Mia's Adventure

In the busy streets of Chicago, Mia ran along singing and dancing. Her parents always told her not to bring attention to herself, but the only thing she wanted this morning was attention. She always thought to herself that if anyone tried to kidnap her, she could wriggle away easily enough. She was walking home when she looked up to see a small man that looked to be in his 40s staring at her. She did not think much of it as she believed that she was a very pretty girl and there would be no reason for people not to stare at her. She began to worry when she saw the same man a few blocks ahead of where she last saw him. It was almost as if he was following her but he was always one step ahead of her. 

Mia woke up the next morning feeling intoxicated. She practically fell out of her bed and stumbled over to the kitchen sink. She stared at herself in the mirror for a short while, quickly noticing a large circle on her forehead a few shades darker than her natural complexion. She overlooked this for the time being. After she washed up her arms she somehow felt dirty, so she decided to take a shower. After seeing her makeup scattered about on the floor she knew someone had been there. She tried to think back to what happened the night before, but she could not recall anything after around what she guessed to be 5:00 PM. After she began to process what had happened in her apartment, she thought back to the previous day. She remembered feeling watched and seeing the man that was always near her. She thought of calling the police, but just then the phone rang.

The phone felt heavy as she grabbed it up off of the receiver. She was apprehensive in answering, partially because she was afraid it could be someone after her money. She had a strange feeling about the call after what had been happening to her. When the phone continued to ring past 3 rings, she decides that she needs to answer. She did not hesitate to ask this strange person who they were and what they wanted. Mia could not understand the person on the phone because they talked so fast. The man on the phone demanded that she meet him on the corner of Ashland Avenue to discuss what should happen next. 

The stone bench was cold beneath her. She shivered as a crowd of people passed by, behind them appeared a woman. She wasn't sure, but Mia thought the woman's jacket had the same embroidered logo stitched onto it as the man from earlier had on his. The woman strutted over to the bench and sat down next to Mia.

"Greetings, Mya," she said. Mia did not want to correct her so fast but she didn't like the stern tone the woman used.

"It's Mia, Mee-Uh, not Mya… what's your name?"

She hesitated after realizing this woman could have had something to do with her apartment being torn apart the night before, and wished she hadn't corrected her. The woman didn't reply immediately, making Mia nervous.

"I'm Chloe," the woman replied after a long moment of silence. The two sat on the bench for a silent minute, then Mia asked Chloe why they were there. After conversing for a long time, and Chloe convincing Mia she worked for a popular fashion magazine, the two agreed to meet again. Mia thought that the whole ordeal was strange, and wondered what connection Chloe had with the man, but she was so excited by the chance to be featured in a magazine that she did meet again.

The morning after Chloe and Mia's meeting, Mia's doorbell rang. Through the opaque window next to her door, Mia could see the silhouette of a short pudgy man outside. When she tried to peer through her peephole the only thing she could see was the man's eye trying to see the inside of Mia's home. She opened the door and the man greeted her in a raspy voice, eventually introducing himself as Mia's boss. Mia noticed that he was wearing latex gloves but thought they could just be to keep his hands warm. When he began to rearrange her furniture she asked him to take a seat. She needed to know what this was about, and when they were going to begin their first photo shoot. Soon after Mia heard a phone ring in the man's pocket, he excused himself and left.

After insisting she meet with Chloe at once, she gathered her purse, wallet, and keys, and stormed off to Target where they had previously planned to meet. Chloe told Mia that to have the photo shoot, she would need to provide her boss with credit card information. Even though Mia was furious that the photoshoot wouldn't be covered, she gave Chloe her grandmother's credit card number and the pin from its back. Chloe agreed that they would be able to start sometime within the next week and that Chloe would call Mia when they were ready for her.

The morning after Mia and Chloe's Target meeting, Mia woke up to dozens of texts on her phone from her mother. After Mia's mother saw a selfie with Chloe and Mia that Chloe didn't even know Mia took, she recognized the woman from the news. The woman was Tatiana LaShawna Anderson and was recently on the news for attempting to defraud elderly and other vulnerable people, generally posing as an employee of Shriners Hospitals for Children. Her mother asked why she was with Tatiana, but Mia only knew her as Chloe so she ignored her mother's texts. She also received texts from Chloe, asking to meet in a warehouse. She drove to the warehouse, not suspicious of its dingy appearance as she knew that it wasn't uncommon for larger companies to outsource work to smaller companies. She was puzzled, however, by the fact that Chloe and her boss were the only ones in sight. There was a small outdated Nikon camera balancing on a rusty overturned steel barrel in front of a wall that was painted white. As instructed, she stood in front of the white wall and smiled, holding back tears. All she could do was hope that the camera was newer than it looked, and the disgusting wall would somehow be fixed in post.

Mia was relieved when she was told she could leave, but just as she was about to open the door, someone on the outside knocked. The police announce themselves and broke through the door. With all the work Mia had done with those strange people and the details they gave cops about her, the police figured they must have been working together, and Mia was charged with fraud and embezzlement.

Seeing her daughter on the news that night made Mia's mom cry, but there was nothing she could do. Mia would forever and always be known only as a fraud.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.