And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) by Spungen Deborah

Author:Spungen, Deborah [Spungen, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80743-4
Publisher: Random House Digital
Published: 2011-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

We didn’t need a therapist to tell us that Nancy was going to have to find something to do with herself.

She got very upset when I suggested she go back to school somewhere.

“I won’t!” she screamed. “You can’t make me!”

“It’s only a suggestion, Nancy.”

“I won’t go! I just won’t!” She ran into her room and slammed the door.

That was the last time college was mentioned as a possibility.

A job, then. We were determined she find work—so she would have not only money but some element of structure in her life. She was amenable to the idea. She wanted to have some money. She was qualified to be a salesclerk or a typist. Every morning she scanned the classifieds for jobs. Her geographical options were pretty limited—she was isolated in the suburbs and she wasn’t allowed to drive. Her best option was to find something in Philadelphia, which was accessible by commuter train. She made phone calls, but nothing panned out. It was January. The Christmas rush was over. Stores weren’t hiring.

One morning when I was going to work I saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window of the dress shop that was downstairs in my building. Nancy rode into town with me the next morning, applied for the job, and got it. She began the next day as a salesgirl. The store was small and sold fashionable, youthful women’s clothes. Nancy was excited about the job. She liked the girl she worked with, whose name was Randi. Randi introduced her to another girl, Karen, who worked at the store’s other branch a few blocks away. The three of them had lunch together on Nancy’s second day.

“Everything’s working out,” Nancy enthused when she got home that night.

The manager of the store called early the next morning when Nancy was still in bed. I woke her up so she could take the call. Nancy spoke to the woman for a moment, hung up, and went back to sleep. I roused her a while later.

“You’d better get moving, sweetheart. Time to go to work.”

She said something into her pillow.

“What’d you say?” I asked.

She turned over, glared at the ceiling. “I don’t have a job. She fired me.”

“Why?” I cried.

“No reason at all.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’ll find you another job.”

“What’s the point? I’ll just get fired again.”

I wondered why she had lost the job, but it wasn’t my place to intervene and find out. I never did learn the reason.

Nancy rolled over and went back to sleep. She was very discouraged about losing the job. It confirmed her negative self-image. In response, she closed this option off, just as she had school. She refused to look for another job.

She was only interested in two things from this point on—music and drugs. The harder the better.

She’d sleep all day, get up at about the time Suzy and David were coming home from school. After a cigarette and a cup of coffee she’d go up to her room and put a record on—she was big on Lou Reed now—and make plans on the telephone.

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