noon. The girl looked up at the woman and stretched. “O my God, that was the best sleep I’ve had in a year,” she blurted out. “It felt like I was in a coma. I didn’t wake up, and I didn’t have any dreams either. I’m like a new person.”
Ebby smiled down at her. “You are a new person,” she told her. “Today, you will begin to chart the course of your future, and we are here to help you along the way.”
Alessa closed her eyes and smiled. She prayed that Ebby was right. She wanted to believe her, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. Alessa followed her into another office.
They both sat down on a sofa set against a pale yellow wall, the sunlight pouring in through the beautiful old window. “Tell me about yourself,” Ebby urged.
No one had ever asked her to do that before. What was there to say?
Alessa began cautiously. “Well, about nine months ago, I left home. I was living in North Philadelphia for a while. Then I decided to move back into the city. I came here, hoping you could help me get a job and get me on my feet. I’m not even sure if you do help people to get jobs. My friend told me that this was a homeless shelter and that I should come here.”
“That’s exactly what we do, and I’m glad your friend told you about us. I suspect you’re about eighteen or so. Is that right?”
“Yes, I’m eighteen,” Alessa confirmed. She closed her eyes and pulled in a few long breaths, remembering how she’d spent her eighteenth birthday turning tricks at the bar.
“Okay. Well, can you tell me why you left home so young? Did your parents throw you out?”
Ebby could tell Alessa was uneasy by the way she squirmed in her seat and avoided eye contact. The older woman decided to try to put Alessa’s fears to rest.
“Maybe I should tell you a little bit about us first,” Ebby began. “We will never judge you. We are only here to help. Young women come here all the time, women who have been battered by their partners, women who have been raped. Some have lived on the streets since they were very young, and others are just hitting hard times. We even have those who got pregnant and their parents threw them out of the house, leaving them nowhere to go. Have you ever been pregnant, Alessa?”
“No, thank God! Not yet. I don’t want to get pregnant until I have a husband and a home.”
Ebby rubbed her forehead. “Alessa, you can trust me. There isn’t too much I haven’t heard. I’ve been working here for a long time. Is there someone you are running from? If so, I’ll need to know, so we can keep an eye out—not only for your safety but for the safety of the others who are staying here.”
Alessa knew that if Harlin showed up at the shelter and did anything like she had witnessed him doing, she could never live with herself. “Well,” she ventured, “there is this guy who I’m sort of running from. I don’t think he’ll come here because everything he does is in North Philly.”
“Okay,” Ebby said. “Good. That’s a place for us to start. What does he look like?”
Alessa gave her Harlin’s name, home address, and a description of what he looked like.
“Could he be violent?” Ebby asked.
Alessa wrung her hands together. “Yes, maybe,” she answered, worried they’d throw her out.
Ebby knew she had to earn the girl’s trust. Sam had filled Ebby in on how Alessa was dressed the previous night. She figured this Harlin character was her pimp. They had seen this often. Young girls hooked on drugs and forced into prostitution. Ebby had to wonder about this, though, as the girl seemed sober. Maybe something else was going on with Alessa?
In Ebby’s line of work, two things helped her to help others: trust and respect. Ebby suspected there was a lot more to Alessa’s story than she was willing to divulge. Despite the girl’s aloof, defensive façade, she liked her. There was an air of vulnerability about her that made Ebby curious to know more. She showed Alessa around the rest of the facility, and soon afterward, the two sat down in the small cafeteria to have lunch together. They spoke easily and found they shared a similar sense of humor.
Alessa could be amusing and theatrical when she spoke. Her vocabulary was limited, and her sentences were peppered with profanities. Ebby was no prude. Though she didn’t resort to that language herself, she heard it all the time from the people who lived there.
Alessa liked Ebby but was still intimidated by her. She was afraid Ebby might share her secrets with others. Besides, she secretly feared that she was judging her. How could someone like Ebby, highly educated and who seemed to have her life together, not judge her?
They were drinking iced tea back in Ebby’s office when she asked Alessa, “So, why did you leave home so young?”
Alessa hesitated. She wanted to take a leap of faith and tell her everything, but the thought that Ebby might call the police held her back. After all, she had run away from home when she was a minor.
“You know, Alessa, you’re eighteen years old,” Ebby said encouragingly. “Unless you killed someone, no one can hurt you or blame you for telling me the truth.”
Alessa hesitated a moment. “Okay,” she conceded. “But I want you to know that I’m nervous about telling you everything.”
Ebby nodded as she sat back in her chair. “You should only tell me as much as you’re comfortable with, Alessa. You don’t have to tell me anything you feel I shouldn’t know.”
Alessa took a deep breath and described her childhood and her relationship with her uncle. It was almost as if she were talking about someone else’s life. Ebby listened intently. Even as she was relating the incidents from her childhood, Alessa hoped she wasn’t giving too much away. She was terrified that Ebby would think badly of her, but couldn’t stop the flow of words that poured from her lips. With great difficulty, she described the climax of events that forced her to run away from home. She had also confided in Ebby what Carl had done to her at the Rope.
Ebby had seen and heard much during her days here, but never had the incidents been described in such detail and explicit language. Alessa held nothing back. Bit by bit, she described the tragedy of her youth. Ebby’s stomach turned sour. When Alessa came to the bit about Rhonda, Ebby gasped in horror, her hand shooting up to her mouth in a reflexive gesture. Alessa explained how Zoe had helped her and how she had ended up in North Philly.
Ebby’s mind started fast-forwarding to Alessa’s current situation, trying to imagine what might have brought her here. She figured the girl would tell her she had prostituted to survive. So she was stunned when she heard about the rape in the alley, her stint at the go-go bar, the antics of Harlin and his crew, and the lap dances he had “taught” her. She listened in horror as Alessa told her of the many men Harlin had forced her to “service” at the bar. Ebby tried keeping her feelings to herself, but her furrowed forehead and open mouth gave her away.
Finally, Alessa described how Jay had caught her with one of the bar patrons and fired her. She did not spare Ebby the details of what Harlin had planned for her the previous night before she fled from his clutches and showed up at the shelter. In her anxiety to establish that despite all that had happened to her, she was a normal human, capable of normal human feelings, Alessa also told Ebby about her relationships with Tasha and Shiver. She explained how much she loved both women and how acutely she would miss them. Through her words, she tried to convince Ebby—and herself—that she wasn’t a bad person.
What struck Ebby most forcefully was the way Alessa described some of the most traumatic events of her life as if they were nothing out of the ordinary. It was precisely for this reason that she had entered into this line of work. She was here for people like Alessa.
