Pearl had heard Joo-Eun tell Maureen pointedly about a man, her fiancé, and that she liked him the first time she met him. It seemed to be her polite way of letting Maureen that she was not available and Maureen accepted Joo-Eun’s choice without question. Still she protected her, shielded her and took care of her. It was a study in devotion and unrequited love that showed Maureen in a very different light.
Whatever anyone else thought, Pearl knew that no one would dare question Maureen or laugh at her. There was really nothing to laugh about. Seeing her heart pinned to her sleeve was sad and sweet—and hopeful. She would likely be devastated when Joo-Eun rolled out, but Pearl had a feeling that the odd couple would keep in touch, Maureen’s strength and take charge attitude infusing Joo-Eun with the courage to face down her brother while her gentle manner softened Maureen’s brash and abrasive style. She imagined Tomeo coming over to make trouble and Maureen and he having a talk that would end with Tomeo leaving on his own or carried on a gurney covered by a white sheet. She was not the timid type and she had already shown a decided preference for sheathing sharp objects in tender flesh.
In her own way, Joo-Eun was just as strong, definitely not as violent, and calm. Where Maureen was category five hurricane winds lashing the shore, Joo-Eun was calm water slowly wearing away the hard, sharp edges of unyielding stone.
How many others were affected by their brief brush with those they met between the concrete block walls of their narrowed world was anyone’s guess, but it was becoming apparent to Pearl that no one rolled out unchanged. She felt herself changing. Although she would never fit in or be one of the crowd, she was learning to see beneath the surface to the depths of the world she now inhabited.
“Trial’s set for February,” Lainie said as she thumped down beside Pearl. “I’ll miss Mardi Gras.” She sounded disappointed.
“Is Mardi Gras such a big deal?” Pearl asked.
“Just the best party this side of Halloween, and it lasts for two weeks.”
“I thought Mardi Gras was just one day.”
“Oh, no. There are parades every night for two weeks and then, on Mardi Gras day, the parades start at six and end at midnight. There’s so much to see and so much food. I had two grocery bags full of beads, doubloons and throws last year.”
“What are doubloons and throws?”
“Oh, you know, coins and cups and spears and coconuts.”
The other women clustered around Lainie, all talking at once. “Tell us what happened. What was in the trunk?” Like anxious children, they begged for one more story or just one present before being sent to bed Christmas Eve. All talk of Mardi Gras and doubloons and throws was forgotten as Lainie beamed at the gathering crowd, waiting for the right moment to begin. The usually complacent women, clustered in the shoals while the sharks prowled the perimeters, came closer to gather whatever crumbs they could get. And there were the clownfish drifting happily until danger appeared, sending them scuttling to hide amongst the poisonous spines of sea anemones, just out of reach and not so far away they couldn’t hear—or darting to safety among the caves, under rock or amidst the safety of a larger school of fish. Now they all came together as one clamoring crowd, ignoring the usual dangers. They all wanted to hear the story, discover the secret of Lainie’s trunk.
“Well,” Lainie started, drawing out the story and enjoying her sudden popularity, “the cops were gonna stop me because my tail light was out. I was afraid they’d want to search the car and find the gun in the glove box, so I ran.”
“We already know that, but what was in the trunk?”
“I wanted to drown the evidence.” Lainie grinned.
The women groaned. “What evidence?” they chorused.
“A kilo of pot, ten ounces of smack and 40 grams of rock.”
Pearl didn’t understand. “What does that mean in English?”
“Marijuana and uncut heroin and cocaine, pure uncut bliss.”
The crowd gasped.
“You goin’ down for a long time with haul like that, for true,” one of the black prostitutes said. “Boo, you ain’t gonna see daylight for a long, long time.”
Martha nudged Lainie’s shoulder. “Looks like you’ll be going to the Fed with me.” She chuckled. “Worth almost a million dollars on the street.”
“Probably the safest place for me. My old man is pissed. Said he’s gonna do me good when I get outta here last time he came to visit. Aww, he was a mean son of a bitch anyway, and I can use the vacation.”
