She grabbed some toilet paper without looking back at me and hastily dabbed her mouth. “Yeah.”
Rising awkwardly on stiletto heels, she blundered to the sink and noisily drank down some water and then spat it out. She wiped her mouth again, this time with the back of her arm. “Sorry. Not used to cocktails.” Turning to the mirror, she ran her hands through her hair, fluffing it out and studying me with heavily lidded eyes. “What’s your name? Mine’s Kara.” She offered a moist hand for a handshake.
“Evie.”
“You look bad, honey. You should come back out there and have a drink with me. You’ll get a bit happier, guaranteed.” Her accent was American—sweet and slightly Southern.
“I don’t feel like a drink, and I think you’ve had your limit.” I sounded uptight.
“Oh yeah? Bet I could drink lots more now. And you’d feel better if you did. I saw you at the roulette table. You lost pretty badly.”
I bristled. “Happens to everyone.” I made a show of looking through things in my handbag, as though I’d misplaced something, and that was the reason I’d been standing here in the bathroom looking lost. Surely she’d get the hint.
“If losing makes you sad, maybe you’d be better off not playing,” she persisted.
She sounded young. It was something a kid would say. I eyed her properly, letting my mind reverse-engineer her heavy makeup back to a bare face. I was right—she was extremely young. A teenager.
I snatched some paper towelling from a reel and dabbed the sweat from my brow. “I’m not sad. Just angry with myself.”
She shrugged a lazy shoulder. “There’s a way out, y’know.”
“Rob a bank?” My laugh sounded worse than hollow in my ears.
“No, you don’t have to rob a bank. You’re pretty. And smart. I mean, I’ve seen you here before, playing poker. You have to be smart to even play those tournaments.”
“So, what’s this magical way out?”
“You can make money just by talking with lonely people. Go on dates. Stuff like that.”
“Escort services, right?” I said dryly. “That’s what you’re talking about? Well, I’m married.”
“That doesn’t matter. You don’t have to sleep with them. And it’s not being an escort, exactly. We’re called companions. We set our own rules.”
“That’s what you’re doing? That man you were with tonight—you’re his companion?”
She lifted her pointed chin. “Yes.”
“Yeah, it’s not for me. Thanks anyway.”
“Just trying to help. It’s just a way of helping yourself when you have, y’know, an addiction.”
“I don’t have an—”
“If something’s bad for you, but you keep doing it, isn’t that a problem?”
“It just wasn’t my night,” I said stiffly.
Her pale eyes clouded, and she folded her arms in tight against her body. “I saw your face when you lost. And I can see you’ve been crying now. You’re in a bad place, honey. I’m an addict, too. Just a different kind. I’ve been addicted to cocaine for the past four months.”
“God. Cocaine?”
“I’m okay because I’m getting help. I’m staying with the man I came here with—Wilson. He gives me money, anything I need.”
“Don’t you have anyone else who can help you out? Friends? Family?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have anyone here. I came out here from America to study. My second year of college. I had an Aussie friend I was sharing a dorm room with. But she’s the one who got into drugs first. I don’t know where she is now. I couldn’t pay for the dorm room on my own. And besides, all the money was going toward drugs. I slept in homeless shelters for a few weeks. Before Wilson found me.”
I softened my tone. “Can’t you go home?”
“No. I don’t want Mom seeing me like this.”
“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She hesitated before saying, “Seventeen.”
“You’re seventeen? You shouldn’t even be here.”
She shrugged. “Wilson likes the roulette. So I come here with him. Better than hanging out in his apartment all alone.”
She was still a child. A child that could be in danger, and she was all alone. I couldn’t imagine Willow and Lilly ever being alone and at risk at this tender age, but if they were, I’d want someone to help them. “You don’t know anything about this man. You could be getting yourself into all kinds of trouble. Might be the hardest thing you ever have to do, but you should just call your mother. Tell her everything.”