by Cathy Lamb
* * *
Aunt Iris made the sign. She nailed it to the big oak at the turnoff.
It said, “Chief Ass Burn: You Are Not Allowed on Our Property.”
That’ll do it, I thought, getting to be quite the cynic. He’ll definitely stay off the property even when he finds out you three are selling pot out of the greenhouse.
I was beginning to feel sick about their “business venture.”
* * *
Jules and I received e-mails that the DNA company had received our vials of spit.
“Pretty fun, huh?” Jules said when she called me that night. “We’ll find out where those ancestors of ours are from.”
“We’re from witch country. Soon we’ll know.”
“I think I’ll get a sexy witch outfit for me and a warlock outfit for Mack. That’d be fun. Not long before I’m Mrs. Motorcycle Rider! Mack is so brave. He’s so confident. When I bring home new sex toys, he’s always game to try them out.”
“That’s very courageous.”
“I know!” She sniffled. “Anything I want to try, he wants to try. He doesn’t make me feel silly or stupid for asking, he just smiles that smile at me when I tell him, well, when I ask him if he wants to play dress up or do role-play or try new games or toys, and he always says, ‘Anything you want to do, Sugar Love Jules, we’ll do, you’re my apple pie.’ And so we do.”
A little too much detail, but okay! “He has an adventurous spirit like you.”
“Yes, he does. He’ll try anything in bed at all. Doesn’t even mind my crazy ideas! He makes me feel sexy.” She burst into tears. “I love him so much! I can’t wait to get married with you as my maid of honor.”
“Stop, stop!” I teared up and blew my nose.
* * *
I drove Torrance’s books out to him again and passed by the battered yellow house that I didn’t want to see. On my way back I pulled into the drive, turned off my car, and let the memories pour over me. There was an air of depression around the sagging, dilapidated house, although maybe that was me personifying it.
Emily Medegna and I were best friends for three years. She was also close to Jules, because whenever Emily came over, Jules was there, too. We also had a bunch of other girlfriends of all ages on the island, the sisters and cousins of our friends.
It was an island gang of girls, so to speak. We spied on boys. We went on hikes with our moms. We played in the ocean. We went out on other parents’ sailboats. We played in the lake and jumped off the dock. We had picnics. When it rained we read books together and made tents with blankets. We did not play with dolls. We did not pretend we were princesses, hoping to be rescued. We played Island Warrior Women and we fought off bad guys and zombies and King Kong with homemade swords and pretend bombs.
We were tough! We were brave! We were the Island Girls Gang.
And one day, one of the members of the Island Girls Gang betrayed the other by forgetting to help. Forgetting to prevent. Forgetting to save.
There was a disastrous, tragic consequence that was all my fault.
I betrayed my friend and her family, and her life fell off a cliff for years. She left the island. Then she disappeared. My guilt has never left me. I manage it, I forget about it sometimes, but it’s still there, lurking.
I laid my head on the steering wheel, guilt, remorse, and unbearable sadness whipping over me like a wave, drowning me.
* * *
I fought my depression that afternoon. I could feel it coming on like a black thing. I knew how to handle it. I left my bookstore and drove to a lake in the local state park and walked around it until my legs ached. I breathed. I ate bananas because for some reason bananas help me with my anxiety. I had chocolate milk in the bath and ate strawberries. I washed my sheets and cleaned up the house. Organizing helps me get my mind off my depression.
It was late when I went to bed. I read for two hours, slipping into fiction so I could slip out of my dark mind-set. Sundance stayed up with me for most of the night with an expression that said, “Can we go to sleep now? Are you okay?” Sundance was so in tune with me and my feelings. His head was on his pillow, his pink blankie beneath him, Lizard in his paws. Finally I could no longer keep my eyes open.
“Good night, everyone,” I said to the dogs and cats. And I whispered, “Good night, Emily.”
* * *
“What’s it like, Evie?”
“What’s what like, Sally?”
