by Cathy Lamb
“I like it,” Eartha said. “I’ll be your manager.”
So Eartha and she made plans for their grocery store even though Eartha thought Betsy was dreaming. That girl was probably never getting out of prison.
* * *
Duke would not leave Betsy alone. He always tried to be near her whenever he could. He watched her. He stalked her. Betsy was elegant and petite, and she disdained Duke. Who was she, he thought with a burning rage, to reject him? Does she think she’s better than him, the little murderess? Does she think she can treat him with such dismissiveness and rudeness and get away with it? This was his domain. His. Not hers. He was the guard. She was the prisoner. She should be subservient to him.
He would try to talk to her when she was in her cell. He would try to touch her when she walked by in a line with the other prisoners. She would yell at him, “Get your paws off of me, you animal.” He would try to rub up against her any time he could, which wasn’t often, as there were other people around and he knew where all the cameras were, but he was always there, waiting to rub.
Duke tried, for a short time, to sneak behind her while she was doing dishes in the cafeteria. As soon as she saw him coming, his beady eyes locked on her, she would get a bowl ready. When he stepped up behind her, she would pretend to be surprised, turn, and toss a bowl full of soapy, dirty, preferably hot water on him. The first time she did it, he ripped the bowl out of her hands and threw it. It shattered on the floor. He then turned her around and put her hands behind her back and cuffed her, shoving himself up behind her.
“Get off of me!” she screamed, gasping for breath as his weight pressed in on her. “Get him off of me.” Other prisoners turned to help, but it was no use. He was a guard and no one was allowed to touch a guard. Plus, Mrs. Grisham, their boss, was out that day—her daughter had given birth to twins—so there was no one to ask for help from.
“You attacked a guard,” Duke panted, so excited, thrilled!
“No, I didn’t. I defended myself because I didn’t want your sweaty, fat hands on me again. Quit trying to touch me, Duke!”
He dragged her off, her arms almost being pulled out of their sockets, to isolation. He would teach her a lesson as soon as he could. When Coralee came in for her shift, she complained to the warden about Betsy being there again. She knew what was going on. “He came up behind Betsy, again, and attacked her,” she told the warden. “Then Duke blamed her for it.”
“He said she turned, unprovoked, and threw scalding hot water on him in order to make an escape,” the warden said. He couldn’t look Coralee in the eye.
“You have got to be kidding,” Coralee told him. She was getting more bold in her speech. She figured she’d make a competent lawyer. “You can’t possibly believe that. You know your creepy nephew is obsessed with her.”
The warden sighed. If it wasn’t for his sweet sister, he would have fired Duke long ago. He sighed again. He should have been a grocer. Or a plumber.
Coralee made dang sure that Duke didn’t “visit” Betsy on her shift or on any of the other shifts. No one crossed Coralee, so when Duke tried to sneak down there when Coralee was off shift, he was refused by other guards.
Betsy only had to spend two days in isolation, because the warden intervened. If hot water had truly been thrown, she would have been in there far longer than that.
When she was released she was confused and exhausted, which is what isolation does. Plus, it makes you feel like you’re losing your mind as the walls close in ever closer. When Betsy was headed to the cafeteria a week later, Duke grabbed her and dragged her out to a supply closet and shut the door. He knew that supply closet, and the short hallway on either side of it, didn’t have a camera on it.
He didn’t realize that Betsy would fight as hard as she did, especially after he smacked her so she would obey and shut up. In the end, his testicles were smashed by her raised knee so hard, and with such force, that he fell to the ground. She stumbled out of the closet, her prison shirt ripped. Mrs. Grisham, back from helping with her daughter’s twins—they were so adorable—saw Betsy, her face bruised and swelling, and complained to the warden.
But there was an ol’ boys network in the prison, and the warden was his uncle, so no one did anything to punish Duke, but Mrs. Grisham told him to “stay the hell out of my kitchen, you piece of crap, Duke.”
Betsy cried in her cold, bare cell that night, Eartha’s arm around her. “I’m gonna kill that son of a gun for you, Betsy,” Eartha said.
