The Loverboy (27 page)

while she heard the woman chatting to someone in the other room.
It felt like only an hour later when she was awoken quietly. The
husband woke her and she looked at the clock sitting on an old
television. It showed 4:30 in bright red large LED letters and
she sat up.
“Coffee?” he asked in a hushed tone.
She nodded gratefully and he handed her a mug. Clearly they
didn‟t use cream or sugar as he didn‟t even offer it and the
coffee was the strongest she ever had. She didn‟t mind as she
needed a kick under her butt to get up and this coffee did the
trick. Groggily she got up and the man had made her some
breakfast. She ate and not ten minutes later they were on the
way. He attempted to speak English to her but he was struggling.
His wife had been much more fluent. She started answering him
back in Spanish which made the man more comfortable.
At around seven in the morning they arrived in Licenciado
Adolfo Lopez Mateos and the man dropped her off at the bus
station. She tried to pay him but it became quickly apparent
that he was under strict instructions from his wife not to
accept any money. She smiled and gave him a hug. Then she asked
him to write down his address so she could send his wife a thank
you note when she got back home. She thought about that
statement. Home, where was home? She couldn‟t go back to Jake.
Also going back to the United States would be an issue. She
didn‟t have a passport and she couldn‟t get one since she was a
wanted fugitive. She still had to serve years in the Mexican
prison and would get caught at the border. And even if she made
it into the United States, the US government would surely
extradite her. And if they wouldn‟t do it, the cartel might be
coming for their money.
She dismissed the last thought. There was no trail that
pointed to her and if she kept a low profile with the money it
would be hard to trace her. As her mind clouded with all these
thoughts she bought a bus ticket to Chihuahua. It was the
largest city in this area and from there she would decide where
to go. She just wanted to go home to her mom and sister. She
missed them both so much. Ally would be in her senior year now.
Oh if she could only pick up where she had left off. She and
Ally could go to college together. That would be the greatest
but as her bus showed up and she took her seat she realized that
it was just a fantasy. Her life was too much of a mess to ever
think about college.
The ride to Chihuahua took four hours with all the stops
and due to the bus not having air conditioning she arrived
sweaty in Chihuahua. It was a large, busy city with activity all
around her. At the bus station she checked the schedules and
found several buses going to the United States which were
appealing. She considered a flight but security would be a lot
better and the risk of being captured was much bigger. Either
way she was going to need paperwork. She considered a smuggler
but dismissed that thought. She had too much money on her and
had heard all sorts of horror stories in prison. With her luck
it wouldn‟t work out well for her.
Then she remembered Gabriella‟s passport. She searched
through the bag and found it. It was still valid and Gabriella
did look a lot like her. Her nose was bigger and Gabriella had a
much darker complexion. She figured she could get away with
being a little lighter since they really wouldn‟t be looking for
her but the difference was too big and it could arouse suspicion
which would get her caught quickly. She should have spent less
time in the library in prison and more time outside she thought.
And at the plantation she had been working inside the house
instead of in the fields. She considered going to a tanning
salon but that would take weeks and where did you find one in
Mexico? It didn‟t seem like the most likely type of business one
would open in Mexico.
Then she remembered seeing the commercials on TV when she
had still lived at home with her mom about the spray on tan. She
asked around and found her way to a store. They had a few cans
of it and she bought them all along with some hair dye. Then she
picked up some new and more American looking clothes, after all
she was an American returning home so she should look the part.
Finally she purchased a pair of large sunglasses, a baseball cap
and a back pack that was meant for carrying a laptop. She was
amazed at how everywhere she could just use the American
dollars. It actually appeared they preferred them.
After that she left the center of the city and found a
lesser neighborhood where she could rent a room without needing
to supply ID. She found a place and rooms were rented by the
hour. It was really quiet and Kim figured that the middle of the
afternoon would not be the busiest time of the day in a place
like this. She paid cash and managed to scrape change together
for the room for three hours as she didn‟t think it would have
been a good idea to pull out hundred dollar bills in a place
like this.
The room was old and run down. Her apartment in Chicago had
seemed like the Ritz compared to this place. The shower looked
ok but she started the hot water and rinsed out the whole thing
before getting in. The bed was made but did not look appealing.
No way was she going to go near it. She took a long shower and
dried off. Then she dyed her hair the same darker shade that
Gabriella had had. After being completely dry she read the
instructions on the “InstaTan” and followed them. She made sure
to get an even layer and it did make her look somewhat darker
although it had a bit of a fake look and somewhat satisfied with
the result she got dressed in long jeans and a long sleeve shirt
to make the least of her fake tan visible.
Then she ripped the lining of the backpack and took about
half the protective padding out and replaced it with the money.
There was a lot of it and in the end she was able to fit in
seven of the ten stacks. She tried to fit more in but it made
the bag look weird and upon inspection it would certainly be
noticed. Then she put some stuffing back on where the tear was
and rubbed the backpack on the dirty floor to make it look old
and used so the tear didn‟t look out of place.
The other three stacks she put in the bag from the
department store. Then she left the hotel and headed back to the
bus terminal. On her way she passed by a man and a little girl
sitting on a cardboard box that very much looked like their
home. They had a small container in front of them in which a few
pesos were thrown but it couldn‟t have been more than a dollar.
Kim walked by and threw the bag in the girls lap and then
quickly hurried around the corner. The girl opened the bag and
showed the content to the man and they both lit up looking
around to see where the Good Samaritan had gone but Kim was long
gone.
She arrived back at the bus terminal at seven in the
evening and there she bought a bus ticket to Santa Fe. The bus
was leaving at eight so she got something to eat from a street
vendor and a big dark cup of coffee to help her stay awake. At
eight she boarded the bus and though tired she made sure she
didn‟t fall asleep. She wanted to be sure she was ready for the
border crossing. She especially didn‟t want the Instatan to
smear if she fell asleep and it rubbed off on something.
