Criminal

by Terra Elan McVoy

  “Gary’s not my dad.”

  She snorted. “May as well be since you take after him so damn much. Here you are, just like him, moping your life in jail, not enough sense not to get caught. You never were enough like me to understand.”

  I clenched my teeth. “I’m glad I’m not like you.”

  She laughed. “Oh, big brave girl now, huh? Sassing back? With this thick barrier between you and me?” She rapped her knuckles on the glass. As she leaned forward, I could see straight down the scoop neck of her T-shirt all the way to her still-toned but sun-wrinkled stomach. She sat back, looking at me. Like I was the source of every single thing that had ever displeased her and ever would.

  “You got a paycheck you need me to pick up for you at the salon?” she said.

  My mind clicked back over the days, feeling a glimmer of hope. I probably did have some money waiting there since we got our hourly pay at the first of the month and again on the sixteenth. It hadn’t been ready at my last shift. Alessia probably wondered why I hadn’t picked it up.

  Hadn’t shown up, more like. It hit me then, the other things that might’ve gone wrong because of me. I’d left Alessia totally in the lurch, for example, with no word at all. She probably called Bird to find out was I okay. And Bird not knowing either. The terrible light shone over me then, showing me more of what I’d done. I hadn’t thought people might worry. May have called hospitals, the police. The other girls at the salon would’ve had to cover my shifts too. Alessia would have to hire someone to take my place. She must think I was a horrible person. Five years working there and I’d just disappeared.

  Still, whether she hated me or not, I could really use that money. Even if it was only a couple hundred bucks. Alessia could mail me the check, and I could—my heart sank. You couldn’t get money in jail. Someone outside had to deposit it for you into your account. And if I signed over my check to her, Cherry would only keep it. Which is why, I understood, she was asking about it at all.

  “Alessia’s holding it to cover for the hours I missed,” I lied.

  “I imagine you owe her quite a bit.” Cherry smirked. Then: “You need anything?”

  And for a second, she seemed sweet about it. That it worried her, me being here in jail and her not being able to help. If she’d been any other kind of mother, I’d ask her, maybe, to go check on Bird. But I’d never wanted Cherry anywhere near there, and I especially didn’t want it now.

  This must’ve showed on my face because she coughed and reached for her bag.

  “Well, you keep in touch, darlin’. Tell me what’s going on with your case if you can. Maybe I’ll come see you. And Emilio says hi.”

  She didn’t say it winky or even mean. She’d probably forgot the whole thing from that night. But she might as well’ve handed me a glass of pure vomit, gross as it made me feel.

  “Good-bye, Cherry,” was all I said.

  Her face went from a little hurt, back to cold and disapproving. I didn’t feel sorry. I didn’t feel anything for her. We hung up our receivers at the same time, and our eyes met. She’d said I wasn’t like her, but we both had blue eyes, both dishwatery blond hair we tried to make more platinum in our own ways. Both of us disliking each other. Knowing we were linked, regardless.

  I went back into the main room without turning around or waving. The only small victory about the whole exchange was picturing what Cherry’d gone through to come and see me. Because of visits we’d made to Gary in the past, I knew about the pat downs, the inspection—still, it wasn’t enough to make any of the things she’d said disappear. It wasn’t enough to make seeing her, or any of this, any better.

  It was almost lunchtime, and the card-playing girls were snapping at each other to hurry up so they could finish this hand. Priscilla was at her corner table, working her crossword puzzle. I wasn’t sure how to talk to her after what she’d done to me in the night, but thinking about Alessia, and everyone outside, gave me an idea. Priscilla was the only one I felt I could ask for any help.

  “You got paper?” I said, sliding into the seat across from her.

  She looked up at me over the rims of those grandpa glasses of hers.

  “I mean,” I corrected. “I wondered if you had any paper I could use. Please?”

  “You have to get that stuff from the commissary.”

