The Bride Experiment

by Mimi Jefferson

  “I don’t belong in here.” Raquel glanced at the two drooling women.

  “They don’t mean no harm. They are just coming off that crack high.” The woman laughed. “You act like you never seen a crackhead before.”

  Raquel shrugged her shoulders. The only drug addicts she had seen had been in the movies. There were rumors that a few of her relatives were addicted to the drug, but none of them looked like this.

  The woman’s shock faded. “Yeah, these two are pretty bad off. I would say they have been addicts for twenty years or more. You don’t look like that overnight.” She sighed.

  “What happened to your dress?” Raquel shook her head, signaling she didn’t want to talk about it. The woman continued talking. “I got caught with some parking tickets. My sister ran them up in my name and didn’t tell me. She better be bailing me out right now, or I will hurt her with my bare hands. I spent two years locked up and I promised myself I wouldn’t be behind bars again. I better not spend one day locked up in that freaking dormitory.”

  Raquel struggled to speak. “What dormitory?”

  “What dormitory? Girl, are you for real?”

  Raquel had a blank expression on her face.

  “Okay, let me go slow. This is a holding cell. If you and me don’t get bailed out of this joint soon, we are going to end up in jail, or a nicer way of putting it, the dormitory. Most cases you only have to stay overnight, unless, of course, the judge refuses bail. I don’t care if it’s only one night. I don’t want to be anywhere near the place.

  “Did you make your phone call yet?” Raquel shook her head. “Did they strip-search you? Did you go to medical? Did you take your mug shot? Get fingerprinted ?” Raquel answered no to all of her questions.

  “Man, they must really be backed up, or at least are pretending to be. These lazy know-it-all so-called guards get on my last nerves. They need to let you make your phone call so you can get up outta here. What did you do, slash one of your bridesmaids for not staying in step?”

  “Phone call or not, Miss Raquel is going to be with us for a while,” Mrs. Penny said as she approached the holding cell with a male guard. “Isn’t that right, Raquel?”

  “Rodgers, you made bail. Let’s go,” the male guard said. The woman in the orange shirt waved to Raquel before being escorted to freedom.

  Raquel watched her disappear and wondered if and when she would ever leave this place. And when she finally was released, would there be anybody to come home to?

  Mrs. Penny motioned for her. Raquel took a deep breath thinking, It must be time for the hard part.

  Chapter 19

  The two guards put their hands in Raquel’s hair. Her lovely locks, which hadn’t known the feel of cheap shampoo for years, were now being invaded by four hands smelling of stale cigarette smoke and coffee. They looked into her mouth, taking their rubbergloved fingers past her inner jaw and over her teeth. Then they watched as she stripped down to nothing.

  Raquel could feel the burning in her eyes that ensured tears were not far behind. She slowly stepped out of her wedding dress and then her lace bra, which only James was supposed to see. A long petticoat was the next item to fall to the floor; after that, her girdle.

  Now it was time to step out of her panties. She paused. Had they no shame? Were they really about to do this to her? The two of them didn’t waver. They simply stood taller and more demanding. Raquel heard what they were saying through their silence: “If you don’t take them off, we will.”

  She tossed them to the floor. The guards came forward. They lifted up her breasts, one by one. They passed her stomach, her thighs, and down to her legs. Raquel breathed a sigh of relief.

  The guard heard her and said, “Oh, it’s not over, baby girl. Now I need you to turn around and squat.”

  Raquel couldn’t remember feeling so cold or out of place. She turned around, her backside now facing the two women. Right before she was about to bend, Raquel pleaded with the women. “Please, please, you don’t understand. I’m not like this. I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Yeah, we know,” one of the officers said. “Yesterday, some bougie chick just like you had two crack rocks hidden up there. So stop with the waterworks and squat.”

  Raquel obeyed, tears falling down her face as the women inspected her.