“To see the future.”
“I don’t see the future.” The bookstore was busy today. Partly because we were selling six-layer Chocolate Cake Ecstasy.
“You ran over to my house yesterday, coming out of nowhere, and stood under my tree right as Ellen was falling. You don’t expect me to believe that you can’t see the future.”
“I was on my way to your house to visit.” I was not on my way to Sally’s house to visit. I had a vision of that cat falling out of her tree. The cat is eighteen years old. It’s half blind and totally deaf. I mean, lots of people think cats are “selectively deaf.” That is not the case with this cat. She is totally deaf. And Sally loves her.
Sally is a widow. She’s a former doctor from Seattle. Her husband died last year. She is seventy-four and has been pushing that cat in a cat stroller for years. In fact her husband made her a cat stroller before cat strollers were even a thing. That’s how much she loves Ellen.
But the problem wasn’t only the cat. I saw the cat falling from the tree and one of Beck Hornwith’s dogs biting it. The cat died. I saw Sally weeping over her body, and I couldn’t stand it. That’s why I had to run, which I hate to do, to her house. Running should be outlawed.
“No, you weren’t coming over to visit, but thanks for saving Ellen.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But what’s it like? Can you see anything about me?”
I held a book out. The book was about the national parks.
She put a hand to her throat. “Oh, my goodness! Why? I wonder why? I’ll take it, Evie!”
* * *
One week later, Sally booked a trip with a traveling group to see four national parks.
I had zippo premonitions about Sally. She needed to get out of her grief and live a little.
She had a terrific time.
* * *
The car accident premonition arrived smack out of the blue again as I was driving to the bookstore the next morning. The tight, curving road in the mountain was the same, the sunlight filtering through, the orange poppies.
But this time, when the red car came into view, instead of crashing straight into me, the driver, a woman, turned the wheel to her right when we were still ten feet away from each other and sent her car flying off the side of the road and down the cliff.
I stopped and I ran out of my truck. I saw the woman’s head hanging limply out the window, her short black hair still.
She looked dead, and I scrambled down the cliff and ran to her.
Then I lost my footing and started to fall. I screamed as I crashed down the cliff, rolling, flipping, landing hard.
One of us died. Probably. I felt a death, then it skittered away. I can’t believe that this premonition does not give me more clarity. All my premonitions give me clarity. I see what’s going to happen.
Why does this premonition change and shift? I have no idea why, and that makes me worry more than anything else.
* * *
Mr. Jamon came in on Friday. The store was jammed, the line to get treats at the café ten people long. It was the Toffee Crunch and Candied Pretzel cake we were selling. Bettina knew how to bake.
“Hello, Mr. Jamon.”
“Hello, Evie,” he croaked out. “I’ll need another book by Mrs. Macomber and I need something that’ll keep me thinking, using the ol’ noggin all night.”
I gave him a historical fiction book about slavery—“history with a magical twist”—and a current book about social issues, minimum wage, and staying broke in America. “Nonfiction. We can all
learn from this.”
He was quite pleased, especially with Mrs. Macomber’s book. “She believes in love,” he told me.
“Yes,” I said. “She does.”
Then he leaned in and whispered, “I’ll take another bodice ripper, too.”
Chapter 22
Betsy Baturra
Women’s Correctional Prison
Salem, Oregon
1976
Prison was a torture for many reasons. Betsy was trapped behind bars, like an animal. She was told what to do and when to do it. Some of the prisoners were mentally ill. Some were mentally ill and dangerous. Some weren’t mentally ill but were dangerous. Some of the women were nice enough, or interesting, or even friendly, and others were to be avoided at all costs.
It was gray, it was depressing, it was hopeless. Betsy had been given a life sentence. She might get out early for good behavior. She might not.
She had lost Rose. The only reason she decided not to kill herself was because of her premonition: It looked like one day, in the future, she was out of prison. Either she died or the other woman in the truck died, but maybe she had weeks or months or years to live outside of prison before that. She could hope.
