“Rita Standish.” She looked like she might be part Latina with dark-brown hair and dark-brown eyes that were nearly black. Too bad she couldn’t use that cold tone to cool the cabin she would be living in.
“Violet O’Hare,” the last one said. A skinny little white girl with stringy strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes, she was the one who had been abused by her boyfriend and who had put him in the hospital when she got tired of it.
They were halfway across the lawn when Novalene brought her girls outside. She stopped on the porch just like Diana and said, “Step up here one at a time, and tell Elijah your name.”
“Bailey Morse.” She was almost as tall as Jayden. She tilted her chin up and looked down her nose at Elijah. The striking things about her were blue eyes the color of the summer sky and a round face full of freckles. Elijah would guess she had some Irish in her DNA. He also would put her at about twenty pounds overweight, which probably meant that she was cooking meth to sell, not use.
“Keelan Johnson.” Her pert little nose twitched like she really didn’t like what she smelled. Her dark hair was cut short. Like Bailey, she was multiracial, but in her case, she was half-Latina and half-black.
Elijah had studied the girls’ names and their crimes. Keelan also peddled drugs, but like with Bailey, he doubted that she used them.
“Lauren Fielding, and I already hate this place.” Her brown eyes locked with Elijah’s and a cold chill chased up his spine. He’d never seen such hate in any of the girls who had come through Piney Wood. Her skin was so pale that it looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.
“Okay, now we’re going to Moonbeam Cabin and study the rules,” Novalene said and then led the way across the yard.
Jayden was the next one to come out of the dining hall, with Tiffany right beside her, carrying the hog-feed bucket.
“So, you are Tiffany Jordan?” Elijah said.
Tiffany had a hard look about her, one of those don’t-mess-with-me glares that said she wouldn’t mind plowing right into another girl. Since she was as tall as Jayden, Elijah was doubly glad that Skyler wasn’t there that session. Jayden was going to have her hands full with this group, but even after only knowing her a short while, Elijah felt like she could handle the job.
“Yes, sir,” she almost hissed.
“Carry on with your duties. I just like to meet the girls one at a time on the first day so I can put faces with names and cabins.” He headed back inside the dining hall just in case the other two from Daydream Cabin thought they could give Mary a hard time.
He pulled up a chair and sat down at the adult table. Carmella gagged when she had to rake the spaghetti, salad, and bread all into a dustpan with a paper towel. Ashlyn flinched as Mary handed her a bucket of water and scrub brush. Elijah bet that they would give Tiffany a hard enough time that she’d think twice before she did something stupid again.
Chapter Five
By the time Jayden had wrangled Tiffany back into the dining room, Tiffany’s two teammates had cleaned up the spilled food and were now on their knees with scrub brushes. Jayden pulled up a chair beside Elijah, sat down, and pointed to the third scrub brush. “I believe that belongs to you. In case the three of you haven’t been formally introduced, this is Tiffany Jordan.” Jayden pointed at the redheaded girl.
“If you ever do something like this again, I’m going to shove your face into the food you throw on the floor,” Ashlyn growled.
“And I’ll hold you down while she does it,” Carmella added.
“That’s between you three,” Jayden said. “Tiffany is here for shoplifting and for cyberbullying. She posted a picture of a classmate wearing only a bra and panties that included a nasty comment about only ugly girls wearing granny panties. Tiffany, this girl right here with the pink in her hair that will either be cut off or dyed to match the rest of her hair is Ashlyn Causey. She’s here for a third DUI in the past two months. And the other one is Carmella Ruiz, who was caught shoplifting. Now, y’all feel free to visit while you get the stains up off Miss Mary’s floor, and then we’ll go to our cabin and talk about rules.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carmella and Ashlyn said with so much venom that Jayden should have been nothing but bones and hair on the floor.