The drive took about five hours and it was the middle of
the night when they hit the border at Juarez. Despite the late
hour it was still plenty busy at the border and they were in
line for a good thirty minutes. After thirty minutes the door to
the bus opened and two border control guards stepped in and
checked through the bus. Kim pretended to be asleep covered up
by a blanket and the baseball cap pulled over her face. One
guard lifted the cap softly to peek at her but put it back down
and Kim just acted like she was disturbed in her sleep groaned
and shifted a little then she was still again. The guard moved
on.
After they left the bus slowly rolled forward and a US
customs and a US immigration officer came on board. The customs
officer checked a few bags here and there but Kim was relieved
that he didn‟t check hers. Then the immigration officer came by.
Kim handed the form she had filled out and Garbiella‟s passport
pretending to be groggy from just waking up. The man looked at
her and the passport and without a second glance handed it back
to her. The darkness in the bus had luckily concealed the fake
tint the Instatan had given her. The officers finished through
the whole bus and left and the bus started moving again.
After over three years she was finally back into the United
States. She relaxed and reminded herself to be careful. She
could be back into a Mexican prison in no time. As the miles
passed below the bus she finally fell asleep.
Chapter 32:
The bus arrived in Santa Fe in the morning and Kim
immediately got a hotel room in another sleazy place that didn‟t
care about ID if cash was involved. She cleaned up and washed
the fake orange Instatan off. Then she got changed again and
plotted her route home. She wanted to take a plane then she
could be there in no time but she wasn‟t comfortable traveling
with Gabriella‟s passport and at the airport she would have to.
The bus had worked well and was a safe way of traveling she
had found. From Santa Fe she traveled to Denver and from Denver
she went to Lincoln and then Des Moine and after a day and a
half of traveling after leaving Santa Fe she arrived in
Milwaukee on Saturday. At the Greyhound station in downtown
Milwaukee she thought again about returning to her mom and after
much consideration she decided it was the only place to go. She
flagged down a taxi and had the cab driver drop her off around
the corner from her old apartment.
She stood there for awhile building up her nerve. She
wasn‟t sure she could do this but what else was she going to do
and she realized how easy it might be to just return to Jake.
The life was horrible but for some reason this felt a lot
harder. She now understood how girls got trapped for life and
she hated him even more for it. When she finally got the courage
to go and ring the doorbell, the front door of the apartment
opened and Kim quickly hid behind a van.
A young woman walked out and it took her a second to
recognize her younger sister Alison. “Ally” she said to herself
with a smile. Ally looked great and no longer looked like the
little sister she remembered. She had long brown hair and a very
pretty face but was dressed rather plain in long jeans and a
hooded sweatshirt; an outfit that seemed way too warm for the
weather. Ally rounded the corner onto the street that Kim was
hiding in behind the van and Kim was about to step out to greet
her sister when she was startled by a white flashy BMW that flew
into the street from around the corner at way too high of a
speed. The car took her by surprise but it didn‟t seem to
surprise Ally.
Ally started waving at the car and it pulled up right next
to Ally. Kim could see the driver and to her shock she first
thought it was Jake. After a closer look she realized it wasn‟t.
This guy was a lot younger than Jake. He was probably about
nineteen or twenty and his face and hair were different but
there was a resemblance. The next thing she knew Ally took off
her jeans and sweatshirt to reveal a short skirt and tank top
underneath, the kind of outfit that her mom had never let her
get out the door with when she was younger. Ally threw the
clothes in the backseat and got into the BMW. She kissed the
driver and the car squealed away.
Kim was leaning against the van thinking about what she had
just seen. If it had been four years earlier she would have just
thought it was a girl meeting up with her boyfriend that she
didn‟t want her parents to know about. After all, four years ago
she had been that girl. But that girl had been foolish and
hadn‟t known what she had walked into and this felt eerily
similar. “Where would they have gone?” she thought. Then she
thought to when she and Jake started out. She didn‟t like to
think about him because of all the pain he had brought her but
she had to. Her sister might be heading the same way and she
just couldn‟t let that happen.
“The mall” she said out loud and started in that direction.
She walked faster and faster and with every step she tried to
convince herself that it could just be a coincidence. This could
just be a normal boyfriend. Ally was pretty and maybe one of the
rich boys from school had taken a liking to her. Yes, that could
be it. That had to be it she prayed but couldn‟t stop herself
from breaking into a sprint. When she got to the mall she
quickly took out the sunglasses and the baseball cap and put
them on. The last thing she wanted was to be recognized by Ally
or even one of the people she used to go to school with. In the
parking lot she saw the white BMW parked in a handicap spot and
she wrote down the license plate just in case she would need it.
She entered the mall through the book store and picked up a
newspaper. Then she walked through the mall with its many shops
but couldn‟t see them anywhere. Then she realized that if he was
a loverboy he would probably be buying her clothes and stuff to
wrap her around his little finger. She walked by the stores that
had been popular four years ago and most were still there. At
one store she caught a glimpse of Ally heading into a dressing
room. Kim looked around and sat down on a bench between the
stores and put up the newspaper pretending to read it while
looking at what was going on inside. The outfits Ally was
modeling were quite risqué and the young man seemed to enjoy the
show which was not surprising. Ally was beautiful.
They finally picked their items and the young man paid.
This made Kim more nervous. It was déjà vu with a different guy
and a different girl that was just as ignorant as she had been.
But she could still be wrong she thought. She prayed she was
wrong. When they walked out of the store Kim had concealed
herself behind the newspaper and the young man and Ally walked
within ten feet of her but she didn‟t need to worry about being