Insiders

by Olivia Goldsmith

  So it came as a total surprise when, just after lights-out, Suki sat bolt upright in her bunk and announced that the baby would be coming soon.

  ‘Oh my God! What do you mean, Suki?’ Jennifer cried. She was very alarmed, and frightened for the girl. ‘I thought you weren’t even having contractions!’

  ‘I guess they must have been what I was having all day. But now they’re getting closer together and worse. They’re getting really bad, Jen. I think you’re gonna have to help me.’

  Jennifer jumped out of her bed and sat down next to Suki. She took her hand and told her to just keep on breathing calmly and deeply.

  ‘I’ll call a CO,’ she said. ‘They’ll get an ambulance.’

  ‘No. No, please,’ Suki begged in a whisper. ‘Don’t tell. And don’t be mad at me.’

  ‘I’m not mad at you, Suki,’ she said, ‘but will you please tell me why you kept this a secret? What were you thinking of?’

  ‘Oh God, Jenny,’ Suki said, beginning to cry. ‘I just couldn’t stand to be in handcuffs and … and … have my legs shackled to the table. I just couldn’t stand it.’ She gripped Jennifer’s hand tightly. ‘I’m not afraid to have the baby, but I’m afraid to let them take me away. I could have the baby here, Jen, before anybody comes. Please help me. I don’t want to have my baby in cuffs. Please.’

  ‘God, Suki!’ Jennifer said. The strength and weakness of each woman overwhelmed her. ‘You pretended all day?’

  Jennifer felt Suki nod in the darkness. ‘Ohhh,’ she groaned. ‘I want Roger.’

  Jen called for an officer. It was Officer Ryan, thank God. She thought the white-haired older man would at least try to help them. ‘We have a situation,’ Jen said to him. ‘Suki’s going to have her baby.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Ryan whispered. ‘Infirmary’s closed. Locked up. What do ya’ wanna do?’

  ‘I think you should call the Warden and tell her,’ Jennifer said. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  Suki was making groaning noises now and Jennifer went back and sat with her. Ryan called the Warden and then brought the phone to Jennifer.

  ‘I’m breakin’ the rules and lettin’ you talk on my phone,’ he said. ‘Don’t you ever tell anybody I did it.’

  Jennifer almost laughed aloud. She could lend him her cell, but instead she just took the phone.

  ‘Suki Conrad is in labor?’ the Warden asked.

  ‘What should I do?’ Jen asked back.

  ‘I think you should take her down to the infirmary,’ the Warden said. ‘I’ll tell Ryan to get Movita and Theresa to help you, and I’ll pick up my friend Lucille and come right over.’

  ‘Who’s Lucille?’

  ‘She’s a doctor. Not an OB-GYN but a good internist.’

  ‘Good. Thank God.’ Jennifer handed the phone back to Ryan and went back to Suki. ‘C’mon, girl,’ she said, ‘we’re going to go for a walk.’

  Officer Ryan turned on the auxiliary lights and unlocked their door. He spoke to another officer on his walkie-talkie and told him to bring Movita and Theresa to the infirmary. Then the three began to walk. Suki was fine between contractions, but they were coming every minute or so and she’d have to stop and bend over with each one.

  ‘I wish we could ride,’ Jennifer said. ‘This is such a long walk for her.’

  Officer Ryan shrugged. ‘It ain’t a bad thing to walk at this time,’ he said. ‘Gets things movin’. Did it with my wife for all three of our kids.’

  Jennifer didn’t say it, but she thought things were moving plenty fast enough already, and she was right. They didn’t make it to the infirmary. Suki started to scream that the baby was coming right then. Jen nearly passed out, but Suki was wrong. Before she could drop to the floor and lie down on her side, her water broke and gushed all over the floor. Fortunately, Movita and Theresa came down the corridor just then and neither one seemed rattled. Officer Ryan went with Theresa and Jennifer to get the things that Movita, who was already down on the floor with Suki, said they would need.