“Please don’t,” she sobbed. “I don’t want you in here any longer than you need to be.”
* * *
Betsy hated prison. Everyone did. It was dangerous. It was devoid of all elements of a normal human life. Freedoms. Choice. A job. Family and friends. Weather. Walking. The beach.
But Betsy found two surprising things.
For many women there, they’d made one mistake. One. Usually in conjunction with a toxic relationship with a man and/or with drugs. There wasn’t much that separated most of the women in prison from the women outside of prison. Once sober, once they were out of the way of bad influences, they were like everyone else.
About thirty percent, Betsy figured, were mentally ill. She couldn’t understand why they were there in the first place. Prison was enough to make anyone lose their mind. It was worse for those who had already lost it. The vast majority of the women in prison had been poor all their lives. Many were minorities and clearly had had grossly inadequate defense attorneys representing them. They were sentenced for things that Betsy knew a wealthy white woman would not go to jail for. Or their sentences were way too long, overly punitive.
Now many of the women, they deserved to be there. They were sick and dangerous and had no morals or empathy and they were a danger to society. She avoided the monstrous ones as best she could.
The monotony in prison killed her spirit. The fear killed her soul. The loss of Rose killed her heart. The abuse from Duke disgusted her, scared her, repelled her.
Betsy longed for Johnny. She lived for his letters. She wished she could see a premonition about the two of them, together, happy in the future, out of prison, but she saw nothing.
She thought of Rose every day and prayed that she would have a happy, safe life. She worried about Tilly constantly. Now and then she would get a picture in an envelope, drawn by Tilly, but no words. She knew that Tilly was in foster care, traumatized by what she’d seen. Betsy hadn’t even known Tilly was in the room when she’d killed Peter. Tilly was now a child with no parents, no brother. Alone.
She felt responsible. Her guilt made her ill. If she was ever out of jail, she would make it up to Tilly. She had no idea how, but she would. Tilly deserved it.
* * *
Betsy was hit with the car-crashing premonition again after a particularly bad day where Duke was staring at her, eyes narrowed, his hand near his crotch and making a swishing motion. Eartha yelled at him to “get your long tongue back in your marshy mouth, get your short dick under control, and stop staring at Betsy with your piggy eyes. She don’t want you, Duke, she never will. You’re like pond scum to her. Pond. Scum.”
Eartha was hauled off by Duke to isolation. Later, Duke came back and baited Betsy, calling her names, telling her he was going to keep Eartha in isolation for weeks unless Betsy “started being nice,” but she didn’t respond. She turned her back in her cell and wouldn’t speak. She felt awful about Eartha.
That night she had the premonition again, but this time there was a twist at the end.
She was on the same road. She was driving the red car. The sun was behind her, glinting through the trees. There were orange poppies. The road was narrow and she turned around the curve, cliff on her right, mountain on the left. She was distracted by the cliff, then turned her eyes back to the road and the blue truck. Before she could react, the truck turned and drove straight off the cliff.
“Oh, my God!” she screamed. She stopped, her car dovetailing. She called 911 and started tripping down
the cliff. The woman’s truck was upside down, the windows were shattered, the airbags blown. The engine had steam rising from it.
The woman was halfway out of her truck, through the shattered window, limp and not moving.
Then the truck exploded.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream.
She did neither.
She vowed to change the ending.
Chapter 23
“Evie,” Chief Ass Burn said to me outside the grocery store. He was not in his uniform. He was wearing a blue shirt that fit snugly, like a diaper, around his sagging gut. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”
I was carrying a bag full of healthy foods including: Truffles. My friend Nicky makes them. He used to be a sous-chef in Los Angeles. He quit so he could live a life. Now he makes truffles from his home in Doe Bay. And I might have had a fresh peach pie in my bag, too, that my friend Kat Metts made for the store. But I had bananas, too, to combat my anxiety. I would run later to burn off the truffles. I laughed out loud at my own funny joke! Running equals torture. In my right hand I carried a root beer float. They were giving them away. If it’s free, I’m going to eat it.
