Who: Hannah and Raegan What: Meeting while handing out very different fliers. Where: On the Strip. When: Recently. Warnings/Rating: None.
Even after a year, day shifts weren’t Raegan’s favorites. They should have been, since the club was quieter then, less crowded, but she’d always felt that the chances of her being pegged as underage were higher before dark. Most customers were still sober, and the lag meant that some of the girls got chatty and that had the potential to lead somewhere very tricky. She was a skilled liar, and she did her best to look twenty-one, but her fake ID was only good and not great. All she needed was for someone to start thinking she looked a little too young and she’d be busted. Working as the coat-check girl in a strip club with cheap lap dances wasn’t glamorous by any means, but it paid well enough, and the occasional tips without requiring her to take her clothes off were a bonus. She kept telling herself it was permanent until she found something better, but there wasn’t much for a high school dropout with no prior experience unless she started walking the streets or peddling drugs. Every now and then she’d get a little daring and dabble in some minor theft, but Jon didn’t like it. If she needed to do it to survive, that was different, but she wasn’t that desperate anymore. So, she tried to keep on the straight and narrow. Most of the time. She’d become a little too good at the five-fingered discount and old habits died hard.
Today, well, it was supposed to be Raegan’s day off, but her boss rang up (on the cell she couldn’t really afford) and told her he had a little side job for her. At first Raegan had refused, scowling all the while, but in the end the lure of being paid cash for handing out some stupid fliers on the Strip for a couple hours won out. She did consider just dumping the fliers out somewhere after stopping to pick them up, but she had a feeling her boss would know if she didn’t hand out at least a few.
So there she was, too much eyeliner and brown hair pulled into messy twin braids, a stack of fliers under one arm that she handed out to every man and woman that passed with the same sort of smile she’d used to distract while her stepbrothers stole what they wanted. Raegan didn’t seem bothered when her fliers were ignored, or met with dirty looks; she simply shrugged a shoulder and moved onto the next passerby. She looked her age in an oversized purple t-shirt that reached her knees, fishnets, and worn sneakers, but out here that didn’t matter. Ghost was sprawled out at her feet, since she’d thought it was stupid to leave him home, and every so often a pointed ear would twitch as he watched people pass. Raegan wasn’t the only one lining the front of casinos with fliers, and she cast a glance sideways at another girl, though this one looked uncomfortable rather than bored, and offered a smile.
Hannah had prayed she would get better at handing out fliers in front of the casino, but her prayers hadn’t been answered. She knew there were more important things than her prayers, though, and she wasn’t angry or upset about it. And, with any luck, Gideon Ayers would be able to find her another job, one that wasn’t this one. She was dressed in a gray sack-dress that reached well past her knees, and she had thick black leggings beneath it and prim black shoes covering her feet. Her hair was in two braids, but they were perfectly neat, in contrast with the other girl standing outside the casino with her. She wore no makeup, and if the Vegas heat bothered her in all that thick fabric, well, she wasn’t complaining about it.
The fliers in Hannah’s hands were gray, and a cross was visible on them, even from a distance. She held them loosely between her fingers, and she tentatively tried to hold them out when people walked by. There was no confidence in the way she extended her arm, and there was no certainty in her voice when she talked to people who questioned her. She was, in all ways, like a puppy waiting to be kicked, and it was clear she wasn’t cut out for the job. It said something about her, maybe, the fact that she didn’t just run away and leave the fliers in a messy spread on the floor behind her like she wanted to.
Hannah tried not to look at the girl sharing the space at the front of the casino, but she couldn’t help a few glances now and again. Her parents would have thought the girl’s leggings sinful, and she wasn’t even sure if the girl wore a skirt beneath the oversized shirt. Hannah had never been allowed any makeup, and the thick kohl that lined the girl’s eyes was something that Hannah kept looking back at. She blamed the demon inside her, and maybe she would tell the other girl that if she asked, maybe. It was getting easy to blame the demon for everything these days, though she didn’t think demons were normally named Violet. She was getting used to the demon, too, though she didn’t tell anyone that, not even her priest. They might keep her inside then, like they kept the boy that was waiting for an exorcism at the church, and she didn’t want that.
