Sybil's Sitters 7 - Playing Dolls with Daddy

Messy

Niki

My name is Niki, but you should probably call me messy, because I'm a complete mess.

My life was reasonably normal through about the second grade. I'm not sure what triggered the change, but the results were devastating. My mother went from chatting in car lines to trading everything she had for her next high in a little over two years. Without going into details, we'll just say that I wasn't excluded from that list of everything.

This led eventually to my moving in with my father. He made no secret of his disdain for me, the only upside of my moving in the child support he no longer had to pay. He pretty much ignored me, giving me enough allowance to eat like a bird and dress like an orphan. Right after I started high school, he just left. I've been on my own since, working odd jobs that don't require an ID or anything else that might get me noticed. I'm old enough now that I don't have to worry about family services, but with no diploma, decent clothes, or even a permanent address, I'm not exactly living the easy life. I was determined not to turn to drugs, which were unavoidable at the strip club I worked at briefly. It was basically just a front for prostitution, anyway, and I wasn't that desperate. Yet.

My current job sucked. I worked at one of those sports bars where all the girls run around half dressed getting groped by drunk customers. They didn't pay us, just let us work for tips. I'm not old enough to serve alcohol, so I bus tables for a small cut of the tip money. All the groping for a tenth of the pay.

I was hanging out in back on my break sucking on a vape someone left on their table. I'm not sure what I'd hoped for, but it wasn't this strawberry flavored nicotine. I preferred being outdoors despite the chill afforded by my micro skirt and crop top, and the vape gave me an excuse. Inside the girls would be discussing the men at their tables purely on their monetary value. It's a job, so I get it, but it just felt like more of the same BS they discussed at the strip club.

I watched this couple tangled in a too friendly embrace between their cars in the lot. He looked wealthy and refined, a man who got whatever he wanted which, in this case, was a girl half his age that looked like she'd stepped out of a fashion magazine. They were a good match, to be honest, both of them the American ideal of their gender.

He gave her a long kiss before pulling reluctantly away and driving off in his Tesla. She stood next to an Audi convertible so new the tires were still a glossy black, a week or two newer than their relationship if I had my guess. She watched his car all the to the highway, a sappy smile on her face. That made me happy, he was more than an ATM to her. She looked vaguely familiar, prompting me to wonder if I'd seen her in a movie or something.

I actually smiled when she got in her car, her purse still sitting on the roof. The girl had it bad. I tossed the vape and trotted out to warn her. While her purse likely held more cash than I'd make in a week, I still felt guilty about the sunglasses I stole when I was twelve. I could kinda use the good karma, anyway.

I got behind her car and waved my arms. She hit the brakes immediately and rolled down her window.

"Miss, you forgetting something?"

She looked at me, confuse for a moment, then turned red. "Oh, my God, I'm such a space cadet. Thank you."

I passed her the purse. "If someone kissed me like that, my brain would stop working, too."

Her expression changed to surprise. "Niki?"

"Yeah?" I had no idea who she was.

She hopped out of her car and threw her arms around me. "I can't believe it. It's so good to see you." Then, when I didn't give her the expected response, she added, "It's me. Sybil."

It took me several seconds to reconcile what my eyes told me with my memories of the girl I'd attended school with. She'd been a sharp cornered square, no more interested in fashion or makeup than she was in the meaningless politics of teenage girls. She'd been on a mission, everything else beneath her notice. She could be as nice as the day is long, but God help you if you got in her way.

"When did you get to be so ... gorgeous?" I asked.

She laughed. "I was about to ask you the same thing. It was so sad when you disappeared. You worked so hard to stay in school. Did DFS get you?"

"It was close, but no. Just had to go really low profile for a while." I've no idea how she knew so much about me. I was surprised she even knew my name. The only people that noticed me in high school were the boys, and they didn't exactly care what my name was, either. "You still doing the babysitting thing?"

"Yup. Paid cash for this thing." She gave a little kick backward into the car. This was the Sybil I knew. "You should come work for me."

"I can't. I don't have an id or phone or anything."

"You're old enough now. You don't have to hide anymore."

I didn't want to explain that those things cost money, money I didn't have. "Thank you, but I'm doing fine."

She gave me a calculated look and walked around to open her trunk. "Look, I'm not trying to do you a favor. I'm trying to get you to do me one." She pulled a little booklet out of a box full of them, then held up a shiny new credit card and scanned it with her phone. "This is our employee handbook, read it over before you decide. This card has $500 on it. If you decide no, just cut it up. If you're interested, we'll call it a signing bonus so you can get a phone and suitable clothing if you need them."

I took the items from her. "You have an employee handbook?" I asked in surprise.

"Yup. And a website and LLC. We're legit as fuck." She gave me another hug, then stepped back and ran her hands down my arms to take my hands. "You're smart and can handle anything life throws at you. Don't waste that in a place that values your ass for what it looks like more than how hard you work it. I know there's lots of little things between here and there, but I know you can do it. The only question you have to answer is whether you want to make some real money." She gave my hands a squeeze. "Either way, it was great seeing you and I'm really excited to see how well you've done."

I know it's stupid that I felt like crying, but as previously stated, I'm kind of a mess. She was selling me, and I knew it, but I didn't care. It was nice being treated like I mattered. We said our goodbyes and I stood there thinking about how crazy she was to trust a drug addicted prostitute with $500. Even if I wasn't currently either one of those things, she didn't know that.

Then it occurred to me that she made enough babysitting that she could gamble $500 on someone like me. Maybe it was just a kind way to give me some charity, but it didn't feel like it. I'd give it a shot.

I sucked. I didn't hate it, just got poor reviews and tips from the families I sat for. The kids were great. I helped a pair of brothers build a fortress out of Legos and waged an epic war. I stretched out nose to nose with this girl on the floor and we took markers to her coloring books for three hours. Sybil says that I just have to let the patents see how smart and dedicated I am, her way of saying to stop being shy and awkward.

It's kind of stupid. If I'm dressed like a thot, I can deal with adults, no problem. Flirty, mean, aggressive, cruel, it doesn't matter. Put me in a t-shirt and jeans and they intimidate the hell or of me, even though I'm technically one of them.

Sybil helped me get some of the other stuff I needed, like setting up my taxes. It felt really strange to activity try to register with the government after avoiding their notice for so long. The phone I got worked fine for Sybil's site, which is all she cared about, but was pretty useless for anything else. She said that I'd be able to get a better one once I established my credit. I didn't understand all that, so it was nice to have her help.

My latest job looked kind of like my last shot. My crap reviews and limited transportation made me an unpopular choice by the clients visiting the site. The man that hired me lived way up in the hill where the really big houses were. It was a two-week gig with the possibility of more if he liked me. The busses didn't even run in his neighborhood, making it a hike to even get there. Sybil had gone to bat for me, my qualifications far short of what he wanted, so I was determined to repay her faith in me. I marched up the fourteen steps of the wide stone stairs from his circular drive to his front door and rang the bell, doubt making me feel more out of place with each step.