  I flicked my eyes toward the door that led down the hall to it. We were only allowed to go twice a week, and everything—everything—cost money. I hadn’t had a chance to buy anything yet, because it’d taken a while for them to transfer the few bucks I’d come in with, but I knew that unless I got a job, I wasn’t going to have enough for more than about one visit in there.

  “Course, they have class,” she said. “Sometimes you can get materials in there.”

  “I’m not signed up for anything. I don’t know how. I don’t even know when it is.”

  She was so still. Unreadable as a bar of soap.

  “Tuesdays.”

  “What day is today?”

  Her eyes rolled. “Today’s Sunday, dumbass. You didn’t hear them announcing service if you wanted to go? Jesus. You haven’t even been here a week. But that’s long enough to know a hell of a lot more than you do.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m trying to be . . . smarter.”

  “You need to. Quick.”

  She sounded the way she had last night.

  “That’s what I’m trying. Why I’m asking you for some paper. You said I should find something to do. And I have something. I just—don’t have everything I need for it.”

  The guards called for lunch then. Priscilla stood up, folded her newspaper in half and clipped her pen to it, neat.

  “You need to think how to pay me.”

  • • • •

  Picking at a few grisly chicken nuggets and what they were calling vegetable soup, I considered what I could possibly offer Priscilla. I didn’t know what she needed—I didn’t even know how long she’d been in here, though it seemed like a while. She was right: it was stupid how much I didn’t know, how out of touch I had been with the reality of my own life. There was so much she had and knew, and so much I didn’t. Money. Smarts. A routine.

  Friends.

  After lunch there was an opportunity to go outside for exercise, if you wanted, but I still didn’t like the idea of it. When they came back, Priscilla sat next to where I was reading that same beat-up paperback, feeling sorry for myself in sixteen ways. She slid a half piece of notebook paper over to me. With a pen.

  I didn’t ask her where they came from. I didn’t ask her what I was going to have to do. I just nodded, said, “Thank you,” and hoped the rest would come.

  Dear Jamelee . . .

  I’d thought of writing Alessia first, to apologize and explain, tell her to keep my money, but staring at the paper, all I could picture was Jamelee’s tight mossy curls. Her delighted-with-herself giggle. Her fat little hands, petting Bird, tired.

  You may have noticed I haven’t been around, and your momma may have told you about this already, but the reason is that I’m in jail.

  I still wasn’t sure if Bird already knew, or if this letter would be her way of finding out.

  It isn’t as bad as I was afraid of, but it isn’t exactly nice either. I want you to do all you can to make sure you never end up here. I know your momma will work toward that too.

  I paused again, smiling a little, thinking of Bird reading that and laughing in her low, hesitant way. I couldn’t pause for too long, though. Too long and I would stop.

  I want you to know that I miss you and that I’m sorry for leaving you. Sometimes there are things you just have to do, though. Even if you can’t explain them right, to yourself or anyone else, they’re what you have to do. So that you can, in some way, hold on to what you love. Everyone else may think it’s wrong, but they don’t always understand you. And just because you’re not understood doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Unless maybe you one day end up thinking it’s wrong yours
elf too.

  I wanted to start over, but I kept going.

  It’s hard to know all the time what’s good and what’s bad. Everyone says you have to decide for yourself, but what do you do if yourself doesn’t know? If yourself only feels that people will turn against you unless you give them what they want, and even then somewhere inside you you know they will still turn on you, still hurt you and leave you? What I’m saying is, sometimes, things get mixed up. And you don’t know where to turn. You don’t even have your own self to rely on because you’re just a mixed-up bag of worthlessness. To you or anyone. And I want you to know, Jamelee, that if you ever need to, even though I’m not there right now—you can turn to me.

  I read the whole thing over. I’d started out writing pretty big, but by the end it was all scrunched up together along the bottom inch. It wasn’t the kind of thing to write to a baby at all. And it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say to Bird either. But, writing it, I felt . . . if not better, at least . . . something. Even simply letting my eyes blur, staring at the inky lines on the page—something about the whole thing felt good.