When the girl smiled, Hannah gave her a timid smile in return, and she tried to figure out what to say to someone who was nothing like her. Her demon seemed to have no problem with the girl, though, and Hannah thought maybe that meant she shouldn’t talk to her, but curiosity and loneliness won out in the end. “Your dog’s real pretty,” she said, Southern accent soft and reserved.
At first glance Raegan hadn’t paid too much attention to the other girl’s fliers, but a quick dip of her gaze was all it took to notice the cross printed on the front. Definitely not strip clubs or bars, then. She had very little experience with religion, since neither her father nor her stepmother had ever expressed any sort of faith and no guardian angels had ever shown up to save her. It took mere seconds to size the girl up afterward, taking in her appearance with something akin to curiosity; religion and Vegas didn’t seem to mix. Then again, maybe that was the point. Raegan doubted this girl had seen the uglier side of the city, or any city that had an ugly side to show.
“Thanks.” Raegan beamed, reassured by the fact that everything about this girl was squeaky clean and not the least bit threatening. There were always weirdos lurking about, more so at night, but they didn’t scare her much either. The Southern accent, that didn’t surprise Raegan in the slightest. It sort of suited her. “His name’s Ghost, and he’s pretty friendly,” she said, nudging the dog with a sneakered foot. Training him had been a little tricky, but now he was pretty obedient-- when he wanted to be, at least. Coincidence, the woman at the shelter had said, when Raegan told her that she’d been looking for a dog who fit his description. She knew better, though. He let out a small wuff and pushed himself up, regarding the new girl with bright eyes and a wagging tail. “So, what are your fliers for?” Conversation, even just meaningless small talk, with someone her age was something she hadn’t had in a long time.
Hannah took a step back when the dog stood and barked, but only one, and then she held her ground and crouched to pet his ears with a fearlessness that didn’t really add up with her retreat a moment earlier. The other girl’s question surprised her, as if she’d forgotten she was there at all, and she tipped her head back and then looked down at the fliers she’d almost let slip from between her fingers. She gripped the tiny sheets of cardboard tighter, and she stood again and slid back into demureness. “The diocese,” she said of the fliers, holding one out in case her companion wanted to see them. “They offer help to folks who fall on hard times with their gambling,” she explained, her gaze dropping to the other girl’s fliers, curiosity getting the better of her as she wondered what they were for. “What are yours for?” She hoped they weren’t for anything really bad or sinful, because she thought the other girl was pretty, and she didn’t want her to burn in Hell for eternity.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and Hannah looked back down at the dog’s white fur. “Did you name him that because he’s all white?” she asked, assuming the other girl had and hoping it wasn’t something more sinister, like Satanic worship. She’d never had any pets, because her mother thought they were soulless and shouldn’t be allowed inside the house, but she’d always liked them. Inside her mind, the demon groaned, and Hannah wished she would keep quiet sometimes. She didn’t talk to many people, Hannah, because the other postulates were already working on joining the order, and she was stuck waiting on her exorcism. They whispered in corners and behind their hands, the other girls, and Hannah felt real lonely. She didn’t want the demon messing with the one chance she had to talk to someone her own age for a few minutes.
Ghost was much friendlier (and smaller) than his namesake, and the steady wag of his tail was indication enough that he very much liked being petted. Raegan, for her part, watched the timid girl with muted curiosity and a hint of concern that was more Jon than her. She didn’t actually know what the diocese was, but she nodded like she did, dropping her gaze to the proffered flier to get a better look. This kind of help, without any gain in exchange, was a foreign concept to her, and she was torn between skepticism and a child-like pleasure that there were people that good out there. “That’s nice of them,” she remarked, though she did wish she knew who they were. Priests, maybe, or nuns... Raegan had never been to church in her life, so in that sense her knowledge was limited. She wasn’t embarrassed by her own fliers; very little embarrassed her these days, in fact. The religious girl probably would be, but Raegan held out her own fliers without hesitation, a trace of defiance in the gesture, as though daring the girl to judge her for it. The name of the club was printed in the bottom left hand corner, and the hours (open all day, every day) on the opposite side, but the rest of the flier was taken up by women who wore flimsy undergarments that left very little to the imagination. “I take coats,” she told the girl, bluntly honesty. “I don’t have much experience, and they didn’t give a-- they didn’t care. Most good places do” Somehow she doubted her usual vocabulary would go over well with someone handing out fliers with crosses on them.