“Why would you do something like that?”
Tears glistened in Lainie’s eyes. “Rock melts into pure ecstasy when you add a few drops of water. Whoosh! like snow on a hot day. Suck it up and let the needle slide into your veins, push the plunger and everything dissolves. Suddenly, you’re flying.”
Several of the prostitutes licked their lips, their eyes shining as they leaned closer. They knew. They remembered the way a woman remembers her first kiss, her first love or her first time.
“Is that all?” they asked.
Maureen snorted. “I thought there’d at least be a dead body. Drugs aren’t all that special. Might as well get caught with a trunk full of king cakes.”
The crowd drifted away back into the current toward the shoals. The sharks circled and remoras scrambled after them while the clownfish darted out of the sharks’ way to safety among the anemones.
Lainie leaned over and whispered in Pearl’s ear. “And there was a body. My man did him. That’s how he got it all.”
“The body was in the trunk?”
“No. We buried him the night before, but his blood was all over the floor of the trunk, and I had the gun in the glove compartment, my old man’s gun.” She shook her head. “Yeah, he’s pissed. I’m better off in the Fed where he can’t get to me. About the only thing that saved me from getting jammed up in here is that my fingerprints were on the gun.”
Pearl shivered and rubbed her arms. “Be careful, Lainie.”
“Gotta be if I want to make it to the Fed.” Lainie shuffled off after the others.
Nodding to Joo-Eun to follow, Pearl led the way to her cell. She tore a few sheets from the yellow legal pad on her desk. Handing the pages over to Joo-Eun, she cautioned, “Please make sure the guards don’t get hold of it. I don’t mind others reading this, but please keep an eye out.”
“I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“Thank you,” Pearl said.
Joo-Eun nodded. “It would not be safe for any of us if they found this. It is best not to make trouble. We want to get out of here some day.” She touched Pearl’s arm and motioned to Lainie. “She will not be foolish.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Be sure. She is smarter than she pretends to be.”
Maureen waited outside the door and followed Joo-Eun back upstairs. Pearl sat down and started writing. A knock clanged on the steel door and she looked up.
Holding her close-cropped head high as she stood in the doorway, the new woman, the one who moved like a dancer, took one step into the cell. “I’m Sarah. May I speak with you?”
Pearl nodded.
“Out here if you please.”
Pearl followed her into the hall.
“I need a favor. You’re the only one that can help me, so I have a proposition to make. It will benefit both of us.”
“How so?”
“I want you to write about me. I have heard the others talking and read some of your stories. I have connections and a way to get your stories out of here.”
“How?”
“Did you know outgoing mail is not opened or censored? That is how to get your stories to the right people.”
“But I don’t know the right people.”
“I do. I will provide envelopes and addresses.”
Pearl wondered what Sarah was doing on the quad if she was so well connected. Someone should have bailed her out by now. At the very least, she would not have been put in population. Like the judge’s maid,
the one that got out within hours of being arrested, if Sarah had connections why wasn’t she out, too? As she looked into Sarah’s eyes, Pearl saw nothing to give her pause. Sarah’s gaze was clear and direct, her eyes darting neither right nor left but rather like a laser beam. Unsure of how she knew, Pearl was certain she could trust Sarah.
There was something haunted and sad in her eyes, memories or loss. Yes, that was it—loss. Pearl took a chance. “Why are you in here with us if you have connections?”
Sarah did not flinch or get angry. She simply smiled, a slow curl of soft, full lips. “My connections are with radio stations and newspapers and no one knows I am here. When I was booked, it was under my married name, a name I haven’t used since the divorce two years ago. That is how James covered up what happened.”
“What did happen?”
“Would you believe me if I said I was arrested for a bag of oregano?”
Pearl shook her head. “After what I have seen and heard, yes, I would.”