  ‘Pillows and blankets,’ she said, picking Suki’s upper body off the floor and cradling her in her arms. ‘A good pair of scissors and antiseptic, and one a them aspirators to clear the baby’s nose out. You know what I mean? And then we’re gonna need some warm water and little blankets. I don’t know where we’re gonna get those.’

  Jen assured her that they’d get everything Mo wanted, but she was praying all the while that the Warden would come with the doctor, because she was sure that there wouldn’t be any of what Movita needed in the closet. Suki was moaning and making another noise that didn’t sound good.

  ‘Breathe, girl, breathe,’ Movita said. She looked up at Jen. ‘Go with that CO and look in the infirmary for the necessary supplies.’

  There was a blanket and there was a pillow, but nothing else. They went into the infirmary itself next and found another pillow. They saw a pair of scissors and antiseptic in a glass-doored cabinet, but Officer Ryan didn’t have the key to it. Jennifer was about to beg him to break the glass when she heard talk coming from the corridor.

  ‘Listen! Maybe the doctor’s here!’ Jennifer cried, but it was Roger Camry, with Officer Mowbry dogtrotting along.

  ‘Where is she?’ Camry asked, and Jen pointed. They all ran together.

  By the time they got back to the birth scene, Suki had Movita and another woman – the doctor, Jen realized – caring for her, and the Warden was sitting next to her on the floor holding her hand. After that it was just a matter of time. ‘Roger! Roger!’ Suki cried, and he took her hand. Officer Ryan left and a kind of peace descended. Lucille was calm and efficient and had everything under control. She and Movita were working like partners, both telling Suki when to push and when to let up. Suki looked up at Roger Camry and Jen saw the Warden look at them both. Suki was grunting loudly with each push and collapsing with fatigue in between. But with each push Jennifer could see the patch of baby’s head get a little bigger, and she was mesmerized. So was Theresa, who stood next to Jen. When the little head finally popped out, accompanied by a yelp from the mother, Jennifer let out a cry herself. It was a sight she would never forget, the birth on the floor of the prison unit of Suki’s innocent, seven-pound-six-ounce baby girl.

  40

  Jennifer Spencer

  When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.

  Jane Welsh Carlyle

  Jennifer felt as nervous as if she were giving birth. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done an Initial Public Offering before, but somehow, even when it had been at the beginning of her career and it mattered a lot, it hadn’t felt as important as this. If they could raise money, improve the prison’s infrastructure, and generate a little profitability, it would be what Martha Stewart called a ‘good thing’. Jennifer wasn’t sure that she wanted to grow JRU until it was a behemoth like Wackenhut, running a couple scores of prisons, but the choice in America was grow or perish and she supposed this was the lesser of the two evils.

  The Rafferty boys had put together a syndicate but against her better judgment she had allowed them, rather than the investment group of Tucker Anthony, to be the lead managers. She hoped that they hadn’t been too aggressive in setting the price per share at somewhere between five and eight dollars. She thought about the classic job that had been done when Yahoo! went public and had been so undervalued because older analysts hadn’t seen the technical revolution that was about to bite them in the ass. The lead manager had low-balled it and when Yahoo! came to market the price was so low and demand was so great that it had risen four hundred percent and gained tremendous publicity. She didn’t need that, but last night Bryce and Tyler had set the price at eight dollars a share and this morning they were calling the sales people in the syndicate, allocating the shares among them before the market opened and hoping that the demand would be greater than the allocations. Since the tech market had cooled, pharmaceuticals were at an all-time high, and prisons were – unfortunately – a growth
industry. Jennifer was hoping there would be a demand that exceeded the available stock.

  Bryce had promised to allocate plenty of shares to Lenny, but Jennifer wanted to be sure that the risk was limited and that no other salesmen at Hudson, Van Schaank would get access. She took a deep breath. It was 9:25. The allocations were being made in New York right now, and when the offering took place this morning she would see how they fared.

