The Blue Room Vol. 5 by Kailin Gow Page A

think about the way
they called warnings to all the businessmen who went into those glittering
golden dens of iniquity in search of money, or drink, or drugs, or flesh. I
think about them and how they warned so many people, but about how nobody took
them seriously, and nobody ever stopped to look at them.
                There
was no street preacher outside the Blue Room, but I wonder – what if there had
been one? What if he had said to me: “Staci, you're going down a dangerous
road, and there's no way out for you.” What if he had said to me: “Staci, this
is not the path the Lord would have you take.” Would I have listened?
                I
don't think so. But I don't know. Sometimes I like to think that I could have
stopped myself from ending up here: a prostitute in a high-end hotel, working
for some of the most powerful men in the world, yet feeling more powerless than
I had ever felt in my entire life. If I'd only cared less about what happened
to Rita, maybe – if my desire to track down what happened to my best friend, to
seek revenge, hadn't been so strong...
                If
I hadn't had such powerful feelings for Mr. X...
                If
I hadn't slept with Terrence, and even started falling for him, too...
                So
many if onlys.
                So
many what ifs.
                Maybe
that's what life is: in Vegas, in Hollywood, in all these places are made and
lost. Just a whole lot of what ifs , ands, and buts. Just a lot of
excuses for the way things turned out.
                But
of course, when I was four, something different happened altogether. When I was
four, I noticed that it wasn't just God or dumb luck or blind fate that made me
different from the other little girls I saw at school, with their neatly
pressed dresses and the ribbons in their hair, the ones who always looked so
well-cared-for, so well fed. It was something else.
                Every
morning, they had a mommy and a daddy to drop them off at school. Two parents
holding them, kissing them, stroking their hairs, smoothing their forehead.
                And
me, I just had my mother, who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders,
who always looked like tears were standing in her eyes
                Just
me and her. That's all I had. That's all the world to me.
                And
somehow I got it into my head that this, this was the source of the
difference between me and all those other kids, between my mother and all those
other safe, warm, well-fed mothers I saw after school in the hallways, on the
stairs. If I'd only had a father, I thought, it would be different.
                But
I didn't want to ask. At least, not at first. I didn't dare to.
                My
mother had so much on her mind, already. So much on her plate. And even at that
age, deep down, I knew that there were some things that would cause my
already-suffering mother great pain. Somehow I knew that this – this great,
gaping absence – was one of them. Children are smarter than adults give them
credit for. Especially if they've suffered. Suffering sharpens all the senses.
It doesn't build character, but it certainly builds strength. Children who
suffer don't have the luxury of waiting for things to happen to them. They have
to learn enough about the world around them to control it. That's what I did.
Or at least, what I thought I did.
                I
waited. I bided my time. I held off until such time as I was able to ask the
question, the great question, the question that now dominated my whole childish
life and became my only obsession.
                I
waited until Christmas Eve, which my mother never had off. I waited at the
motel, alone, under the watchful eye of Frank the receptionist, who smoked a
lot and cursed a lot and let a lot of prostitutes upstairs but had a soft spot
for me and made sure I