Her first roommate attacked her with a piece of wood that she had sharpened into a tiny knife. The blood soaked through her orange prison shirt and she was sent to the infirmary. The roommate was sent to isolation and then transferred to a mental hospital. Her second roommate was schizophrenic and mean. She and Betsy had a physical fight, and Betsy won. She was small but strong, and her survival instinct kicked in.
But they both ended up in isolation.
That was where Betsy came into contact with a guard named, ironically, sickeningly, Duke.
Duke was in his midthirties and already balding. He had a heavy stomach that dripped over his belt. He had bad skin; bad teeth; and the deadened, soulless eyes of a panther.
The first time he saw Betsy, on duty in the isolation ward, he stopped making crude jokes to two other guards, who clearly couldn’t stand Duke, to pant over Betsy.
“Whoa. Look at that beautiful bitch,” Duke breathed.
“Hey,” one of the other guards said. “Knock it off.”
Duke didn’t even bother to glare at him. He watched Betsy being led into an isolation ward and said to himself, “Yum. That one is mine.”
And that’s when Betsy’s life in prison became even worse.
* * *
On a blustery night, Duke slid Betsy’s dinner in through the tiny slat of her isolation cell designed to break people in half, to bring them to their knees, so that they obeyed forevermore. “Hello, sexy lady.”
She didn’t bother to hide her disgust. He saw it on her face, so he dumped her food on the floor. “That’ll teach you to be more friendly to me.”
The food dumping happened on the second night, too. Duke said, “Give me a pretty smile, darling,” and leered at her. Betsy did not smile. He threw the food through the slit, angry, but enjoying the power struggle. She would be on her knees soon. He was practiced at this with the “captives.”
The third night he said, “Betsy, I can make your life easier or harder. Understand? Now show me what’s beneath that shirt.” Betsy was demoralized, near deranged from isolation and grief and used an expletive that started with an F to tell him what she thought of that. He tossed the food in once again.
On the fourth night he opened up her door, furtive, quick, knowing he wasn’t supposed to be there and said, “Do you want to eat?”
She blinked at him. The less she spoke to that vile man, the better.
“I said, bitch, do you want to eat?”
“Yes.”
He undid his pants. “You know what to do.” He leered at her. He was proud of his size. He was big, longer and wider than other men, he believed. Like a stallion. He could drive women crazy with The Pistol. He hung well. He was blessed.
She screamed as loud as she could, and it echoed off the beige-yellow concrete walls. He clocked her, on instinct, right across those high cheekbones, barely missing those puffy lips. “Bitch. I will make you pay for that.”
He shoved his little snake back in his pants, enraged at the screaming, and slammed the door.
“What’s going on, Duke?” Coralee, another guard, asked. Coralee was twenty-eight and had a degree in criminology and wanted to go to law school. She couldn’t stand Duke.
“I don’t know. She’s crazy.” He was panting. His anger always made it hard to breathe. Black was edging his vision, his body ready to attack. “I put her food tray through the opening and she tossed it to the ground like she’s done the other nights. I went in to talk to her, calm her down, pick up her food for her, and she swung her fist right at my face twice. She should be in the psych ward.”
Through the tiny slat, Betsy said calmly, loudly, “He opened the door, called me a bitch, pulled down his pants, showed me his tiny pencil dick, and told me what to do with it if I wanted to eat.”
“She’s a liar,” Duke said, agitated, his fat face scrunched up. “That didn’t happen. I was trying to help her. I was going in to talk to her so she’d eat.”
“He wanted me to eat him,” Betsy said. She tried to keep her voice strong, but it cracked. She tried not to cry.
Coralee and the other guards didn’t believe Duke. Betsy may have been a murderer, but they knew Duke, the warden’s nephew, was a lying, scheming jerk.
“Get out, Duke,” Coralee said. “Go to the warden’s. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“You believe this liar? This murderer?”
