The Hidden Diary of Ophelia Ridley

12

20 June 1988

Dear Diary,

I hate leaving things unfinished. I haven't been able to write for a couple days and recount what happened after Susan paid us because my mother is getting suspicious.

Perhaps she knows I've been sneaking out? Perhaps she can sense my impending departure? In any case, she has kept me close to her side and I am squeezing this entry in while she takes a bath.

Let me  continue where I left off last.

Edith and I stayed a bit later at Susan's party and I just had so many questions about how she did what she did.

She was a bit tipsy, but not drunk. She giggled more than normal and was perhaps a bit more open about things, so I decided to ask what questions I had.

"This is a really nice house. How long have you lived here?" 

Susan spit out the drink she was attempting to swallow, as if my question was the most hilarious thing in the world. "I don't live here, hon." She said, trying to dry her chest off. 

"What do you mean? You don't live here?" Edith asked, puzzled. Had Susan broken into a house to have a party? 

At Edith's prompting, Susan seemed to sober up, looking intently at both of us. "Do you really wanna know?" She asked. 

We did, so Susan lead us up a beautiful wooden staircase to the second floor. We passed a couple having relations behind a potted plant and I was struck by what a mature evening this truly was. Susan lead us into a master bedroom at the end of the hall and locked the door behind us. "No nosey rosie's, I say." Susan winked. 

She walked over to the walk in closet and turned the light on. Edith and I sat on the bed and shared a quizzical look with each other. 

"What do you think?" Susan asked, emerging from the closet with a silver mermaid gown. It had ruffles around the neck and feet and looked more expensive than the entire ice cream shop. 

"It's beautiful." Edith said. 

"My friend Mike got it for his wife last year. She's never even worn it. If he had gotten me something like this...you'd never see me out of it." Susan laid the dress against her own body and studied herself in the mirror. 

"So," I began "This is Mike's house?" I asked and Susan nodded. "How do you know Mike?" 

Seeming to remember that she was supposed to tell us a story, Susan sat on the bed with us. 

"Well, he got me started in this business. He introduced me to the lifestyle. None of this would be possible if it weren't for him." Susan gestured to herself before reaching under the bed to find something. 

"What business? What lifestyle?" Edith asked, sounding more annoyed than before.

Susan sat up, clutching something tight in her hand. After promising not to tell, she unrolled her hand to reveal a resealable bag of white powder. 

Edith gasped, putting her nose right up to the bag, inspecting it. "Is that...?"

"Cocaine." Susan said. "Sometimes they pay me in drugs."  

"Pay you?" I asked, my sheltered upbringing barely even allowing me to believe I was really this close to a drug. "For what?"

"Are you..." Edith asked tentatively, "A prostitute?" 

"Ha!" Susan barked making me jump. "I do what needs to be done to maintain my lifestyle. Call it what you want, I don't like labels." She shook her head. "I know men who have certain needs that I help fulfill. In return, they fulfill my needs. I'm used to a certain level of comfort." 

"So we're in your sugar daddies house?" Edith asked, not unkindly. 

"He took his family on a trip to the Caribbean. He lets me stay here when they're gone." 

Diary, at this point I wasn't sure what to think. Susan's admission that she would basically sleep with men for money and drugs made me feel a little icky inside. Isn't Susan the exact type of person my mother had always warned against? On the other hand...Susan seemed happy. She was living the dream, partying, travelling, never running out of money. After all, since when did I care what my mother thought?

Edith drove me home shortly after, parking her car a few minutes away from the house so I could quietly crawl into my window. But before I got out, we talked about what we learned. 

"Do you think we should do her next party?" Edith asked me, unsure. "I mean, we don't really need the money. I don't know, I felt kind of uncomfortable." 

I understood what she meant but her flaking out on the party was not ideal, so I decided to tell her my plan to run away. 

"I'm going." I told her. "My 18th, birthday I'm gone. And I need the money."

Edith's eyes were kind of big, when I told her all this and it was quiet for a long while. 

"I'm coming, too." She finally said. "I've been wanting to leave for a while. I'm sick of all of this." 

We decided the band should play the next party with Susan and we figured we could ask her if there was anything else we could do to make more money. The ice cream shop was great but we needed fast cash. We also decided not to tell Kevin, Gregg, or Sonya about what Susan really did or our plans to run away. They came from good families, we reasoned, they just wouldn't get it.

So, diary, our next party with Susan is tomorrow. I'm not sure what's going to happen there but I know it'll be exciting. Seeing Susan Banks is always exciting. 

-Ophelia