“Tell you some other time. This baby done kicked me for the last time. I gotta get me some rest.”
“Feel better,” Pearl said automatically. Always be polite. It costs nothing. No, it doesn’t cost anything, but answers.
For the first time in days, Pearl was interested in getting to know someone other than Betty. Okay, so Martha was a thief, but she had something: flair, chutzpah, a story. Her story was bound to be more interesting than the saccharine, cookie-cutter romances and self-help books being passed around. Pearl had read all the tattered copies available on the quad and it didn’t take long. The books were short on story, characters and plot. She hated romances. They were insipid stories for gullible women hungry for a shred of something, anything that pointed to a life different from the one they knew.
They dreamed of being heroines swept off their feet by roguish pirates or heroes, and pretended they were strong-willed heiresses kidnapped by force who fall in love with roués and cads that turn out to be handsome princes, chivalrous knights or daring men of fortune. Romance books were cardboard fantasies that made women believe in ‘happily ever after.’ If there were such things as happy endings, none of them would be in jail.
Pearl had always enjoyed fairy tales and fantasy, but she knew where the lines between fantasy and reality were drawn. Women who devoured insipid romances couldn’t tell—or didn’t want to tell—the difference between fact and fiction. They bought the whole “happily ever after” bit. So had she once upon a time, and then she grew up.
After the past few months, Pearl was short on belief that love conquered anything but boredom. She was living proof that love conquered virginal misgivings, but not much else. Her first marriage was to a mama’s boy and then there was a con man; J.D. was arrogant, but there wasn’t much determination in him, except for the scam. Finally, there was Cap, and she still wasn’t sure where that would lead since he was married and she was stuck in jail. Cap was another romance that would probably go down the tubes just like the rest. She had learned her lesson, but the empty-headed bimbos surrounding her either did not care or did not learn.
As if a lifetime caged with empty-headed women wasn’t bad enough, the cruel and inhuman torture of formula romance novels made life inside even more intolerable. Why did the Geneva Convention and the prison reform boards not do something about that?
Martha’s federal penitentiary was beginning to sound pretty good. A whole library full of books that offered history, drama, mythology and so much more, books with knowledge and literature that did not turn the brain to mush. She wasn’t going to the penitentiary so it wasn’t an option for her, but she could dream.
No one, not even the parish courts, knew she existed. She was a number without a name, another shambling body picking up a tray full of bland, unappetizing food and returning the empties. She did not exist in reality or, it appeared, in the system either. Why had someone not been to see her? Where was her attorney? Where was her due process?
The one thing that could have made the day bearable was finding out how Martha was caught, but she was tired. “How did she get caught?”
“Learn a lot if you keep your ears open.”
Pearl did not realize she had spoken out loud. “Pardon?”
Lainie looked up from the book, withered right arm holding down the curled pages. She shook long fine hair out of her eyes and winked. She looked down at the page, picked up the right arm, shifted it to the side and slowly muttered the words as she read.
“Were you speaking to me?”
Lainie ignored her.
Now I am losing my mind, not that there’s much left to lose.
Pearl drifted over to Betty’s table. She was writing another letter to her mother and children, cursive for her mother and printing for her children. The letters to her children were all dated before she was sentenced to life. She had asked Betty why she wrote to her children if they believed she was dead.
“Mama done tole ‘em I was in the hospital wif cancer.”
“Didn’t they want to see you, to be with you?”
“They did, but mama din’t have no money. I wrote and said I's in God’s hands. When I got sent down fo’ life and mama tole ‘em I died, I kep’ writin’. My babies gets letters on special days, like birthdays and Christmas and graduation when they be old enuff. Mama tole ‘em I wrote ‘em letters till they growed.”
“So, you keep writing and they don’t know the truth. What if they find out?”
“I deal wif that when the time done come aroun’. Ain’ no way they gonna know, boo. Leastways they gots somethin’ good to ‘member me by.”
“Is it one of the kids’ birthdays?”
