Somebody's Daughter by Phonse; Jessome Page B

talked about the trip to Toronto but he didn’t spend nearly as much time with her and rarely took her to the mall anymore. A new routine developed almost overnight. Kenny would pick her up at the apartment, take her to the escort service, pick her up at the end of the night, give her twenty dollars from the envelope and then take her home.
    It was the same way T-bar shuttled Rachel back and forth from Hollis Street—just as every pimp controlled the every movement of his girls, not out of concern for her welfare but in order to keep track of the money. His money, not hers; Stacey Jackson had become a commodity, and the “trip” was just a come-on K-bar had used to obtain that commodity. She had no emotional significance to him, and never had.
    Stacey didn’t have time to reflect on the change in Kenny’s behaviour or what it might mean. She was too busy fighting a running battle with her mother, as Debbie Howard begged Stacey to stop seeing Kenny and start looking for some new friends, while Stacey defiantly insisted that it was her life to do with as she wished. The-arguments gradually eased off, neither one of them was going to change the other’s mind. Mrs. Howard’s anger created another difficulty for Stacey as she planned her trip. Her mother refused to look after Michael, hoping somehow this would stop Stacey from going. She hadn’t counted on Kenny’s resourcefulness; the pimp suggested Stacey contact her ex-boyfriend, Roger, whose parents adored their grandson. With her child-care problem solved, Stacey was free to head to the big city.
    In the week before leaving Halifax, Stacey met a young prostitute who quickly replaced Rachel as her closest friend. Annie Mae’s “Choosy Suzy” routine of switching from pimp to pimp had brought the nineteen-year-old into T-bar’s stable—she’d heard he and Kenny were going to Toronto, and even though neither of them was a major player, the trip sounded like just what she needed. She met Stacey soon afterward and the experienced prostitute took a liking to the naive beginner. As for Stacey, she found it impossible not to like Annie Mae, a fast talker who filled the younger girl’s head with stories of her travels and exploits telling her about the bars she would visit in Toronto and Montreal. Annie Mae promised to show Stacey the heart of the big city.
    Annie Mae’s upbeat personality, and her excitement about returning to Toronto, made Stacey begin to feel good about herself for the first time since Kenny had dropped her off at the escort service that first night. Neither of the two girls had ever had a best friend in high school—Annie Mae never made it that far in school, while Stacey, who quit early, kept to herself most of the time. High-school chums were indeed what they resembled; they played off each others’ strengths and seemed to know almost from square one how to make each other laugh.
    Annie Mae was the kind of person who lived in a world of tunnel vision where there was only one path to follow. She had chosen prostitution several years before meeting Stacey and had never looked back. Despite all of that, Annie Mae liked her life and was a great cheerleader for anyone wanting to give the streets a try. Stacey did not suffer from tunnel vision because she lacked any vision at all. The teenager had no life plan, no ambition to speak of and absolutely no idea where she would be in five months let alone five years. That lack of general focus resulted in Stacey’s lack of problem solving skills. Like many young women recruited by pimps Stacey had no strength when it came to finding solutions to the problems she faced. When Stacey hit a road block she could see it clearly but she could not see any way around it or over it and she could never see it coming. A serious problem would stop Stacey in her tracks or cause her to try to run backwards. Annie Mae would see the obstacle and not even