AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2)

by Lexie Ray

  Like it or not, Tama had left me with a blessing in disguise. I’d built up a support system in prison. I could actually call some of these women friends. And with friends, I could become a better person. A better person. Someone my son could love and accept.

  Chapter Five

  I was sitting at my usual table at lunch with Willow’s friends—though they were my friends, now, too—when Marlee sidled over from the kitchen, still wearing her food-spattered apron.

  “You coming over here to get your compliments for this excellent lunch?” I asked, looking up at her. She was beaming and carrying a small cake.

  “What’s this?” I asked, staring that the beautiful little confection. “It’s not my birthday.”

  “It’s your one-year anniversary,” she said. “One whole year of being sober.”

  “Not like she has a choice,” an inmate from down the table mused. “I’m two years sober, and that’s just because they don’t serve beer in prison.”

  “There’s always a choice,” Marlee said sweetly, setting the cake down in front of me. “For alcoholics, it’s not to pick up that glass, not to seek out what we know is hiding here in the prison. It’s a choice to remain sober. Wanda’s done that for a whole year.”

  The rest of the girls at the table clapped, and I divvied up the cake among them. That was one of the things I was learning here. If you had a bit of good luck, you shared it with everyone around you. It would always come back to you in other forms later on. Favors were always remembered here.

  A whole year sober, and a whole year in prison. It was just a notch in the belt for me, really. I knew that I had a lot longer to go, the majority of my sentence still having to be completed, but I was kind of at a milestone. I’d been so sure that my life was over when I first entered prison. In a way, it was. My old life was over—the one where I’d drank with abandon and led a brothel and all that. I’d never go back to that. Now, here in prison, I was getting opportunities I’d never been afforded before.

  I finished my GED and started taking business classes. In time, I earned an associate degree in business management. I checked out a new book from the library every week, even thought A Message to Jasmine was still my favorite. About every month, I’d check it out again and reread it. There were plenty of parts I knew by heart.

  One day, I got a letter.

  “Mail for you,” Pitt said, slipping me the envelope and smiling. I realized why when I saw the name listed on the return address—Jules and Marshall Dupree.

  “It’s from my daughter-in-law and my son,” I said, clutching the letter to my chest as if it were a precious treasure.

  “Good for you,” he said, going back to his business.

  I opened it as soon as I got back to my cell and devoured the words. It seemed silly that there had ever been a time that I hated reading. I craved it now.

  “Dear Mama,” the letter read. “I’m sorry that our phone call ended so abruptly all that time ago. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, in fact, and should have tried to get a hold of you earlier than I am now. I wasn’t sure how to get in contact with you until I found the prison website and read that you could send letters to inmates. Anyways, please forgive Marshall for hanging up on you. The trial upset him terribly and he’s been harboring a lot of anger and resentment.”

  I’d forgive my son anything. I understood why I made him angry. She didn’t have to apologize for him.

  “I would like it if you called again,” the letter continued. “I’ve been a little under the weather and have had to miss some work. If you don’t mind talking to me, I’d love to chat with you whenever you got a moment. I can’t really imagine what life must be like in prison. There must be lots of people around at all times, but I can’t help feeling that it still must be lonely, in a way. All those people and the ones you want to be around the most, you can’t. I don’t want you to feel alone, Mama. You have me, and you have Marshall, whether he’s ready to admit it or not. Maybe he’ll come around, with time and some gentle prodding.”

  I smiled at that and felt a rush of affection for a girl I barely knew. It was clear to me that my son had married a kind soul and a good woman. Nothing like his Mama.

  “You can also feel free to write letters anytime,” the letter added. “I had pen pals when I was a little girl and kind of fell out of the practice. But I’m a damn fine pen pal, if I do say so myself. You won’t be disappointed. You can tell me anything. I’m very interested in knowing about you and your life, Mama. I’ve told you before that I want you in our lives, and that still holds true. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves the chance to make amends for them.

  “I hope to hear from you soon. Love, Jules.”

  I read and reread the letter, touching the stationary, examining the neat penmanship, and trying to glean all the knowledge I could about my daughter-in-law. I wanted to rush to the bank of phones and call her right away, but there was a schedule to follow and things to do.

  “Ready?” Marlee asked brightly, popping her head in the door of our cell.

  “Let’s go,” I said, stowing the letter safely into my cabinet before walking down the hall to the common room.

  “I’m Karla, an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Karla.”

  Admit. Believe. Decide. Search. Admit. Be ready. Ask. List. Amend. Take. Seek. Awake. It was a never-ending cycle of tasks, of constant reminders that we needed to continue improving ourselves even after our initial successes. It was comforting, in a way: a complex ritual that, if followed, will help me improve my life. I was doing my best to follow it. I hadn’t missed a meeting since Marlee had first prodded me to go.

  “Now is the time for sharing,” Karla said. My hand shot up with all the rest, and I was selected to go to the front of the crowd.

