Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey, Ellen R. Sasahara, Felicity Don Read Free Book Online Page B

ponytail, and her lips and eyes were broad and brash. Dusty’s most unusual, and unnerving, feature was her voice, which contrasted so greatly with her physique. Her voice was full of melody and quite charming, and if you heard her speak, you would think, as Dahlia insisted, that Dusty had “a good heart.”
    Dusty had met a boy just before she left Victoria. The boy’s name was Jack Batley. She wrote it five hundred times on the piece of paper her probation officer had handed her. (“Change is possible. Change is up to YOU!”) Jack might have been described by others in View Royal as “rat-faced,” but Dusty liked his rough eyes, and she liked the way he looked in his black and white Adidas jacket.
    Perhaps her separation from Jack was the reason Dusty made such adisastrous au pair. Dahlia had several young children, and a full-time job as a truck driver, so when she invited Dusty to live with her, the invitation was not wholly one of charity. When Dahlia went away on her four-day drives to Yellowknife, Dusty would be in charge of babysitting, cooking meals, cleaning the house, picking the kids up from school, and putting the children to bed.
    Yet Dusty played music very loud and slept in and once wrote “Niggers rule” on the wall with strawberry jam.
    â€œLiving with Dusty was a living hell,” Dahlia’s daughter would later recall. “She would make crank phone calls telling people to lick her cunt and threatening to kill them.”
    While in Alberta, Dusty received some very distressing news. Jack Batley had a new girlfriend, and the new girlfriend was Reena Virk.
    â€œIt’s true. I saw her wearing his jacket,” Dusty was told.
    â€œHis Adidas jacket!”
    Dusty flung herself across the carpeted floor and then thought of Reena. Reena!
    The little kids were on the couch watching
Saved by the Bell.
Dusty picked up the phone and called a number in Victoria. In her sweet voice, she threatened. “The Crips are coming to your house to cap your ass!”
    She then asked a boy on the couch, a boy of twelve, a friend of her niece, to help her. After Dusty gave orders to the young boy, she dialed the number and handed the phone to him.
    â€œI’m coming down there tonight to KILL YOU!” the boy said, though his voice was not deep or menacing, and he was far away from View Royal and only twelve years old.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Dusty became reckless in her days as an au pair, and she wondered if she would ever see Josephine again. She knew that Josephine, like her, was shuttled about to homes all over the place. She wanted so to tell Josephine of Reena’s betrayal. Josephine would understand, for when they were all together at Kiwanis, Josephine was always saying that Reena was the jealous type and Reena was jealous of her beauty.
    The way he’d strolled around the trail by the Tillicum Mall. … His arm around her. … His name, Jack, just like the boy in
Titanic
who hadno money and was a noble thief and died for the love of the girl named Rose. …
    Dusty crashed her sister’s car into the curb. Dahlia was evicted, for the landlord did not appreciate the loud music or the “Niggers rule” graffiti. “Dusty was totally destroying my life,” Dahlia later said to police. “But I just couldn’t send her back to View Royal. I kept threatening to, but I didn’t have the heart to do it. I thought she just needed a little direction. I didn’t want to give up on her like everyone else did. I gave her chance after chance. I bought Dusty clothes, makeup, jackets, shoes, smokes, whatever she needed.”
    But then one day her son took her aside and said, “Mommy, Dusty swears at me! She’s mean. Please don’t go back to work. I hate her!”
    And her daughter said, “If Dusty stays here any longer, I’m going to run away.”
    Rather than sending Dusty away, Dahlia