“No, this one fo’ Easter.”
“Do you write one for every holiday?”
“Jes ‘bout. ‘Sides, ‘nother birthday comin’ up.”
“Easter is months away.”
“Takes a long time to gets it all down right.”
Betty’s schedule kept Pearl on track. She was as dependable as red beans and rice on Wednesday and tuna fish sandwiches on Friday.
It was hard to tell time without the sun. The fluorescent lights simulated day and night, but Pearl longed for a window where she could see outside. The weak light filtering through the green-painted windows could be from the sun or just street lights. Oh, how she missed real sunlight and real moonlight. She would never take them for granted again.
Pearl sat down and listened, catching stray snatches of conversation, whispered confidences, mumbled riffs from the vague-minded women circling endlessly, plucking at their clothes, shaking their heads in disagreement with their invisible companions.
Betty was her safe haven, her lee port in what Pearl considered dangerous waters. Come right down to it, none of them looked all that dangerous, not even the hard-faced, basilisk-eyed prostitutes sitting on the top tier stairs. They were all marking time, waiting to get out or go to Angola or the federal pen in Texas like Martha and Lainie. The waters were deceptive, shallow in some areas and deep in others, and there was no way to tell where the danger lay until it was too late—like pissing off Maureen or asking too many questions of Deputy Walpole. Does that woman ever take time off?
It never occurred to Pearl that jail could be a learning experience. She was too busy finding something, anything, to do while she waited to find out where she was going to end up. How long must she wait?
She hadn’t seen a lawyer yet and no one came to visit. She had fallen through the cracks or, worse, was tangled in floating islands of seaweed becalmed in the Sargasso Sea. And the days went on and on and on. She was tired of the hours, the interminable silent hours, and of people leaving, like Sabrina. She envied Sabrina, not for the thick, golden corn silk of her hair or her sunny disposition and smiles, but because she would see the sun again.
Sabrina was free, at least for the moment. Would she step out into the blinding glare of the sun like a blind cave fish, shrinking from the merciless heat against its transparent glassy skin? Would she be burned to a cinder by the pitiless rays of the sun or would she uncurl and raise her face and arms to the sky like a sunflower greeting the dawn? Or would she miss Elke so much, she’d find a way to get arrested again? No, Elke wouldn’t be there long. The Feds would pick her up and send her back to Germany soon.
Would Sabrina miss Elke as much as Elke was obviously going to miss her? They had been inseparable—until now.
They clung together. Sabrina had daily brushed and woven Elke’s dark chestnut-colored hair into shiny coils looped about her ears or fingered into soft waves about her heart-shaped face. They were like lovers, long familiar with each other’s bodies, rediscovering each other in searching caresses and lingering touches with a sense of awe and wonder that fired Pearl’s cheeks with a blush of embarrassment and an answering rise of buried passion whenever her eyes strayed their way. Hands memorized familiar curves and hollows, storing sense memories for the empty days ahead. Their touches seemed innocuous enough, nothing to ra
ise suspicion from the guards. Maybe that was why the women did each other’s hair. It was an acceptable intimate practice rated G for the conditions. Neither Elke nor Sabrina hid their feelings now. There was no time.
A peeping Tom. She had become a peeping Tom, intruding on private intimacies and unable to look away. Long forgotten tenderness welled up inside and threatened to drench her in hot waves of need. When was the last time she had been held and touched that way? How long had it been since she was torn and broken by parting? When had anyone touched her life or her heart the way Elke and Sabrina touched each other: tentatively, greedily, joyfully, gratefully, sadly? When had she felt anything or cared for anyone so deeply?
The memory surfaced like a rotten gas bubble from a haunted swamp and flared, when her children were ripped from her arms and her feet set on the path that led here. That was when she locked up her heart and kept people at a safe distance. Unlike these women, she had been betrayed by a woman. Oh, she’d been betrayed by men, too, two men who promised the moon, got what they wanted and left her in the dust before she got smart—until J.D. snuck past her defenses. The only man she had walked out on was her ex-husband, the father of their boys, the same man who had betrayed her with her best friend Lilah. No sense raking up old wounds.