  Because she couldn’t bear to sit still, she got up from her desk and paced around the newly expanded library. It was great to see the orderly rows of books, the reading tables, the encyclopedia, and the law books in the reference section, as well as the two computer workstations that gave the library users access to library databases. In the alcove there were five women, their heads bowed over books as if they were in prayer, learning to read. Maggie, strict but patient, was quietly teaching them, while other women sat at tables, reading for pleasure or taking notes. This is worthwhile, Jennifer thought. I’ve made a change, and it’s worthwhile.

  The problem with the success was that she had less privacy. Although as assistant librarian she was granted the privilege of a desk in the corner with her back to the rest of the library, she couldn’t make phone calls easily and she certainly couldn’t receive them on the cell phone. Inmates were nothing if not observant, and any infraction, any special treatment was immediately spotted, commented on, reported, or envied – sometimes all of the above. Jennifer did not want to improve the prison at the cost of her own safety.

  She decided it was best to go up to the Warden’s office. There she had Miss Ringling to contend with, but she could talk with Movita and go online. What she wanted to do was go into the rec room and put the television on to watch CNBC and follow the quotations, but she didn’t think that the women addicted to Live with Regis and Kelly or Ricki Lake would allow it, never mind trying to get the use of the TV during the soaps. She smiled at the very thought. There were two factions – the CBS addicts, who watched The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, and As the World Turns, seemed to be winning the war against the ABC addicts who watched All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. At least that’s what she thought. She didn’t even know what was on NBC because Jennifer hadn’t been home to watch television in the afternoon since grammar school, when she had flirted briefly with Luke and Laura on General Hospital but could never stay sincerely interested.

  Now she had to ask Maggie to telephone the Warden’s office and send her on some kind of trumped-up mission. She hated to interrupt Maggie during a class but motioned her aside. ‘Restless, huh?’ Maggie asked her.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be?’ she asked. ‘Your whole fortune is riding on this. If the offering is successful you can sell off your holdings in JRU and recoup some of your investment.’

  Maggie looked around the room. ‘I’ve already recouped my investment,’ she said, smiling at the books, the library, and the women busy at the tables. She gave Jennifer a copy of Corrections Officer Monthly and said, with a voice slightly raised, ‘Would you take this up to the Warden’s office? They requested it.’

  Jennifer walked down the hall toward the center of the prison. She passed the section of the old kitchen facility that now housed the sewing room. They had only been able to buy fourteen professional sewing machines, but they already had two teachers and the new uniforms were being cut and sewn. Beyond the kitchen and the cafeteria was the canteen, which was already stocking a wider and healthier selection of foods, including protein bars, more fresh fruits and a selection of half a dozen frozen vegetables. Outside the canteen, on a wall at least twenty feet long, photographs from the fashion show and the actual garments were pinned up along with a box where order forms could be placed. Jennifer sighed. It was very little but already the prison felt like a different place. Not all but perhaps half of the women were clambering for job assignments so they could earn more and buy more.

  Movita and Warden Harding had already begun to put together a list of the deranged or extremely difficult inmates. They would be reassigned, all together, to a new wing where, Jennifer knew, bedlam would reign, but everyone else would get a sounder sleep and have an easier day, including the COs. Warden Harding was looking for COs with psychiatric hospital backgrounds to staff the new disturbed wing.

  Jennifer got to the Warden’s office, passed Miss Ringling’s desk, and walked straight to Movita. ‘Have you seen yet?’ Movita asked.

  ‘Seen what?’ Jennifer had no idea what Movita was talking about.

  ‘The offering,’ Movita told her. ‘It opened at eight and a quarter. And it’s already up to ten and a half,’ Movita said, sounding as if she’d been selling in a boiler room for the last ten years.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Jennifer said, really stunned. My God, she thought. How much money would that raise for the prison?

  She pushed Movita on the shoulder and tried to share her seat. ‘I don’t have it online,’ Movita said. ‘I got a call from one of my friends.’

  Jennifer stared at her. ‘You have friends at the market?’ she asked.

  ‘Hey, girlfriend, you don’t know everything about me.’

  Just then Warden Harding put her head out the door. ‘Miss Watson, Miss Spencer, would you join me in the office for a moment?’ she asked.

