had no clue.
“Cursing, and now this,” he said, pointing to me. “Did I even know you?”
I shrugged. Probably not. But I suppose that was the point, too. I wanted toappearnormal. It didn’t mean I was normal.
I jerked my wrist out of his grasp. “Have a good life, Jared.”
Then I turned to the guy at the next table, the one who’d been pretending not to listen to our conversation; his head was turned away from me so I was basically talking to the top of his baseball cap.
“Show’s over, buddy,” I told him. “You can go back to your calamari.”
* * *
The Speedline had taken me from the restaurant in the burbs of New Jersey, over the bridge, into Philadelphia. I switched from that to take the train up a few blocks closer to Northern Liberties where I lived. Walking down the block I stopped in front of my building, The Northern Liberties Plaza Grande.
This was one of those areas of Philadelphia that was being gentrified and there were days I was astounded I actually lived in a community like this. With a Starbucks on the corner and everything.
Sometimes when I thought about where I came from to how I got here, it almost seemed like someone else’s life. A prickle of unease crept over me and had me looking over my shoulder. Cars ran by, people walked along the brick sidewalks. Nothing at all strange at this time of night on a Saturday.
But I still felt…something. Like that creepy feeling I was being watched.
Since, in general, I wasn’t a trusting person, I chocked it up to paranoia, because, among the numerous hurtful but truthful things Jared had said to me, he was right about the fact there would be no reason for anyone to be following me. I didn’t give people a reason to know me at all.
I made my way inside the building to the top floor. I owned my condo outright and as soon as the door was closed behind me, I felt like I could breathe again. Another truthful thing about me…I hated leaving my home.
Shit. Was I becoming an agoraphobic?
It wasn’t like I wasafraidof leaving my space…I just preferred being here. Because here wasn’t out there in the world where I’d lived on my own for years. Here wasn’t the streets. Here there was food in the fridge, a bed with soft pillows and a blanket.
People left their homes because they always knew it would be there to go back to. I’d only had that assurance for the past few years.
I plopped on the couch and felt sorry for myself.
It wasn’t my fault my mother was fucked up. It wasn’t my fault I had no father. It wasn’t my fault I had to run away from home at seventeen. It was either leave my mom and suffer the consequences, or stay and suffer the consequences.
I’d decided to take a chance on me. And outside of what was a pretty horrible year living on the streets of Philadelphia, I’d mostly been successful.
Not that I’d had a plan when I left home. I’d only been trying to get away from my mom and the drugs and the Johns. Men who’d started to ask if they could get a two-for-one.
When that began to happen, I knew I had to go, because I also knew if my mother thought she could get more money for me, she’d pimp me out in a heartbeat. I truly thought I could take care of myself better alone on the streets.
One of the things you realize about being homeless is that it’s pretty boring. There was nothing but time and figuring out ways to kill it. Getting through the day so you could figure out how and where you were going to get through the night.
I spent a lot of time at the library. First reading. Then getting my GED, then, at some point, I started monopolizing the library’s computer which had free access to the internet.
I learned what blogging was, and one thing led to another, and I started my own blog.
At the time, I was reading these travel books. Describing places all around the country, then around the world. Tour guidebooks that told the reader what time the museums were open, and the best restaurants to visit, and all kinds of minutia.
For me, those books were an escapist fantasy. Whensomedaymy life wouldn’t suck. AndsomedayI’d get a job and have money to travel. AndsomedayI wouldn’t worry about where my next meal was coming from.
But the thing about all those guidebooks is that they were pretty bland. No real descriptions or heart. Just facts.
So that’s what I wrote about. Places where I wanted to go. Only I wrote about them as if I’d actually been there. I would research the shit out of a city or area or town, use Google maps and images. It was almost like I was there.