While naming a pet after a fictional character wasn’t unheard of, Raegan decided to skip that part and nodded instead. “Yeah. It suits him, doesn’t it?” She gave him an affectionate scratch behind the ears, and he circled back around to her side and sat by her feet. Technically she wasn’t really handing out fliers anymore, and there were people walking past that looked as though they might visit the club, but she’d kind of lost interest in that. “Do you have any pets?” Raegan was careful with personal questions, since she hated being asked them herself, but that was fairly non-invasive, she thought.
“It’s their job,” Hannah said without thinking, of the diocese and the work they did. “Catholics, they think the way to Heaven is through all kinds of good deeds, so they look on it as working their way upstairs,” she said, which would have come out more respectful had she been thinking, instead of wishing for a dog with soft fur like the one wagging its tail happily against the hot sidewalk. The flier, however, brought her attention back to down to earth, and she reached out for it with fingers that trembled just a smidgen with worry. See, there was something about growing up like she’d done, and that was that there was no temptation within a hundred mile radius of her door. Her fingers closed on one of the girl’s fliers, and she tugged it against her chest before looking at it. Her pale eyes went wide, and she blinked twice, and then she looked back up. She’d seen the people handing the fliers out, but she’d never actually held one. Her glances had been quick, guilty things, and she shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. The demon thought the flier was pretty cool, which only made it worse, and she wanted to know if there were other jobs open, and Hannah clamped a hand over her mouth before she could say anything to that effect.
It took Hannah a second to realize she probably looked crazy, and she held the flier back as she removed the hand from her mouth. “Sorry. I’m not used to-” Pause. “-to things. I come from real far off,” she added unnecessarily. “They nice to you there? Where you work?” she added, finding her center again and turning her attention to the dog once more. “It does suit him just right,” she said, remembering the comment about the dog’s name, and it wasn’t evil if it was just on account of him being white. She shook her head a second later. “No. My stepmomma didn’t like pets,” she admitted honestly. “My name’s Hannah,” she added a second later, squinting as she smiled at the other girl. Her stepmomma would have hollered up a storm to see her talking to someone dressed like the other girl was, but Hannah decided she liked her, and she ignored the demon’s approval.
Based on her limited knowledge of religion, Raegan hadn’t expected the girl’s answer to be so morally ambiguous. Doing good deeds for the sake of getting into heaven didn’t seem so selfless, but then again, was it the fact that the Catholics thought they were getting something in return that made it questionable or that they might benefit from it in general? After all, a good deed could lead to an unexpected gain. Things like this were something Raegan never thought about before Jon showed up, but since he’d made some morally questionable decisions of his own she found herself looking at the world differently now. “Oh,” she said carefully, not wanting to insult the girl. Usually she’d speak her mind without caring, but now, facing the prospect of a potential friend her age, she was reluctant to do so. “I guess that makes sense.” She tugged on the edge of her knee-length shirt while she watched the girl’s reaction to her flier, half expecting her to turn away or to proclaim her some kind of sinner. It was clear enough that she was uncomfortable, and Raegan moved to take the flier back, but then the girl had clamped her hand over her mouth and she dropped her hand, puzzled, because it was just a piece of paper when you got down to it.
“It’s okay,” she said, bemused, as she accepted the flier and tucked it back into her stack. “All this is kind of a shock if you’re not used to it.” Her unruffled demeanor suggested that she was. Raegan had known people back home, when she’d actually been in school, who were fairly sheltered themselves, and she imagined they would have been more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of strip clubs too. She thought about her boss for a moment, about the dancers, and nodded. None of them had ever laid a hand on her like her father, and while her boss wasn’t Prince Charming, he’d never tried anything either. “Yeah, they are. People get... ideas, you know, about girls that work in places like that, but none of it’s true.” She’d met worse people who held positions of integrity, who were supposed to be good and trustworthy. This girl seemed like the sort who’d think dancers were immoral and automatically damned because of what they did, even if it was because that was what the people around her believed. For a moment Raegan thought of saying she’d had a stepmother too, but no, that wasn’t something she wanted to talk about with a girl she’d just met. Instead she nodded as though she understood, which in a sense she did-- her own stepmother was usually too high to give her much of anything. “I’m Raegan,” she beamed, strangely pleased that the girl had offered her name first, and she extended a hand (Jon again). “Nice to meet you, Hannah.”