  So much for staying strong. So much for being brave, Raquel thought. Once she started crying, her tears wouldn’t stop. She got dressed in jail-issued clothing, took her mug shot, went to medical, and got fingerprinted. Then she was led to a room, where she was allowed to make her phone call.

  She called her lawyer, Jesse Lo. He had helped her with the legal work related to the salon. He seemed to be expecting her call. He said the fact that she was being charged and jailed in a small, outlying county was better than having to deal with the system in Houston. However, he didn’t expect the judge would let her out on bond. Apparently, the news was reporting that the videographer she had hired to film the wedding had the entire incident on tape. Finally he said he and his associates were going to do everything they could for her, and she needed to hold tight and keep her head up.

  After the phone call, the guard handed her linens, shoes, toothpaste, toothbrush, a comb, towel, soap, and her bed assignment in the Clarkston County maximum-security female jail. Raquel felt her knees get weak. She followed the guard closely, trying not to fall. When they approached the door to the dormitory, she could hear a rush of movement; then one said, “Hey, y’all, the ‘Killer Bride’ is here.”

  Raquel strained to look at them as they looked at her. It had to be about fifty of them scattered around the large rectangular room. Raquel thought there would be bars separating them. Looking at the intensity in the eyes of some of the women, she wished there were bars. Raquel turned her gaze back to the guard, only now the guard was several feet ahead of her. Raquel rushed to catch up with her. The guard stood at the corner of the room and pointed.

  Raquel looked the way the guard was pointing, only to see a glass-enclosed room with several showerheads and a dingy tile floor. Raquel gasped. There was a pregnant lady showering. She was methodically scrubbing her body as if the entire dorm, plus the surrounding guards, couldn’t see her. It was all too much. Raquel’s knees buckled underneath her, causing her supplies to fall to the floor. Within seconds, Raquel’s body made the same trip.

  Chapter 20

  Raquel listened as the woman next to her snored. She wondered how long it took her to learn to sleep so soundly in a place like this. She couldn’t fathom how she would ever get any rest, although there was relief, now that it was lights-out. Nobody was poking at her body, yelling in her face, or staring at her naked body. She could quietly cry in the darkness. She turned on her stomach and buried her head in the pillow.

  She envisioned a woman running in a wedding gown. The woman ran faster than she knew her feet could carry her. She ran until she found Karen. James appeared, then some other men. The woman in the wedding gown got angry and tried to fight them off. She decided they needed to be taken care of by the weapon she had in her hand. Raquel opened her eyes. She couldn’t be reminded of the next scene. She held on tightly to the pillow. The woman in the wedding gown wasn’t just any woman. Raquel was the woman in the wedding gown.

  Raquel shook her head from side to side. How could she and the woman in the wedding gown be the same woman? She was a beloved mother and a successful entrepreneur. But now what was she? What would her future be like? Who would help her now?

  At least three nights a week, Raquel made it home to tuck her children into bed. This was the most relaxing part of the day. Morris claimed he was too old to get into the Jacuzzi bathtub with her, filled with sweet-smelling bubbles and aromatherapy oil, but Alexis loved it. She would giggle as she blew the suds around the tub. After she became tired of that, she would sing whatever song she was learning in day care.

  “‘Sweet little birdie, fly fly fly. Sweet little birdie, fly, fly fly, all the way to the sky, sk
y, sky.’” Without fail, she would cry when Raquel removed her from the bathtub. One time, she decided to run. She was wet and slippery and slipped right out of Raquel’s hand. Raquel caught her right before she was about to run downstairs. Who was going to give baths to her baby now and make sure she didn’t slip and fall on the stairs?

  Raquel felt like all four walls in the dormitory were sucking the breath out of her. She needed to think straight and she needed to do it now. She needed money and lots of it. A good lawyer might be able to get her released. If only she hadn’t insisted on having that $7,000 wedding dress, or those overpriced wedding shoes, a private makeup session, or the luxury bridal suite.

