Anonymity by Janna McMahan Page A

lesbo?”
    “No.”
    “So, I repeat, what do you want?”
    “Can I buy you a cup of coffee or a sandwich, maybe?”
    Her eyes roamed over Emily, sizing her up for weirdness.
    “No thanks. Just ate.” She pulled her hood back over her head and walked away.
    Emily's inclination was to follow her again, but that would be no way to gain the girl's trust. She hoped Lorelei was on her way to a shelter or soup kitchen, anywhere but the alley or one of those squatter camps scattered along Shoal Creek.

Lorelei
    SHE HATED the story people. You couldn't escape them. In every city there were the reporters who were so terribly interested in interviewing street surfing teenagers. Even worse were people with cameras. Being photographed was an invasion of privacy, but people just assumed if you lived on the streets that you didn't deserve any privacy.
    If you were spanging, just looking for a little spare change, people wanted to take your picture with their camera phone before they gave you any money. Some people snapped pictures without asking, like you were just another stop on their sightseeing tour or an animal in a zoo.
    The worst were the video peepers. Television station people usually asked before they shot. But college kids out to get a story for a school project showed no respect. They lurked around, waiting for something to happen, for some of the streets to get into a fight. They'd ask, “What's that tattoo mean?” “When's the last time you ate?” “You going to sleep in the park tonight?” They tried to incite the street punks so they could tape random reactions. They always loved a good fight.
    One time, Lorelei had awakened to a video camera stuck into the hedge she was sleeping beneath. It scared her and she shouted at the guy and he ran off. She'd wondered if she was on the news that night, her feet sticking out from under shrubs.
    Gutter punks knew that all reporters were liars. They portrayed the homeless as aimless party animals, addicts, or even worse, mentally unstable, pathetic people nobody would ever hire or trust. Pick a reality—partier or pathetic—apparently, there was no in-between. Simple was so much easier for most people. The truth was too complex.
    Most kids hated the streets. Homelessness wasn't an adventure or a vacation. It was hunger and sleep deprivation, wet and cold. It was embarrassment and hostility and fear. Everybody had a different story, but what it all boiled down to was no safe alternative.
    It didn't matter if your daddy beat you or your mama was a drunk or if you had taken off because there wasn't food at home. Everybody ended up without options. So you tried to find friends and make a little community to protect each other. You tried to blend in so nobody would run you off of a good squat or turn you over to the cops.
    But there were always the really strange kids who attracted attention and ruined it for everybody. Usually it was the foster scare kids. They didn't care about anything, which was what made them so scary. They were the cutters and thieves and messed up crackheads. The ones who flung curses when they begged. Outcasts of the outcasts.
    These were usually the types reporters ended up taping. The reporters all said they were looking for human interest stories, but they weren't really interested in humans. They only wanted an outrageous story, something to make people gawk. They tried to make you think they cared, but they didn't. Nobody cared. Nobody.
    Lorelei never gave an interview, never let anyone have her image. She hated the cowardly stalkeratzis with their zoom lenses. There was truth in the Native American belief that photography captured a part of the soul. That part was called dignity.
    Lorelei guarded what little she had left.
    She wandered up Congress. Normally, she would have cut over a street to avoid the bar and club crowd, but tonight she needed something to eat and the drop-in wasn't serving. She'd have to spange.
    It was both easier and harder to