Sabrina was gone now and Elke wandered around dazed, eyes glued to the door, willing her to return. Without conscious thought, she drifted over to the guard station and leaned against it. Within seconds, one of the guards banged on the glass. Elke jumped, retreated, hands up, palms outward, shaking her head and apologizing before backing away.
Pearl glanced toward Betty who, never taking her eyes from her cards, nodded. Pulling out a chair, Pearl beckoned the teary-eyed girl closer. Facing the guard station, Elke backed away. The guard, arms crossed, dared Elke to get touch the glass again.
“You’re welcome to sit.” Pearl pushed the chair out a little more and nodded. Elke hesitated and stepped closer. “It’s all right. Betty doesn’t mind,” Pearl said.
Never taking her eyes from the guard, she sat gingerly on the edge of the seat, body tensed, ready to spring up and get away. Pearl touched her shoulder and the tension seeped out as the grieving girl slumped against her, arms going out and around Pearl’s neck. She sobbed and buried her face against Pearl’s shoulder.
Arms out to the sides, she turned toward Betty. Her lips shaped the question: What do I do now?
Betty sucked her teeth, shrugged her shoulders and studied the cards spread out on the table, the answer obvious. It’s yo’ problem, boo.
It was a big problem. She was uncomfortable with displays of affection.
Although she craved it from her family and had been rebuffed time and again, or greeted with a hit-and-run kind of hug that was more a brief collision of bodies and arms that touched without really touching, she was completely undone every time someone reached out to her. She didn’t know what else to do but pat Elke’s shaking shoulder while she sobbed. She almost felt like she was patting a dog that might be rabid, although Elke seemed more like a sad, fluffy bunny. Then again, fluffy bunnies had long claws and powerful hind legs that gouged dripping, bloody furrows in tender skin.
Hot tears dripped against Pearl’s shirt and soaked through to the skin. She grimaced and shifted. Like a child, Elke moved closer, arms tightening as she continued to sob. No doubt everyone was looking and enjoying the tender drama as though she had become Elke’s lover. Worse yet, the guard was probably calling out more deputies to yank them apart and throw them in an isolation cell for breaking the rules. She looked out of the corner of her eye into the guard station. The guard had merged with the shadows. Was she on her way now? Pearl pulled back a little, patting Elke’s shoulder; Elke clung tighter. She looked around, eyes shifting beneath lowered lashes. No one watched.
It wasn’t the idea of being considered a lesbian that made her uncomfortable; it was knowing there was a break in her defenses, that the walls were not sufficiently high or thick enough around her heart. She could be reached and undone by someone’s tears and her own compassion. The need to reach out and touch someone in pain, offer them comfort, burrowed past the defenses and the walls began to crumble. She was vulnerable.
Something boldly defiant sprang up inside Pearl and her arms enfolded Elke, rocking the grieving girl and murmuring words of solace. No guard appeared. It wouldn’t matter if the deputies had come, she would not let go. Let Elke cry for her since she dare not cry for herself.
Sobs turned to hiccups and sniffles. She gently broke the embrace and dashed the tears aside with the heels of her hands, a shy apologetic smile like a ghost of a smile danced at the edges of her mouth highlighting a hint of dimples.
“Are you all right now?”
Elke started to get up.
“You can sit here if you like.” Pearl looked to Betty for confirmation and she nodded her head over her cards without looking up.
“All right.” She glanced over at the stairs where Sabrina had combed and braided her hair every morning, smoothing the shining waves before deftly weaving them into fat plaits she coiled at the base of Elke’s neck. Embarrassment tinted her cheeks bright red; she covered by touching Pearl’s wristband. “I knew a Caldwell in Idaroberstein. She was named Ilya.”
“One of my sisters was born in Idaroberstein when Dad was stationed there after the war.”
“It’s a beautiful place. They carve crystal into animals and all beautiful things.”