“That was not the real reason. James, my ex-husband, wanted custody of my girls. He knew he would have to find solid evidence of negligence or proof of drug use. I don’t know how he managed it—he’s not a smart man, vindictive and mean, but not smart—but he found a way. And here I am.” They walked toward the stairs and sat down on the bottom step. “If it had not been for Jasmine’s fever and Veronica’s field day, I would have stayed home the day they came and I would not be here.”
As if talking to an old friend, Sarah moved up a step to sit beside Pearl. She looked straight ahead as she spoke, leaning close until their shoulders touched. The scent of soap and the subtle spice of warm skin enfolded them. Sarah spoke in quiet, measured tones that belied the tension in her folded hands. The knuckles were white and the skin taut as she clasped her hands together.
“I couldn’t disappoint Veronica. She had been so good and did everything I asked without grumbling. If you knew her, you would understand. She has a mind of her own and we often butt heads. We are too much alike.” She turned to look directly at Pearl. “I promised and I never break my promises.”
Twenty-Five: SARAH
The baby screamed bloody murder. “I know. I know, honey.” Sarah soothed the baby in her crib, rubbing her tummy and crooning a wordless lullaby. The baby kicked her feet and wailed louder. With the backs of her fingers, Sarah touched behind the baby’s ears. She had a fever.
Picking up the baby, she touched her cheek to the baby’s downy, tear-wet cheek. Jasmine felt warm, but not hot, but still not well enough to take out in the wind and rain. Sarah did not want to risk another bout of bronchitis.
Veronica, Sarah’s five-year-old, would get up soon. Today was the class field trip to the Museum of Natural History. Missing that would leave Veronica heartbroken.
Holding Jasmine close to her chest, Sarah settled into the rocking chair. Gramma Marie gave it to her when she was pregnant with Veronica and it soothed the children as much as it had soothed her when Gramma Marie rocked her as a child. Sarah checked Jasmine’s diaper. It was dry and clean and smelled of baby powder. Jasmine hiccupped between sobs, winding down like a toy with a fading battery, her little shoulders hitching with each half-hearted sob. Sarah rocked and hummed. The half sobs dissolved into an occasional snuffle as Jasmine sucked her two middle fingers.
Gray light filled the nursery, creeping across the floor from beneath the bottom of the shade, and Jasmine was finally asleep. Her cheek was not as hot and she barely moved as Sarah tucked her in.
“Mommy, is it time to go to school yet?” Veronica leaned against the door frame rubbing her eyes.
“Did you go to the bathroom?”
“Yes, Mommy. Will you help me get dressed?”
Sarah led Veronica back to her room and showed her the jeans and flannel top she’d laid out the night before.
“I want to wear my new dress.”
“Not this time, Nikki. It will be too cold. Put on what I laid out while I get breakfast.”
Veronica mumbled an incoherent protest, stopping as soon as she looked up into Sarah’s eyes. She knew better than to argue or she’d end up staying home and miss the field trip. Fumbling with the snaps on her nightie, she finally got them undone and tugged it over her head. She stopped short just before kicking the nightie under the bed. She peered cautiously at the doorway and heard the bottom stair creak. She was safe. Mommy was downstairs. She decided to fold her nightie up and put it under her pillow anyway. She was not taking any chances, not today.
Veronica swallowed the last mouthful of oatmeal and maple syrup as she put her dishes in the sink. Sarah laid rain hat, boots and blue-flowered raincoat on the table and helped Veronica into a fleece-lined jacket before helping her into the rain gear.
“Mommy, it’s too hot.”
“Veronica.” The warning was enough. “You’ll be out in the cold and rain and I do not want you to catch a cold.”
“Okay.”
“I beg your pardon, miss.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s better.”
The grandfather clock in the hall struck seven-thirty. Time to go.
Veronica tried to tie the strings her under chin but could not get them right. When she tied the strings where she could see them, they would not fit under her chin. “Mommy,” she whined.