I saw his eyes slip to my chest, then hips, for a second. He disgusts me. “Is there something on my shirt?”
His eyes flew to mine.
“You looked at my chest, and I thought maybe there was something on my shirt. You’ve done it before.”
“No, nothing’s on your shirt.” He smiled, and it was a mix of being caught and triumph. He had gotten to me, and he liked knowing he could irritate me.
“Stop looking at my chest,” I told him.
“I’m not. Do not accuse me of something I haven’t done.” He smirked.
“Look, Chief Ass Burn, we got off on the wrong foot because you are arrogant and rude and like to throw your weight around”—I dropped my eyes to his bowling ball gut—“but the truth is that I don’t want to talk to you at all, so we need to avoid each other.”
I turned and left, and he grabbed my arm and said, “Now, slow down, little lady, we’re gonna talk this out.”
I felt his sweaty, clingy fingers, and this roar of disgust and anger came over me. Who was he to touch me, to restrain me? I didn’t give him permission. He could touch me because he’s a man and he wants to? He’s entitled to that? He can hold me back because he sometimes wore a uniform? He can force a conversation because he wants the conversation to take place, regardless of what I want?
“Let go of me,” I semi-shouted, yanking my arm from his claws. I turned and accidentally on purpose flung my entire root beer float on his shirt, too darn bad. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
Maeve Biller, twenty-nine years old and an artist, shook her head. “Nice, Evie. I saw the chief grab you, and you fought back. You aren’t allowed to grab women, do you know that, Chief Ass Burn?”
“Well done,” Mrs. Liu said, her white curls bouncing about in her ponytail. “When I was younger, we used hatpins to get rid of frisky men, but the root beer float worked, too. Are they still giving them away?”
And Bo Proudfoot, a geologist and author, glared at the chief and said, “What the hell’s wrong with you? You can’t put your hands on a woman like that.”
“I want to speak to Evie,” he huffed, wiping his shirt and glaring at me. “Privately.”
“I don’t want to speak to you.” I walked past him but not before I heard him say, “You’re gonna regret that, Evie.”
“I heard that!” Maeve Biller said. “That was a threat! Why is it that men who grab women then feel like they can threaten the woman when she protests? Why is it that when men get angry at women who rebuff them they feel like they can take revenge or retaliate? Why do you think that is, Chief Ass Burn? What gives you the right to threaten Evie just because she doesn’t want your hands on her?”
“I heard it, too,” Mrs. Liu croaked out. “You told Evie she was going to regret emptying her root beer float on you when you grabbed her without her permission. You deserved it. If I had a hatpin, I would have used it on your crotch. Poke, poke!”
“I heard it,” Bo Proudfoot said. “And I am reporting you.”
“Don’t come near me again,” I said. I stood still and strong and furious. “I will protect myself if you ever try to touch me again.”
The chief took off, a disgusted look on his face for them and hatred in his eyes for me. That’s how narcissistic men look at women they can’t control or who don’t bow down to them: with hate.
And they want revenge.
You’ve popped their ego. You haven’t stroked it. And now you’re in trouble.
Or my mother and aunts were in trouble.
I headed home, took care of the animals, and went to bed early with three books: Romance. Nonfiction. Science fiction.
I brought up a slice of peach pie. I wondered if Marco liked peach pie.
* * *
Marco called me that night, Sundance lying beside me on his pillow with his pink blankie and Lizard, the other dogs and cats still running around the house and in and out of the dog/cat door. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure.” I ran a finger around the edges of one of the embroidered purple roses on my comforter. For some reason, doing that helps me to relax.
“I heard about what the chief did.”
“I’m fine. I told him not to touch me. He’ll back off.”
“What a dick. I’m sorry, Evie.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. How are you?”
He wouldn’t let me change the subject, asking questions, swearing at the chief. I finally got him to take a breath.