Even Hannah knew that I guess that makes sense meant that doesn’t make sense at all, but I’m humoring you. Maybe it was something teenagers just knew, and she felt real sorry that she wasn’t one of those worldly girls that knew everything about everything (or knew well enough to pretend). She only knew what she’d been taught, and what she’d been taught was that being good got you through the gates. She’d never mused much on how that was self-serving, because it had been lectured into her that it was the right way, better than being bad and still being saved like that religion her stepmomma so hated. She was lost in all that when the girl said this was all kind of shocking, and Hannah nodded eagerly. “I don’t know how to act around someone that isn’t from church,” she admitted, very much hoping that her new almost-friend wouldn’t go running off on account of her behavior. Her expression turned very serious when the subject of getting ideas came up, because she’d done just that, and she looked plenty guilty for the next few seconds. She considered explaining that she’d been raised to believe that people who took their clothes off were sinners, but she didn’t think that would win her any favors. Her stepmomma would say she was as good as sinning, and Hannah figured it was all the demon’s doing. She liked blaming the demon, and it made her smile more genuinely when the girl - Raegan - shook her hand. “Don’t you get scared being out here all on your lonesome?” she asked, motioning to the currently-quiet entrance to the hotel. She edged a little closer, and she lowered her voice. “Some of the men that come through here are bent on sin, and they say terrible things,” she confessed. Maybe Raegan wouldn’t think they were so terrible. Raegan - that was a real unique name. “Your name’s pretty. It’s not in the Bible.”
“That’s okay,” she said with a grin. “I don’t really know how to act around someone who is from church.” Raegan could pull off the innocent little girl act when she needed to, but it was never actually genuine, and she was far more accustomed to saying and doing what she wanted without worrying about causing offense. She didn’t begrudge Hannah for being the way she was, though, having met enough people to know that everyone had some sort of reason for being who they were. “It’ll get easier the longer you’re here.” Sooner or later everyone had to adapt to their environment, lest they end up getting loss in the shuffle. She wondered if Hannah had anyone looking out for her; not a guardian who fulfilled their role on paper, but someone who actually cared. She wasn’t oblivious to the guilty look on Hannah’s face, but she didn’t call her out on it. If she’d stopped talking to her because of where she worked, well, maybe she would have had a few choice words to toss her way, but she was still talking to her despite that. Raegan shook her head, dropping the girl’s hand after a moment. “Not anymore. I’m kind of used to it,” she explained. She wouldn’t have been able to survive on the street if she let everyone scare her, but she knew the sort of people that skulked on this street, even during the day, and to someone like Hannah they’d probably be downright terrifying. “Some of them are like that. Have any of them given you trouble?” Saying things was one thing, but acting on them, that was another, and Jon didn’t like it any more than she did. She had no idea what names were or weren’t in the Bible, but she smiled regardless. “Thanks. Yours is nice too. Is it a Biblical name?”
The subject of her name was one Hannah was very comfortable with, and she smiled and nodded, glad to be the one with information and knowledge to impart this time. “Hannah was this woman in the old testament. She was married to this old man who had a bunch of wives, and she couldn’t have any kids. Back then, if you couldn’t have kids, they do off with you, but he loved her, and he didn’t hold it against her. She went to some temple and prayed real hard for a baby, and she promised she’d give the baby away to God once he was born. Sure enough, she had a baby, and she gave it away. I guess giving it away was hard, because God paid her back by giving her five other kids. I think the moral is if you ask God for stuff and promise to pay him back, then he gives you more stuff.” She shook her head when Raegan asked if anyone gave her trouble, and she wanted to tell her she had a demon in her head and of course no one would give her trouble, but she might chase the other girl off then. “I’m trying to get someone to help with a new job, a man. If he does, I won’t be back here again,” she said, a little forlornly. Her stepmomma wouldn’t like Raegan at all, but Hannah thought she was much nicer than the postulates, and she didn’t want to not see her again.