A full ten seconds later, Tiffany dropped to her knees and muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”
Elijah motioned for Jayden to follow him outside. She hoped that she hadn’t gone too far with her discipline on her first day. He could always fire her if she had, she thought as she pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser in the middle of the table, wiped sweat from her forehead, and stepped around the three girls. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to check on your progress.”
Elijah was sitting on the park bench when she arrived, and he patted the place beside him.
She sat down and wiped even more sweat from her forehead. “It’s hotter’n hell out here. Do you think I was too rough on them?”
He shook his head. “Not one bit. I wanted to tell you that, but not in front of the girls. It’s a lot harder to tighten the reins later than it is to let up on them once the girls begin to figure things out. Did you ever have to deal with a kid throwing their food on the floor before today, and did you make someone else help clean it up?”
“Oh, yeah,” she answered. “I doubt that these kids can do much of anything I haven’t seen or dealt with before, but I seldom have the backing of an administration. If I’d told a kid that she had to take the slop bucket to the hogs, I would have had six or eight sets of parents and grandparents filing a lawsuit against me personally, the school, and the school board. Making the teammates help clean it up will make them all responsible for each other. It’s a good lesson to learn.”
“How did Tiffany do with feeding the hogs?” Elijah didn’t really want to talk about hogs, but he couldn’t figure out a way to start a conversation about Jayden.
“She dry-heaved when she caught a whiff of their perfume. I’m glad you’ve got all kinds of animals here. The girls are going to love gathering eggs and baling hay for the cows. Which reminds me, who does all this work when you don’t have little lawbreakers around?”
“Henry and I do pretty good during those times,” Elijah answered. “Why? Are you looking for a full-time job?”
“No, sir!” Jayden threw up both hands. “There’s not enough money in the world to keep me here or to bring me back after the first of August.”
“I said that once upon a time, too.” Elijah flashed a bright smile toward her. “But the place kind of grows on you.”
“It can’t grow that much.” Jayden got up and headed back inside.
“Oh, but, darlin’, it can,” Elijah muttered as he headed toward the barn.
Jayden helped Mary spray the trays with hot water and then load them into a commercial dishwasher. “I’d tell all my secrets to have a dishwasher like this in my apartment. I wouldn’t have to do dishes for a week at a time.” She lowered her voice so only Mary could hear. “Do you think I’m being too rough on them?”
Mary shook her head. “Honey, here at first, you’ve got to put up those walls that Henry told you about. Later, you can be their friend, but not this first week. I don’t think any of us would have handled that as slick as you did. Now, it’s time to give them the good cleaner so they can finish that job.” She nodded toward a bottle that said “Stain Remover” on the label.
Jayden took it off the shelf and carried it over to where the girls were still on their knees. “See if this works any better.” She sat down in a chair at the next table and watched them.
“How do we use it?” Tiffany asked.
“For cryin’ out loud.” Carmella jerked it out of her hand. “Are you too dumb to read the label?”
“Don’t get all high-and-mighty on me. We’ve both been caught shoplifting, so you aren’t a bit better than me, and Ashlyn is a drunk so she’s damn sure not any better than I am,” Tiffany shot back at her.
Carmella looked down her nose at
Tiffany. “Let me show you how this is done. First you read the directions. If the words are too big for you to understand, then you ask someone for help.”
“You are a bitch,” Tiffany hissed.
Carmella ignored her, sprayed the stain remover on the floor, and ran the scrub brush over it. “Pay attention to how I’m doing this, and you do the same thing.” She handed the spray bottle back to Tiffany. “And, honey, you better not call me that again. A demerit would be a small price to pay to get to wipe up this floor with your red hair.”
Virtual flames shot out of Tiffany’s eyes when she sprayed a section of the floor and began to run the scrub brush over it. “I need rubber gloves.”
“Did you have gloves when you dumped the tray?” Carmella asked.
“My hands are going to be ruined,” Tiffany whined without answering the question.
“Well, duh!” Ashlyn held up her hands. “I’ve already broken three nails and chipped the polish that I just had done yesterday on the rest of them. And it’s your fault, so don’t bitch about your hands.”