  Raquel had overspent on the wedding in many ways. At the last minute, she had decided to splurge on steak and lobster for the reception. Originally they had decided on chicken marsala, because it was one of the cheaper dishes, but still delicious and elegant. She had allowed James to convince her that this was the best thing when they were doing the food tasting. But when she went to make the final deposit, she changed the entire menu. Her wedding was going to be over-the-top in every way. She couldn’t serve chicken. Every wedding had chicken, in some form. But that one change added an additional twenty-five dollars to each plate, causing Raquel to do what she promised James she would not. She removed $7,500 from their savings account.

  She had planned to work extra hard after the wedding and replace the money before James had time to figure it out. Raquel wanted to slap herself. How in the world did she think she was going to be able to replace the money before James noticed?

  She did the math in her head. Among their three accounts and the money she had stashed to the side, she had less than a couple of thousand dollars.

  Raquel allowed her mind to roam where she hadn’t allowed it to go before. She had been charged with murdering two people. Raquel stuffed her face into the pillow. There was nothing she could say that was going to make this right. She couldn’t undo this. It was over. Her life as she knew it was over. There was no more James. There were no more children. Her business was a distant memory.

  This place that reeked of urine, covered up by perfume-laden cleanser, would be her home. These people whom she didn’t even want to touch would become her friends.

  Raquel knew that many of the women in the beds around her were mothers, just like her. She remembered seeing the photo necklaces some of them wore around their necks, with pictures of their children. Would Alexis and Morris be something she just wore around her neck?

  Chapter 21

  On a normal day, the cabdriver’s constant chattering into his cell phone would have annoyed James. But James barely noticed. There was too much racing through his mind. After talking to the staff at the hospital for the last time, he saw several officers waiting to talk to him. They asked a few more questions. James told all of them about his plan. There was a part of him that wished he had actually committed crimes. Going to jail right now seemed like it was justified. With more than a few strange looks, he was released. Apparently, jilting a bride at the altar isn’t illegal, just incredibly stupid.

  James paid the cabdriver and walked past the sea of reporters hanging outside his hotel. He needed to go to the hotel to get the medication in his suitcase. He had ordered the pills online after the panic attack in his classroom. He sort of hoped someone would be there, waiting for him, but nobody was there. They had so much fun at the bachelor party James paid for an extra night in the suite. He planned to celebrate humiliating Raquel with Miles and his friends.

  James’ first thought was just to take one pill, but then the pills started speaking to him: “Go ahead take every pill in the bottle. You have nothing to live for. Nobody is going to miss you. Look what you did. Look what happened. You have nothing to live for. You are worthless. No job. Nothing. You are a sorry excuse for a man. End it now. Right now. Your mother is dead. Your brother is dead. It is all your fault. How will you face them? They hate you and everything you represent.”

  James took the pills out of the container. He switched them back and forth through each of his hands; then he got a bottle of water out of the minifridge. The housekeeper would probably be the first to find him. When she found him, the pills would be lying right next to him.

  It seemed so easy, but also hard. He put a handful of pills in his mouth; then he started to wonder if there was a place worse than the place he was living in right now. The last thing he needed was to die and end up worse than he was right now.

  Religion always seemed like a waste of time. But at that moment, James wanted to study all the major religions. He wanted to know what they believed and why. He had once heard a televangelist preach about reading the Bible for yourself. He said if people really wanted to know what God said, they should find out for themselves. Those words seemed to make sense to James that day. But soon after, he forgot all about it.

  James had spent his childhood at one church service after another, but he didn’t remember learning much. There would be a robed man standing behind the pulpit and reading from the Bible. The words never made sense to James. After speaking for a while, the man would get to dancing and hollering. Soon the church would be dancing and hollering too. Afterward, they would sing a song. Sometimes that song would last thirty minutes. Just as soon as the song seemed to be over, the organist would start it up again. The people would get more and more excited with each touch of the keys. Then it was over. They would shake the preacher’s hand and leave service. People would say stuff like, “Pastor Fields sure was preaching today.”