Coralee peeked through the slat at Betsy, on the ground, her skinny arms wrapped around her skinny self, then at Duke. Duke was a craven, disrespectful, nasty liar. A man who was not half as smart as any woman here but believed himself to be twice as smart because that’s what he wanted to believe. “Yes.”
Betsy felt her face swelling up. She was dizzy. She was aching. She felt sick from the punch.
“We’ll get you another tray,” Coralee said, “but first you’re going to the infirmary.” One of the guards headed off to get the tray, following Duke, who was punching the air with his meaty fists and swearing. That Coralee could order him around, that infuriated him, too. Women should never be in charge of men. Stupid woman. Stupid whore.
He listened, seething, to Coralee telling the warden, his uncle, what happened to Betsy, the murderess in isolation. Duke called Coralee a liar and pretended to be outraged.
Coralee told him that his nephew wasn’t fit to be working in the jail, that he was an egomaniac, a danger to the women prisoners, continued to insist on unlimited power, and had a problem with authority, especially with women. “I’ve worked with him for a year now. Look, sir, we’re not responsible for our family members,” she told the warden. “We’ve all got relatives who are loony or corrupt, but you are responsible for this prison and the people in it.”
The warden told Coralee not to tell him how to do his job, and Coralee apologized.
The warden sighed. He knew his nephew had a brain filled with filth, but he loved his older sister. She was the sweetest woman he had ever met. It was Rosalind who had comforted him when their parents were screaming at each other when they were kids. So he didn’t fire Duke. He told Duke, “Stop making problems for me here, and keep your damn hands to yourself or you’re out of here.”
That set Duke off, too. He had a miserable job. There had to be some perks. All these women. Some were butt ugly and fat and gross. Others weren’t so bad. They even did things for him when he promised them perks. But Betsy was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in his life.
She was his.
And he would have her.
He would get his revenge on Coralee, too.
* * *
Betsy was given a job in the prison cafeteria as a short-order cook, so to speak. It wasn’t the worst job. She liked to cook. It was the one thing she and her mother did together. Her mother had taught her how to make everythi
ng from scratch to save money: Bread. Pies. Cakes. Casseroles. Chicken dishes. Turkey dinners. It was all centered around Betsy’s mother “performing her wifely duties in the kitchen,” as her father always said, but it did give her time alone with her mother.
The food in prison was flat, but maybe she could make it better. She would try. She had nothing else to do. Plus, in some small way it reminded her of her and Johnny’s plans. They were going to farm together. They would sell the food they grew on the farm. It would be organic. Their organic food would make people’s lives better, healthier. They would have a farmhouse and acreage. They would have apple, pear, and cherry trees. They would have blueberries and potatoes and carrots and lettuce.
Every time she envisioned that farm, selling at farmer’s markets or a small grocery store, she would feel a sense of hope, of light, but then her reality would crash in on her along with the bars in her cell and the group showers, and darkness would descend. Still, she hung on to that image, that future.
Her new cellmate was named Eartha. Eartha was twenty-two. She was in for attacking her stepfather. He had beaten up her mother one too many times. She had tried to kill him, but it hadn’t worked. “I could not tolerate seeing my mother’s face bashed in one more time,” she said. “He always threatened to kill her if she left him, so I decided to take things into my own hands with a hammer when he was drunk and passed out.”
Her defense attorney literally fell asleep at her trial, twice. The judge had to shout at him. In the end, she was found guilty of assault and was in for three years. “Hopefully we can stay roommates for that long,” Eartha told her after a week. “You ain’t crazy and you ain’t mean, and you haven’t tried to kill me yet, so we’re good.”
Betsy liked Eartha. She was almost six feet tall, smart, loud, opinionated, interesting, and funny. They were an unlikely best-friend pairing, with Betsy being small, quieter, reserved, and depressed. But perhaps because they were so different, they got along. It was the only thing about prison that Betsy liked. She even shared her future plans with Eartha.