Carmella groaned as she looked at her own ruined manicure. “I wouldn’t do this for my best friend.”
“Neither would I,” Tiffany agreed, “but they’d do it for me without bitchin’ all the time about it.”
“Why?” Ashlyn asked. “Because you probably took the fall for them. Well, I’ll be willing to bet a hundred dollars that when you get home, all those friends will have deserted you. They won’t want to be around someone who spent time in boot camp instead of going to parties.”
“I’ve got friends. I just didn’t rat them out,” Tiffany declared.
“I’m so sure they appreciate that a hell of a lot,” Ashlyn said. “What are they doing right now? Huh? No answer? I’ll tell you what your friends are doing. They’re out having a wonderful summer while you’re in here, and when you go home, they won’t even know your name.”
“They will, too,” Tiffany argued and then glanced over at Jayden. “Aren’t you going to give them demerits for their smart-ass remarks?”
“Y’all can work out your own problems as long as there’s no blood or broken bones. From what I see, the whole bunch of you are all wind anyway. You’ve got about ten minutes to finish up this job, or I’m giving you all a demerit whether you’ve been spoon-fed what’s in the handbook or not,” Jayden said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“What’s that mean? All wind?” Tiffany asked.
“That you don’t do nothing but talk.” Ashlyn’s tone was icy cold.
“I’ll knock the wind right out of you so hard that it’ll sober you up enough to drive right,” Tiffany sneered.
Ashlyn came up on her knees and glared at Tiffany. “I may like my whiskey, but I could whip your skinny ass with a blindfold tied around my eyes and one hand tied behind my back.”
Tiffany took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s get this cleaned up so we can get out of here.”
“All wind, just like I thought,” Ashlyn said as she wiped up the last of the stain.
Jayden could have sworn it would be Carmella who was the tough one, not Miss Pink Streak. Jayden tensed and got ready to break up a fight, but evidently Tiffany saw that Ashlyn wasn’t taking any lip off her.
“Mary, would you come over here and see if this job is satisfactory?” Jayden raised her voice over the noise of the dishwasher.
Mary rounded the end of the buffet bar, pushed the table back, and took a long look at the floor. Then she took a few steps back and pointed toward the door. “There’s a couple of spots over there, and the door needs cleaning.”
“Tiffany, you can take care of that.” Jayden pointed as she spoke so they’d really hear her words. “Carmella, you and Ashlyn may each grab a broom and sweep the dining room for Miss Mary.”
Carmella sighed. “I’m Cami, not Carmella.”
“You are Carmella while you are here. We do not use nicknames at Piney Wood, and that was not the right response when you are told to do something,” Jayden reminded her.
She closed her eyes, pursed her lips tightly, and then said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“My friends call me Tiff. I hate Tiffany,” Tiffany declared as she cleaned the last few spots from the floor and the door.
“It seems that you hate a lot of things,” Jayden told her. “Hopefully by the time you leave here, you’ll figure out that hate consumes the heart and leaves no room for love. When you finish cleaning, you can hold the dustpan for these two girls.”
Are you preachin’ to them or to yourself? Jayden’s mother’s voice whispered so real that she glanced over her shoulder to be sure a ghost wasn’t behind her.
I’m doing my best to forgive Skyler, but it’s not easy.
Hate was too strong of a word to use for the feelings Jayden had for her sister, but it was difficult to love someone like a sister when Jayden had walked in Skyler’s shadow her whole life. These girls were stirring up emotions that Jayden had buried and tried to forget.
Mary stood to the side, and when Tiffany had cleaned the last of the spots off the door, she nodded. “Good job. Now, take the bucket and scrub brushes to the sink and clean them good. I’ll show you where they belong, and where you can find the dustpan.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tiffany said.
Jayden hoped that, in the days to come, her girls would learn to say that without so much anger. None of them realized that charm would take them further in life than money or power, but they would—or should—before the end of July.