“I’m fine, Evie, but I am ticked off at the chief. I’m working, taking care of animals, including one dog who ate a five-year-old’s birthday cake and got sick and another who leaped over the back fence to be with his girlfriend and in the process broke his leg.”
“Anything for love,” I said.
“Yes.” He laughed. “I think he was making a grand gesture.”
We chatted and laughed, and before I knew it we’d been talking for three hours.
“All right, Evie. I’ve kept you too long.”
“It was nice to talk to you.”
“Highlight of my day,” he said, soft and warm. “No, probably the highlight of my year.”
We laughed.
I missed him. I wanted him. I loved that guy.
When we hung up, I choked up.
* * *
The next day, Marco put his “sorry” into action.
He went to talk to the chief. They met up in front of the hardware store. I heard about it later. Marco told the chief to stay away from me. That I didn’t want to talk, or interact, with the chief, that he was not to touch me.
Chief Ass Burn laughed and said, “She’s not your girlfriend, Marco. As I understand, she’s turned you down. Small island. Once she gets to know me . . .”
“She has gotten to know you,” Marco said. “And she doesn’t like you. You’re harassing her.”
“I’m not harassing her at all, but nice try. You step over that line one more time and I’ll arrest you for threatening me.”
“Do it,” Marco said. “I dare you.”
“You’re not going to win, Marco. I will.”
“Evie is not someone to win.”
I’m told that the chief backed down. Marco is well over six feet, has tattoos, and is former military. The chief wasn’t that stupid.
I talked yet again to my mother and aunts and told them to stop selling pot. “Chief Allroy is not here. Chief Ass Burn is and he’s out for me, and he will transfer the anger he has for me to you. You need to shut it down.”
“I am not afraid,” my mother said. She was making a daisy chain from fake daisies for a new hat.
“My soul says I’m at peace,” Aunt Camellia said. She was trying to knit. She was terrible at it but smiled at whatever she was making anyhow. It poked out in circles on two sides and looked like a small bottom. I tilted my head. W
as she making underwear for a misshapen bottom?
“If he comes on our property, I will run him over,” Aunt Iris said. “We can bury the body in the pond. Or under the rocks under momma’s bridge. More pie, Evie? I know chocolate cream is your favorite.”
I did have another slice of chocolate cream pie, but only because high-quality chocolate is healthy for you. Everyone knows that.
* * *
“I’m compiling my honeymoon wardrobe,” Jules said. We were on Skype about midnight on Thursday. I was in bed with Sundance, Mars, and Ghost. “What do you think?”
I stared at what she held up for her “honeymoon wardrobe.” It was all lingerie, by Lace, Satin, and Baubles in Portland. Fluffy. Sexy. Silky. Made for love and passion. “Are you planning on going out at all?”
“What?” She pulled a red lacy nightgown over her blue tank top and shorts to show me. “Look at this one!”
“It’s very pretty, but all you have is lingerie. I know Mack has a surprise destination honeymoon for you. But you’ll probably be going out, too. So you are planning on bringing real clothes, right? Dresses? Jeans? Shorts?”
She giggled. “I don’t know. I’ll have an outfit for the plane ride, and I can wear the same one back. Oh, wait! He says we’re going someplace hot, so I also brought my bikinis!” She held three up.
I had tried! “Looks like you’re set.”
“I think so!” She laughed, flipped her hair back. Her tattoos were on glorious display. I saw my pink rose, the bouquet for our mom and aunts, our father’s orca. “I can’t wait to see you again, Evie. You’re the best sister in the world.” She dropped the bikinis and the lingerie and gazed at me through the computer screen. Her eyes filled up. My eyes filled up. She sniffled. I sniffled. She made a choking sound, and I felt my throat closing up. I blew my nose. She blew hers. Then we both gave in and cried.
“I’m getting married!”
“I know! I’m so happy for you, Jules.” My voice broke. “I know that Mack will be the best husband. He’ll always be there for you. You’ll laugh and ride motorcycles and be cool cats together.” I help up Ghost and Mars so she could see them as tears rolled down my cheeks. Sundance barked at her. I knew he was trying to make her feel better.