  As a child, James never cared what his pastor was preaching about, but today he wished he could recount one sermon or one Sunday School lesson from the hundreds he had heard. Other than the books of the Bible and the Twenty-third Psalm, he couldn’t remember anything.

  The moment Joan’s face appeared in his head, James dismissed it. He couldn’t call her. What would she think of him? He would have to explain the whole thing. But everybody knew that she had changed during the last three years, that she had become some type of Bible teacher. James had seen all her Bible books on her shelf when he was there last time.

  James took the pills out of his mouth and scrolled through the numbers in his phone. He dialed and heard her say hello before he had a chance to change his mind.

  There was only one night Joan could remember not sleeping at all. She was in labor with James Jr. Now Joan could add one completely new sleepless night to her list. Instead of contractions, it was thoughts of James Sr. that kept her up, hour after hour.

  It was seven in the morning when her son walked in her room and said he needed help finding something to wear to Sunday School and church. James Jr. loved church, and the long night he had before was not about to stop him from going. He didn’t mention the night before, so neither did Joan. She helped him get dressed, fed him breakfast, and watched the bus leave from a window outside her condo.

  Joan had the church bus pick him up. It was originally designed to pick up underprivileged children whose parents didn’t have transportation. These days, it was for privileged children with lazy parents. Joan knew she should be embarrassed having her son get picked up by the church bus instead of taking him herself.

  It was nine-fifteen now, and Sunday School was about to end and the morning meet-and-greet was about to start. All the members would go around eating muffins, drinking coffee, and socializing for about thirty minutes before the worship service started.

  By the time nine-twenty in the morning rolled around, Joan decided she needed to get out of bed permanently. The thought of making a big Sunday dinner brightened her eyes as she made her way to the kitchen. She couldn’t remember the last time she had made her famous short ribs and gravy.

  As she was making a mental grocery list, she heard her cell phone. She almost didn’t go to look at who was calling. Whenever she missed church, an arsenal of people called to check on her. When she saw the call was from James Sr., she picked it up without a moment of hesitatio
n.

  “Hello, James.”

  “Where are you?” It was a low voice that sounded strained.

  “Home.”

  “Can I come over?” he asked.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Joan hung up the phone. She looked at her sofa, the television, back to the sofa, then the TV. What did she need to do? The condo looked clean, but who cared about a clean condo at a time like this? Should she cook? Surely, James wouldn’t be worried about breakfast, but what if he was?

  Joan went to the refrigerator. James always loved her banana cinnamon French toast. She scoured the kitchen for the necessary ingredients. She had bread, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and even orange juice. As she was looking in the freezer for bacon or sausage, the icecold air seemed to bring her to her senses.

  Joan slammed the door to the freezer. She grabbed her neck, suddenly feeling the soreness of a weary body that hadn’t slept all night. Her eyes were heavy and tender to the touch. Raquel had flipped out in a major way, and now the local news station was reporting that James’s mother and brother were both dead. French toast and sausage, no matter how delicious, were not going to fix this.

  There was nothing she could do to prepare for James’s arrival. She remembered a conversation she had with her pastor. It was a wedding reception and she was sitting at the table with him and several other people. Someone had asked how the McKinneys were doing. They had recently lost both of their parents in a car accident. Pastor Benjy got this sad look in his eyes.

  He said he had been with the family, but they barely had spoken. He only sat and cried with them. According to Pastor Benjy, it was vital to allow the bereaved to dictate the visit. Sometimes people wanted to tell funny stories about the sick or deceased. Sometimes they wanted to vent about a doctor they felt had failed them or a system that needed to be changed. The worst were the people who lived with regrets, the apologies that were left unsaid. The grievance that had seemed so huge until they got the call that so-and-so was dead. These were the worst, according to Pastor Benjy. They were the people who wanted to commit suicide and climbed into the casket at the funeral. They were full of regrets, remorse, and plagued by what should or could have been. Joan imagined James climbing into a casket.