That’s what I told you your whole life. Her mother’s voice was back in her head. Why can’t you apply that to your own life?
Because I’m still mad at you for what you did, Jayden answered silently.
“You look like you could chew up nails,” Mary said.
“I was fighting with my mother in my head,” Jayden admitted.
“We’ve all done that.” Mary smiled.
When the kitchen was put to rights, Jayden led her girls across the barren yard to the Daydream Cabin. “See these lovely flowers that have been planted here in front of the cabin? I expect the dead blossoms to be picked off daily, for the plants to be watered each morning and evening unless it rains, and, when we leave at the end of July, for this flower bed to look as pretty or maybe to be even more beautiful than it is right now. Is that understood? It would be a shame if the girls from the other two cabins did better at such a simple gardening job.”
“Yes, ma’am.” They all sighed.
“I will not remind you every day about the flower bed. You will take time to do that without me saying a word. The first time I come out here and find wilted flowers, I will give every one of you a demerit.” Jayden opened the old-fashioned screen door and then turned the knob on the wooden one leading inside the cabin.
The girls’ sighs could have been heard halfway to heaven. Apparently, they had expected it to be as cool as the dining room, but what they got was a stark little place that was almost as hot as it was outside.
“We have air conditioners.” Jayden hoped to catch an afternoon breeze through the screen by leaving the door open. “We will save them for night, since they freeze up if we use them too much. Besides, we won’t be in the cabin very much in the daytime. Now, sit down, pick up the handbook with your name on it, and let’s go over the rules. You each have a highlighter, so I suggest you mark the basics so you don’t forget. This is the only time I’m going to spoon-feed you the dos and don’ts in this book. Two of you are fifteen, and the other is sixteen. You are old enough to be held accountable if you break the rules. If being here at Piney Wood isn’t proof of that, then you’ve got more to learn than what’s written in this book.”
Carmella opened the book and groaned. “No smoking?”
“That’s what it says. If you’ve been a smoker, you’ll be quitting cold turkey,” Jayden answered. “If you break that rule, not only will you get one of those demerits that you do not want or need, you will be picking up the yard every evening
for a week on your hour of free time.”
Tiffany read the next one and turned pale. “No phones or calls for the next eight weeks? That’s cruel and unusual punishment. Even a prisoner gets a phone call home.”
“You can’t be trusted with a phone, so quit whinin’,” Ashlyn said. “I damn sure don’t want my picture taken in these ugly granny panties and shown to the world.”
“Oh, hush. Giving up my phone won’t be as hard as you giving up your booze.” Tiffany pointed at the next rule. “No liquor or beer. How are you ever going to survive?”
“I can’t drink. You can’t take pictures of me and Carmella in our granny panties, and there’s nothing for Carmella or you to shoplift. It’s going to be a long two months, isn’t it?” Ashlyn did a head wiggle that would have made any smart-ass teenage girl proud.
If groans and grunts were candy and nuts, the cabin would have looked like a sweetshop by the time they finished going through the handbook. While they were still reeling from what they could and couldn’t do during their residence at Piney Wood Academy, Jayden handed each of them a sheet of paper with their names on the top.
“The handbook is your Piney Wood Bible. This paper is the Book of Revelation, or what will come to pass right here in Daydream Cabin,” Jayden said. “This outlines what you will be doing as a team, what you’ll be doing individually, and the schedule as to when you will be allowed your turn for showers in the bathhouse. You will have an hour, which will be your free hour this afternoon, to acquaint yourselves with what’s written there. Now you may go into your bedroom, which is through that open door.”
Tiffany’s eyes got as big as saucers. “What do you mean, bathhouse? Don’t we, at least, have an individual bathroom in the cabin?”
“No, ma’am,” Jayden answered. “The bathroom is located behind the cabins. It has showers and stalls. No mirrors, and when you read your papers there, you will see that every fourth day is your day as a team to clean it thoroughly.”
The Daydream Cabin Page 6