  “I got a letter from my daughter-in-law today,” I said. “It apologized about my son hanging up on me the time I tried to call them, tried to make contact. Jules is a sweet girl. She told me in the letter that she wanted to know about my life, but I don’t know how comfortable I am with that. If she meant about my prison life, that’s one thing. I can tell her all about cell checks and outdoor recreation in the dead of winter.”

  There was some laughter, and I waited for it to die down before I continued.

  “But if she wants to know about my other life, the one I had before I was locked up, I’m less comfortable,” I continued. “She said that my son followed my trial, and it was a big media thing. I’m sure they said nasty things on all the shows about me. I’m sure it didn’t help my case with him. And I’m not sure what rehashing everything will do for me now. I knew from the beginning that what I was doing was wrong. Toward the end, though, I somehow convinced myself that I was actually doing a social service. I’m sure alcohol had a lot to do with that reasoning.”

  There came a point at the nightclub when everything was perfect. I’d minimized my debts to the mob and made regular customers out of them besides. Costa introduced me to Johnny French, and I’d thought he was insane for doing so.

  “Would you relax?” the Don asked as I huffed at him and glared at the man I knew from seeing his picture on TV and in the newspapers—Johnny French, the rising star of the New York Police Department. Scourge to the criminal world.

  “Nothing good can come of you bringing a cop in here,” I said, eyeing Johnny French as he wandered around the nightclub. I didn’t want him going upstairs. In fact, I didn’t want him there at all.

  “Plenty good can come of it,” Costa said. “Just give him a chance. Make friends with him now, and who knows where he’ll be five, ten years from now.”

  “He’s responsible for sinking operations like this,” I said. “All around the city. What’s to say that my nightclub isn’t going to be next?”

  “Because he’s my friend,” the Don soothed. “Because he knows that I helped get this place off the ground. Because you’re my friend. This is a favor here, Mama. Get in good with Johnny French and you won’t have to wo
rry about anything. You can practically advertise.”

  “And what’s going to happen when Johnny French is leading the raid against this place?” I asked. “You going to bail me out of jail? Hire me a lawyer? Smuggle me out of the country?”

  “There won’t be a raid if you impress this guy enough,” Costa said. “Believe me. Buddy up to this guy and he’s your buddy for life. Show him a taste of the goods, Mama.”

  I could appreciate the wisdom in getting a cop on my side and having the force as a friend to the nightclub, but that didn’t help me trust the man. I’d had a lifelong suspicion for cops—most likely because I’d had a lifetime of doing wrong. Cops busted bad guys and I was a bad guy. It was as simple as the sun rising and setting in the sky every day.

  But as I shook Johnny French’s hand at Costa’s urging, I realized that this cop was different. This cop wanted connections in different realms as he navigated his upward climb, and Costa had picked me to be his connection at this level.

  “I’m Johnny French,” he said, lifting my hand to his lips and planting a quick kiss on my knuckles.

  “I know who you are,” I said.

  “And I know who you are,” he said. “Mama, you have the best gig in town, I’ve heard.”

  I hoped he’d heard it from Costa and not from an open police investigation into my business.

  “Can I offer you a taste of it?” I asked. “Any of these girls are ripe for the taking. I can vouch for them all.”

  “I’m only interested in one girl,” he said, looking at me with those eyes of his. Those eyes could cut me in two.

  I laughed. “I haven’t worked like that in a while,” I said. “Been too busy being boss, I guess. I think you’d find another girl to be a little more professional.”

  “I don’t want another girl,” Johnny said. “I want you.”

  And that’s how I took New York City’s rising star cop upstairs to where my brothel was really booming. He was a generous lover, and I genuinely had a good time showing him the many perks my friendship could offer.

  But time passed. My son rejected me after I tried to arrange to go to his wedding, and I had trusted girls leave the nightclub in search for legitimate work or something better. I was convinced that my nightclub was as good as it got. I had as many people coming for the food, drinks, entertainment, and atmosphere as I did people coming for the sex. I’d hired world-class chefs, was booking popular entertainment acts, and thought that everything was going so well.

  The drinking was always heavy, but it got worse after talking with Marshall. It was around that time that I developed the idea that I was doing society a service by having the nightclub open. First of all, I was giving lonely people a place to forget about their loneliness. Second of all, I was giving girls a chance to get off the street and into a real place of business. They didn’t have to worry about violent pimps or getting busted by undercover cops. They could relax here and form a sisterhood.

  But as time wore on and I sank deeper into alcoholism, I was able to easily ignore the fact that the girls were kept as virtual slaves. I told them that they were in charge of how much money they made, and that made all of them work every night. I made them leave their profits with me, which I promptly spent on myself. I exacted higher and higher percentages of tips almost every week. And I ostracized girls who didn’t do what I asked—as in refusing to sleep with a customer.

  I always maintained the guise that the girls were free to do what they wanted. If they didn’t want any upstairs business—the type where they slept with customers and earned the real money—they didn’t have to. But if I customer wanted a girl badly enough, he had only to name a price that I salivated after for me to bully a girl into doing what she didn’t want. How could they go against me? I was feeding and clothing them, giving them a job and a place to stay and, occasionally, some spending cash.