  Jen and Movita followed her in and she closed the door behind them. She had a small television sitting on her windowsill tuned to CNBC. Without even thinking about it, Jennifer sat down on the floor. She was mesmerized by the numbers flashing across the bottom of the screen. She was looking for JUI, the initials that had been assigned to the company (apparently there was something else that was JRU). It took a while, but eventually it showed up and it was at fourteen and an eighth. Jennifer actually half rose from her lotus position and screamed. This was a good sign, a really good sign. ‘What’s up?’ Movita asked, Warden Harding right behind her.

  ‘We’re in the action,’ Jennifer said. ‘It looks good. We’re up to fourteen.’ She looked at the time. ‘And it’s only ten ten. Of course, anything could happen, it could have been a burst of enthusiasm early in the day that’ll be followed by a crash. It could be a plateau, but even then …’

  ‘You mean we’ve doubled our money?’ Gwen Harding asked.

  Jennifer smiled at her as if she were a simpleton. ‘Well, you would have doubled it if you had had it in the market on this stock in the first place.’

  ‘But I do,’ Gwen Harding said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Jennifer moaned. ‘I can’t take any more pressure. Don’t tell me you invested personal money. This is a business. We always do it with other people’s money.’

  ‘Well, I’m another person,’ Gwen said. ‘And I don’t believe I’m alone. As far as I know there are quite a few people here who have invested.’

  ‘Who?’ Jennifer asked, but then was distracted by hearing something mentioned on CNBC.

  ‘One IPO that seems to be on the move today is JRU. And here to discuss it is Chris Olsen, of the investment firm of Tucker Anthony.’

  An attractive woman with short platinum hair nodded at the camera. ‘This is an interesting public offering, Bob,’ she said. ‘We were hoping for an allocation of five thousand shares but while we feel good about it and we have additional demand, we didn’t get any allocation at all at the seven-dollar opening price. I think the investment bankers may have been a little too conservative on this one. JRU is a new firm but it has three lucrative prison management contracts and when you look at their major competitors, the giants Wackenhut and CCA, JRU looks like a David to their Goliath. It’s a feisty young company, they have some good staff and I’m expecting demand to continue. I think our clients might be willing to buy it at as much as twenty dollars a share.’

  ‘Oh, my good Lord!’ Movita cried. ‘They talking about the stock tripling?’

  Jennifer’s heart was thumping in her chest but she tried to keep calm for the sake of the others. ‘Hey, it’s only ten thirty. It could drop to
three bucks by nightfall.’ She looked at the television. ‘Although this certainly didn’t hurt,’ she said. She looked at the two women. ‘May I remind you that I am here in part because of dealing in so-called “insider information”. I hope you haven’t made me guilty of that again.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not goin’ to drop a dime on you,’ Movita said. ‘How ‘bout you, Warden?’

  Warden Harding just laughed and Jen couldn’t tell if it was over the mild joke or the fact that the woman had just made a few thousand dollars.

  It was time for a head count just before lunch and they made their way back to their hallway. After the cafeteria, Jennifer and Movita went back to the library to tell Maggie the news, but Maggie was already in the know. ‘Bryce and Tyler called the Warden and she relayed the information to me. Isn’t it just grand, girls? You know, it’s up to twenty-four and a quarter,’ Maggie told them.

  Jennifer opened her eyes wide. ‘Your sons have been …’

  Maggie smiled a full, slow grin. ‘Are you trying to tell me I’m not the only criminal in my family?’ she asked.

  Jennifer couldn’t help it – she went back to the Warden’s office and spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between the telephone, the television, and Movita’s online service while she watched the stock climb and climb. By the end of business that day it was at thirty-seven and she made sure that she called everyone she knew to tell them to get out.

  ‘Hey,’ Bryce said when she spoke with him. ‘We’ve only just begun.’

  ‘Please, Bryce,’ Jennifer told him. ‘Just get out. Let it cool off.’

  ‘Not on your life,’ Bryce told her.

  41

  Maggie Rafferty

  Time discovers truth.

  Lucius Annaeus Seneca