Sarah quickly tied on the rain hat and snapped the slicker closed, reached for the umbrellas and handed one to Veronica, opened the door and stepped onto the porch. The wind caught the umbrella when Sarah opened it and nearly pulled it out of her hands while shielding Veronica from the worst of the biting wind’s mischievous teeth. She got the umbrellas opened, locked the front door, took Veronica’s hand firmly in her own and together they walked down the stairs and onto the sidewalk for the two-block walk to the school. They stopped several times and Sarah hugged her daughter to her until the frigid blasts passed, walking quickly across the street and through the schoolyard gate. She kissed Veronica and untied her rain hat at the door to her classroom. “Do not forget to hang up your raincoat and umbrella so they’ll dry. Be good and keep your eyes open. I want to hear about everything when I pick you up this afternoon. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Mrs. Devlin?” Nikki’s teacher called to Sarah as she stepped into the hall.
“Miss Addison,” Sarah replied.
“Miss Addison then. May I speak with you?”
“I have to get home.”
“This will only take a minute, Miss Addison.”
Sarah checked her watch. She had been gone fifteen minutes. Too long. “If it is not important, please give me a call. I must get home.”
“If Veronica’s welfare is not important to you, maybe it will be to your husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Sarah said. She was about to run out of patience with the woman. “Everything about my daughter is important.” The muscles in Sarah’s jaw pulsed as she ground her teeth. She forced a smile.
“I’m afraid the permission slip is not valid. You signed your maiden name and that is not the name on record with the office.” The teacher was a thick-waisted woman with spindly legs and short hair that clung like an oil slick to her bulbous head. Her dark complexion shone with perspiration. As she held out a piece of paper, her fingers trembled. She licked beads of sweat from her ample upper lip. Sarah glimpsed deep purple lipstick smeared over the upper teeth.
“Why did you not bring this to my attention before, Mrs. Fornier? I returned the paper to you two weeks ago?”
“I-I did not -.” The teacher drew herself up to her full five-foot four-inch height and thrust out her small pointed breasts. “I did not catch it until now. I have called your ex-husband James. He is on his way.”
“You had no right.” Sarah resisted the urge to slap the woman. Instead, she grabbed the paper and a pen from the teacher’s hand and signed the paper against the door frame. She thrust the paper and pen at Mrs. Fornier and stalked down the hall, opening the umbrella before she banged thr
ough the doors.
Sarah raced down the wet pavement, slipping twice and nearly falling.
James, the girls’ father, opened the door as she reached for knob.
“How did you get in?” The smirk on James’s face sent a thrill of ice down her veins and into the pit of her stomach.
Schooling her features to a calm she did not feel, Sarah shook the water from the umbrella, closed it, reached through the doorway and placed it into the hall stand. She took her time unsnapping the raincoat, shaking it out and laying it across the bench on the front porch.
He stepped aside. “Please do come in. We’ve been waiting for you.” He was as ever the polite host, although it had not been his home since he moved in with some teenage girl he got pregnant. He had seen the girls twice in the last two years, both times in the last month when he had demanded she sign over custody. Sarah had ordered him out of her house and reminded him he still owed child support. He had promised he’d be back. For once, he had kept his promise.
He came back, this time with two New Orleans Parish police officers and a smartly dressed white woman in sensible boots Must be his lawyer.
“This is Nadine Charbonneau from Children’s Services, Sarah. She is here to take the girls.”
“You have exactly sixty seconds to explain yourself, James.” She doubled up her right fist.
An officer came down the stairs holding Jasmine, her diaper bag and Veronica’s little suitcase. Unclenching her first, Sarah slapped James and reached for her daughter. One of the officers grabbed her shoulder. Another officer came from the kitchen with a baggie full of what looked like tiny dried leaves.
Sarah laughed. “Since when is it illegal to have oregano?”
“Oregano, Sarah? How about pot? How could you smoke that around our children? The drinking was bad enough, but pot? You obviously don’t care about them if you’re getting high and drunk all the time.”
“How would you know, James? You’ve barely been near them or me for two years. You’re more interested in your club and that teenage whore.”
Among Women Page 21