  But now, with a clear head and me in prison, I could honestly say that I wasn’t doing anybody any good except for myself.

  “I did use those girls for money,” I said, staring at the faces of the inmates in the crowd. “I did everything the prosecutors in my trial said I did. I knew I was doing wrong, but alcohol helped me ignore it. It convinced me that there were merits to my madness, and I listened. The bottle was all I would listen to. I’m trying so hard to move through the twelve steps, but there’s one that scares me so badly that I don’t think I can do it. I’ve wronged so many people that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make amends to all of them. I don’t know their names. I don’t know their numbers. And I don’t know how many there could have been. Over the years? Hundreds, probably.”

  Karla raised her hand, standing off to the side, and I nodded at her.

  “It’s always important to make an effort at making amends,” she said. “Whether the people we speak to forgive or accept us or not, it helps us to forgive and accept ourselves.”

  I took that knowledge to heart. I started writing down names of those I could remember, writing down descriptions and possible ages when I couldn’t. Maybe I could get a hold of my lawyer and see if he could help put me in contact with some of them. There had to be a list somewhere, especially since the court had paid out the nightclub’s profits to those girls.

  I had feasible goals in mind, and that helped fill my time in prison. I racked my brain thinking of those girls, knowing that once I contacted all of them, I’d be able to rest a little bit easier as well as start the healing process. It was good to have an end game, to have missions like this occupy my mind. It gave me more purpose than even the commissary. I’d started even thinking about getting a second associate degree. All I had was time—I might as well push my education to the next level.

  One big blessing was talking to Jules. No matter what time of the day I called her, she was always available to talk. I suspected that there were a couple of times that I caught her at work, but she never let on. She always sounded like she was smiling while she was talking to me.

  “Hey, Mama,” she’d always exclaim after the call got put through. “What’s new with you?”

  And I’d tell her everything. I had Marlee and Desiree and a slew of other girls to talk about in prison, but having someone on the outside was really special. Jules always seemed interested in whatever I had to say—whether it was a new product in the commissary or a meal that Marlee made exceptional with an unexpected ingredient. I told her all the gossip I could get my hands on, talked about the progress I’d been making in AA, and explained things I’d been learning through my college courses.

  In turn, Jules offered up bits of information about her life and the life she shared with my son. Jules was a first-grade teacher at a private school near their house. She loved work, she only wished she didn’t have to miss so much of it. She’d been sick lately, and doctors were trying to figure out what was going on. The symptoms always seemed to change. As soon as she was treated for one of them, another emerged. The latest theory was that she was suffering panic attacks, so she was on some new kind of medications that left her feeling a little strange.

  “I felt well enough one day to go grocery shopping, so I hopped in the car,” Jules said, telling me the story during one of our conversations. “I didn’t want to waste a good day cooped up at home, so I popped the new medication my doctor had given me and left without giving it a second thought.

  “Well. As soon as I started walking the aisles, pushing my shopping cart, I started feeling really weird. The aisles seemed to heave in and out, and I got the strange impression that I was in the belly of some monster trying to salvage food from what it had already eaten. I thought I was going insane! I knew I wasn’t actually inside a monster, but I felt like it was a strong possibility. I was tiptoeing around the aisles as quietly as I could, but I couldn’t push the cart straight to save my life. I nearly ran a little boy over, knocked over a display, and constantly clipped corners.

  “I walked through the whole grocery store without putting a single item in my shop
ping cart because I was so scared of attracting the monster’s attention. I had to Marshall to come pick me up. We realized that it was the pills that had caused it, and that pretty much eliminated the anxiety attack diagnosis.”

  Marshall was a caseworker with Child Protective Services. My heart clenched a little bit when Jules first told me that, though she only mentioned it in passing. After each of our conversations, I learned more and more about it. My son was given several different cases, and it was his responsibility to visit the families in question and help the agency in making a decision as to the children’s welfare.

  “He’s good at what he does,” Jules told me. “They’ve been dying to promote him, but he refuses. He wants to stay where he is because it allows him to work one-on-one with families. He really thrives on it.”

  I was glad he had a passion, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty that it was my neglect from the beginning of his life that had driven him to his current career. He was out there working to ensure that no children under his watch suffered like he did. It made me proud of him, but it made me disgusted with myself. If only there was a such thing as a time machine. I could go back and do every single thing different.

  They made a comfortable living, the two of them, and they both loved working with children.

  “Why don’t you have any of your own?” I asked one time after Jules had told me a funny story involving one of her second-graders, vomit, and a backpack. “You all seem to really enjoy being around them.”

  Jules hesitated, and I winced. “I’m sorry, sugar,” I said quickly. “That was a personal question. Forget I asked.”

  “No, I don’t mind,” she said. “We haven’t had any because it’s just not the right time. We both stay busy with our careers and child care would be a nightmare at this point. We’ve been talking about it a little, and we’ll get something figured out.”