Her Russian Millionaire

“Oh, flannels are the worst and they always get popular near winter. I don’t get it, especially for girls. Why would you want to look like a lumberjack? Not that lumberjacks aren’t sexy, but I wouldn’t marry one. I’d sleep with one, like, once. That’s enough lumberjack for me, thank you very much. Oh, that reminds me: Did you read the latest issue of Women’s Journal? There was this article called ‘Ten Signs You Know He’s a Leo’ that I thought was spot fu*king on.” Marie continued to talk at Jalisa rather than talking with her. It kept on in much the same fashion until Jalisa asked if she could be let off work early for a stomachache.

She sat upstairs on the couch and watched Nikita play video games. Now, she was playing something about dragons that was a little too violent for Jalisa’s taste. A towel in front of her had scissors, a spray bottle, and a pile of discarded hair. Her long fingers worked in her hair, carefully undoing her twists.

Messing with her hair was her nervous habit. Seeing Erik run out like that had made her so upset she was completely redoing her hair. Section by section, her hair bounced out into its natural state. She pulled it down and held it straight against her body and found it laid all the way down to her bre*sts. Her twists had gone all the way down to mid back. After being kept in one protective style after another, it was getting a bit too long for Jalisa’s liking.

“I’m gonna cut my hair,” she murmured to Nikita.

“I think you look the best with it long, but it’s your body.” Nikita laughed as her character back flipped off of a mountain.

“Erik ran off today. Just ran out of the bar. He still hasn’t come back. Didn’t even look at me.” Jalisa sent up a silent prayer for him, wherever he was. God would know.

“That explains it.” Nikita frowned. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Erik didn’t return to the bar in the morning. After lunch, Jalisa put her hair into a couple Afro puffs and went shopping with Marie. Although she wanted to get lingerie, she didn’t want Marie to catch on. In the end, she settled for some new jeans and couple tops that were deep blue and vivid green to accentuate the jewel tones in her skin. They stopped by a salon and Jalisa got her hair cut in her favorite natural shape: a deep part to the side with coils filling out her crown.

He didn’t return the next day or the next or the next. A week passed by with no sign of Erik. Jalisa’s worry settled into a deep sadness that rested in the pit of her stomach. A mean part of her brain whispered to her that he had run off to be with his Russian wife. Her mind conjured up images of a stunning skinny white girl with glowing blue eyes.

After nine days and a couple of dodged questions from Marie, she became worried again. He had promised her that he would help her find a way out of this mess. He said she had at least two weeks to get out before Stone really started to trap her into s*x work. If he wanted to break up, fine, but he could at least warn her that she would have to find a way out on her own.

Her meager savings under her bed totaled around two thousand. It was enough to get them a down payment on an apartment and start up a few utilities. It was not nearly enough to start a whole new life. Marie had put her in contact with a man who made fake paperwork for people in a bad situation, and he wanted at least a thousand to do all the paperwork – driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, the whole shabang – for Nikita and her.

“Hey, Stone.” She approached him tentatively. “I was wondering if I could get an advancement on my next few paychecks.”

“Maybe.” He raised an eyebrow, his face giving away nothing. “May I ask why?”

“I want to send Nikita to the orthodontist,” she lied. It was a good lie, well thought out and practiced. Originally, it was for Nikita to go to private school, but she was afraid Stone would want to know where. Orthodontists were expensive and hardly no one remembered their names.

“Oh.” His face softened. “Are her teeth not okay?”

“They look pretty, but they’re painful.” Jalisa forced her facial features to look sad. “Her teeth look fine from the front, but in the back they are really bad. Crowded up and twisted around.”

“Hmmm…” Stone gave her a look of deep concentration. Jalisa bit the inside of her lip and figured she needed to lie better.

“When she was younger, it was worse. There were days when she couldn’t eat solid foods. I still remember my dad running out to get more soup at all hours of the night when she would wake up hungry and hurting from her teeth.” Jalisa felt bad for lying like this, and even worse for involving her sister and father, but it was necessary.