  I didn’t try to change it around too much. I wasn’t sure if I was going to send it at all, and I didn’t have more paper. For today, I was done. I slid the pen back over to Priscilla and folded the piece of paper into thin sections. I tucked the folded-up letter into the saggy elastic of my sports bra. I would read it again later.

  THE NEXT MORNING, DURING CLEANUP, IT SUDDENLY CAME over me what I could do to pay back Priscilla. Her, and maybe anyone else I needed a favor from. It was foolish I hadn’t thought of it before. All it took was Priscilla bending to make her bed and me seeing that thick ponytail of hers held back with elastic she plucked out of her jail-issue underwear.

  “I can give you braids, if you want.”

  She didn’t say anything, just kept at her sheets: tucking everything just so. Then she stood up. “What, like Laura Ingalls Wilder?”

  I didn’t know who she was talking about. But it didn’t sound good.

  “Like whoever you want. It’s what I do—did—out there. Before.”

  She stared at me. Archie came to collect our cleaning things. I handed him the bucket and rags and followed Priscilla out to the dining hall for breakfast. I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

  PRISCILLA DIDN’T COME OVER TO GET HER HAIR FIXED right away. Mainly because first there was commissary: everyone getting forms passed out to fill out with what we wanted. It was the first time I’d seen the list, and I was curious. Everyone was talking about what they were going to get, what they needed, one girl with acne scars and bad teeth yakking how she was about to be on the rag and the jail-issue tampons never soaked up her flow good enough.

  Just scanning my eye down the list, I could practically smell Dorito cheese, could see the sugar clinging to the plastic wrap of those Little Debbies and frosted Danish. All the things I used to buy and pick up without thinking. Now it was like they were treasure. But I forced myself to focus on other things. My own non-jail-issued toothbrush, for example, and more toothpaste. Priscilla had been sharing hers without saying anything about it, but it was plain her charity toward me was wearing thin. I checked both those off and also a box of better tampons, though I didn’t know for sure when mine was supposed to come. That was one of the most expensive things on the list. So much else was food. Junk food, but food that was way better than what they gave us. My mouth had felt full of sand for about the last week, but suddenly it was watering, thinking of Nutter Butters and Easy Macaroni and Cheese.

  Still, I barely had any money. Maybe fifteen dollars, total. Almost half of it was used up just with these three things, and I didn’t know when I was going to get more.

  Maybe I would get a job. Some of the girls had them—they got called out at different times in the mornings and the afternoons, evenings when other girls went to AA and NA meetings—but I hadn’t figured out how any of those things worked yet. It seemed if you wanted something in here, you had to go after it yourself. And I hadn’t been able to do much of anything so far.

  Luckily, the other things I did want were on the list and not as expensive as I expected. A letter pad for only $2.50 and ballpoint pens for eighty-five cents apiece. I put myself down for two. One to give to Priscilla, just for.

  There were other things I would need. Envelopes, for one. But I thought I’d see if I could trade for them first. Handing in my form, trying to do some more mental math just to figure out what money I had left, the only other thing I could think about was what I would say to Jamelee next. It was like the thoughts were forming in my mind before I even started writing. I could see the shapes of what I wanted to say without knowing the exact words. There was a feeling in me that wasn’t quite what you call excited, but it was definitely . . . interesting. And that was a far better feeling than any I’d had in here yet.

  IT WAS IN THE LATE AFTERNOON DURING JUDGE JUDY—THE girls watching talking so much to each other and the TV, it was a wonder they could hear the show at all—that Priscilla came over with two of her friends.

  “This is Bindi.” She motioned to the tiny, dusk-skinned girl who I’d seen playing cards. I remembered she had a loud, sharp laugh but was otherwise quiet. “And this is Cam.” Cam was Bindi’s opposite: tall—mannish tall—with a surfer girl face, freckled peachy skin, and a blond bob. She’d sat on Priscilla’s other side at meals for days now, but I had yet to really talk to her, to any of them.

  “So, my hair?” Priscilla raised doubtful eyebrows at me. She had a hairbrush.