Despite her general lack of interest in the Bible, Raegan made an actual effort to listen instead of simply nodding along as she usually did when she was drawn into conversation that bored her. She wished she had some sort of origin story for her own name, but there was nothing beyond what her father had told her, which was virtually nothing. He’d never talked about her mother as much as she would’ve liked. “Lucky he didn’t hold it against her,” she remarked, though she thought God was supposed to grant prayers without expecting anything in return. How someone was supposed to give a baby to Him, she wasn’t sure, but it was probably more about the moral of the story than the actual details. “Five kids? I guess you can call that a happy ending. It’s a good name,” she added; lucky, maybe, though five kids didn’t seem so lucky to her unless someone really wanted them. She seemed satisfied when Hannah shook her head, but a moment later she was right back to being concerned when she mentioned some guy helping her get a new job. Hannah seemed very innocent, too much so for a place like this, and Raegan knew there were people (men and women) who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of someone like that. Handing out fliers wasn’t the best job, but it was a lot better than some. “What kind of job can this man get you?” That was an innocent enough question, she thought. There was no use worrying Hannah when the man might very well be legitimate and able to get her a decent job. She hesitated for a moment, realizing that if the other girl found a different job she wouldn’t be back here, and she scanned the sidewalk for a moment before coming to a decision. “Just a minute,” she said, and approached a young couple stopped a few feet away with a map held between them. Ghost watched, head between his paws, but saw no reason to get to his feet, and a few moments later Raegan was back with a pen in hand. She folded over one of her fliers and scribbled a phone number on the back before holding it out to Hannah. “In case you want to keep in touch or something,” she said with a shrug.
Hannah silently agreed about Bible-Hannah’s husband, but she didn’t say it. Bad enough she was blaspheming left and right in her mind these days, she wasn’t going to do it aloud too. “Catholics believe in having all the babies God gives,” she explained, which she questioned too, but never said. It seemed bad, having babies you might not be able to afford, and she was real glad when Raegan changed the subject. “His name’s Mr. Ayers. He has a business that finds work for people.” Hannah didn’t actually remember her meeting with Gideon, but she knew he was looking for something for her, and that was a positive. Well, except for never seeing Raegan again. “I don’t remember what kind of work he said, but I’m sure it’ll be fine, whatever it is. He’s got a business.” Because having a business made someone trustworthy in Hannah’s eyes. She watched with interest as Raegan moved away, and then she looked down at Ghost and took the opportunity to crouch in front of him again and scratch his ears. She looked up when Raegan returned, and she held out a hand for the flier before standing. The number made her smile, on account of no one giving her their number before, and she tore the flier in half (trying not to look at the women on it) and took the pen from Hannah and added her own number. “You’ll have to ask for me,” she told Raegan, as she handed back the flier and the pen. “There’s other girls that live there. Oh, and we aren’t allowed to use the phone on Sundays or after nine at night. Lights get turned off at eight,” she explained, standing with one last scratch to Ghost’s ear.
Raegan had her fair share on opinions on that, but fortunately she was distracted enough to forget about arguing that particular issue. Mr. Ayers didn’t ring any particular bells, though she made a mental note to ask around at work and see if any of the girls recognized his name. A little suspicion could be a good thing, especially in a place like this, but she had to admit that a job agency sounded decent enough. There were a lot of places like that, she knew, and so she nodded. “I’ve heard about businesses that do things like that. I’m glad you might find something better,” she said, and she hoped it was something better, and not something Hannah wouldn’t realize she was walking into until it was too late. Ghost was lapping up the attention when Raegan returned, and she rolled her eyes at the way his tail thumped happily against the ground. Though she wouldn’t come out and say it, she was secretly pleased that Hannah offered her number in return; this was the first friend her age she’d made in a while. “Okay,” she agreed, accepting the flier and the pen, even though she thought nine was way too early for someone their age to be banned from using the phone. “I’ll remember.” Raegan hadn’t handed out many fliers, which her boss probably wouldn’t be pleased about, but right then she couldn’t have cared less.