“I was a baby and don’t remember it, but I have seen pictures.” Emboldened by the meager connection, Pearl moved into more familiar territory. She pointed to Elke’s yellow band.
“Aah, yes. Mine is different. I wait for INS to pick me up and send me back to Germany.”
“Why?”
“My visa was—how you say?—run out.”
“How long ago?”
“Two years.”
Pearl waited for Elke to explain. She did not want to seem too anxious or rude. Curiosity burned hotly and fought to push the questions past lips caught in her teeth.
She fingered the wrist band. “I’m not here because of visa, but for same as Sabrina. They tell INS when they find out I am not legal.” Tears glistened in half-lidded eyes. “Why is it wrong to take money for myself? No one get hurt but me if I am stupid.” She did not want an answer so much as an opening, a chance to justify what seemed to her natural and right, to understand her crime. “They will take me too soon. I want to stay.” Fierce determination glittered in suddenly dry eyes. “I will stay. I did nothing wrong.”
Unable to resist any longer, the words spilled out. “What did you do to end up here?”
“You do not mind if I tell you?”
Pearl patted her shoulder. “Not if you want to tell me.”
Elke sat up straight and folded her hands primly in her lap.
Before she could begin, one of the women from the stairs knelt beside Elke and hugged her. “I’m so sorry. I know how y’all must be hurtin’.” She stood up and tugged Elke to her feet, putting her arm around the German girl’s shoulders. “Come on wit’ me.”
Elke stopped and turned with an apology.
Pearl waved her on. “You can tell me later.”
Like a burst of golden sunlight through the gray of an overcast sky, she smiled. “Really?”
“Really. Any time.” Although it hurt to say the words she felt were true, she nodded and admitted the worst. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You will wait?” Pearl nodded. “One moment. I will come again.”
The two women crossed the open quad and blended into the crowd on the stairs and Pearl felt something akin to regret, not for the chance to find a reason for her own unbelievable situation in another’s story, but because for the first time since Betty invited her to sit down she almost made a friend. She was set apart once again, not only by her friendship with Betty, whom most of the women feared and the rest avoided lest she cast the evil eye upon them, but by something else, something i
nside herself.
It was not her no-accent Midwestern accent or the way she pronounced her words, giving each one weight, breadth and importance, but something less substantial and more subtle that set her apart. It was not education or disdain for women as a collective and mindless group, although there was an element of disdain in the way she had viewed these fallen women. It was the way she carefully skirted what she considered the well-defined edges of propriety and the dictates of polite society that kept her tip-toeing along a narrow ledge, unwilling to invade anyone’s private space or peer into their cells when she passed.
In the bathroom she avoided looking directly at anyone, giving the women a discreet privacy denied them by the lack of doors and curtains that left the most personal and necessary of acts open. It was as much a part of her upbringing as from a deep desire to avoid looking too closely at anyone or anything that happened. She did not want to know who fumbled whom—or what—in hidden corners or surreptitiously slipped an extra packet of sugar from someone else’s tray. Let the intimacies and brutalities disguised in furtive glances and bruised and scratched skin remain mysteries. Leave the secrets buried and unremarked. I do not want to be a part of this world. She was not a part of this world and yet, now that Elke had touched something in her, a longing to wade in and be welcomed blossomed. No. If there was any hope of getting out, of being free again, she must remain untouched and untainted.
She had intended to remain oblivious to the vices and visions of the dark underbelly of this world, hidden from the sharks and unseen by the vigilant remoras. As much as she hated to admit it, these women were unique individuals, simple in some ways and complex in others. Now that she was forced to see what lay behind the daily hair-braiding, giggles and whispered conversations to the only tenderness left to these women, she knew there was no way to remain aloof. Such open emotions and trust seared her heart. No matter how she might wish it so, Pearl could not pretend she had a heart of stone.
For the first time since waking up in the steel- and concrete-bordered world, she was awake and her eyes were wide open.
Among Women Page 8