  I smiled. An actual one. “Come here and sit down.” I took out a chair and pulled it alongside the table. “Do you care what I do?”

  “Just don’t make me any uglier than I already am.”

  I ignored her—all three of them were eight times prettier than me—and spent some time just raking my fingers lightly over her hair, getting the feel of what she had. When I finally picked up the brush, it was hard getting through the tangles. After a few minutes of watching me, though, Bindi jumped up and asked for permission to go get something. She came back with a small jar of pomade and a cheap but better-than-nothing comb. I put a bit of the pomade on the comb and used it to slowly smooth out Priscilla’s thick locks. It felt like it took forever, but when I was done combing everything out, I wanted to leave it just the way it was—wavy-smooth and slightly shiny—but that wasn’t what I’d promised. Besides, Cam and Bindi were sitting backward in chairs, watching me as I worked. It was like doing hair in front of little girls, the way they were so transfixed.

  The idea of goddess braids came first, but since I’d never worked with Priscilla’s hair before, something simpler seemed better. I separated out some strands at the top of her head and started plaiting. Pretty soon, I fell into the rhythm of what I was doing, and I hardly noticed anything or anyone else.

  “You look good,” I told Priscilla when I’d finished. It was like coming out of a daze, stepping back and taking in my work.

  I hadn’t done the tightest or smoothest braid ever. At the salon I’d been mostly doing straightenings or weaves, so I was a little rusty at this kind of do, but it was nice. A French braid started at the top left of Priscilla’s head and then crossed over to the right, then moved down and around left again, and then back across the bottom of her head, in an S shape. I hadn’t done something like that since middle school, probably. I was impressed my fingers had remembered.

  Cam clapped and Bindi smiled.

  “You can’t do that with mine, can you?” Bindi said, looking at the thin end of her long, straight ponytail.

  I frowned. “I wish I had some pins. And some hair spray.”

  “We can get you some,” Cam said hopefully, but then her eyebrows came together. “Or some rollers at least. I forget what we can have.” She looked at Priscilla.

  “No hair spray, that’s for sure.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “What I really need are some stamps.”

  THE NEXT DAY I GAV
E CAM CORNROWS. WE USED THREADS she pulled out from the unraveling hem of her T-shirt to tie off the ends. It took forever, but while I was working, about four or five other girls came to sit around and watch, talk. I asked Cam why she was in here—I didn’t know most of the girls’ stories at all—and she laughed and told how she’d tried to hold up a convenience store with her boyfriend when they were both high on meth. The cashier had gone for something under the counter—she said she had no idea what, but the motion scared her—and she’d shot him in the shoulder. Her boyfriend was so freaked he just dropped everything and ran. So Cam ran out with him. The police found them only a few hours later, back at home smoking more to calm down. The way she told it, it was like she was telling a story about somebody else—someone she couldn’t believe could ever be that dumb. Part of me wanted to jump in and say it wasn’t her fault. That it had just been the drugs. But I didn’t have even that to blame in my own situation, and I could relate anyway. So I kept quiet.

  Besides that, I had to concentrate. It was harder doing cornrows on white girl hair than I remembered, and Cam couldn’t keep still. But when I was done, she ran to the bathroom to look and came out beaming. So I guess I did okay.

  Bindi was next up. And she was less talkative about her crime than Cam.

  “My roommate and I got in a fight, and she . . . cut herself. She was in the hospital. She told everyone it was me. And since no one else was there, I—”

  Cam reached over and squeezed Bindi’s hand, told her it was okay. I finished up braiding and could already see, because her hair was just so thin and slippery, that it was all going to fall out before too long, but I hoped it would stay nice as long as it could.

  Two other girls asked me could I do theirs after lunch, and even one of the woman guards seemed curious. So, after everyone took their time outside in the yard, I did hair all afternoon. I laughed, heard stories, and thought about trying to do this for some kind of job if I was going to be here long enough. I hadn’t seen Doug since just after the hearing, and most of what he’d told me was a blur, but from what the other girls were saying about their own time here, I knew it could be a long wait.