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Pettit steps past the pimps hanging on the sidewalk and makes her way into a bar in the heart of Girls Town, where sex workers and their dates meet and greet. She's inside for less than a minute when Mercedes jumps up and pulls her away from the crowd. She needs to talk. Now. Coloured lights bounce off the brick walls as Mercedes steers Pettit up a narrow flight of stairs. They squeeze around a small table, overlooking the crowd. "I need to tell you something. If I don't tell you now, I'm never going to tell you," Mercedes says, barely audible over the pounding club music. She takes a deep breath, then buries her face in her hands. "I don't know what to do," she says through tears. "I'm so alone." Her boyfriend got another woman pregnant. And she's been using cocaine again. "It's the only thing I can do that doesn't make me depressed." She can't talk to her friends -- her best friend will tell her straight out that she doesn't like to see people cry. "I'm very proud of you for telling me," Pettit says. "What do you want to do?" "I want to stop, but I don't know how," Mercedes says. Pettit listens, gently pushing Mercedes to come by the HIPS office during the day to sort through options. "I'm such a coward," Mercedes says. This isn't the first time Pettit has urged her to come in. "I'm such a punk." Pettit laughs, puts a hand on her arm. "We're all punks." "Amy," Mercedes says, tentatively. "I have finally realized the last five months . . ." "Yes?" ". . . that I want to do something better, that I know that I deserve better." But who, she asks, is gonna hire someone with a criminal record? She got into prostitution to pay off a school loan, to save enough to go back. Five years later, now 23, she's no closer. Pettit makes the pitch gently. HIPS can help her write a resume, explain away gaps in her job history, sign her up with a temp agency. "Maybe if we put our heads together we can come up with some plan," Pettit says. Mercedes wipes away tears that have smudged her heavy black eyeliner. How can she call the HIPS office when she's lost the number? "I can give it to you," Pettit says. "It comes on a piece of paper and goes to your hand. It's this really crazy technology." Mercedes laughs, just a little. "Before I started doing what I was doing, I trusted everybody, everybody," she tells Pettit. Not anymore. "I can't talk to these girls I work with because I don't trust nobody no more. I just want to let you know that I do trust you."
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