by A. H. Kim
With these details, everyone has a theory about how Deb killed Mary—most of them involving some type of sick sex torture.
“You and Flores—you don’t believe it, do ya?” Deb asks.
“Believe what?”
“That I killed Meatloaf,” Deb says.
“No, of course not,” I lie.
Deb steps closer to look me in the eye. I avoid her glare by looking up.
And then I start to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Deb asks.
I reach up to the top shelf of the supply closet and pull down a brown cardboard box of maxi-pads. On the side of the box, next to the red, white and blue “Made in the USA” logo, are the words Distributed by EMC Partners, a certified Minority Business Enterprise.
“No wonder these things are so crappy,” I say, laughing.
“Ya gotta fill me in,” Deb says.
“This is my company,” I say.
“So that’s what got you in here? Making cheap-ass feminine hygiene products?”
“We didn’t make ’em. We only distributed them.”
“Wow, you’re lucky you didn’t get the death penalty,” Deb says.
I try to play it light, but Deb looks deadly serious.
The door to the supply closet bursts open.
“Hey, whatcha doin’ in there?” the CO barks. “It’s not work hours. You’re supposed to be in your cubes. I could give both of yous a shot.”
“And happy New Year to you, too, Officer,” Deb says. She hands me a box of pads and pretends to shove me out of the closet.
“We better get back before Juanita starts to wonder about us,” she says.
I remember when Martin told me that EMC Partners got the contract with the Bureau of Prisons. It was over a decade ago—and over a decade after our European trip.
At that point, Martin and I are both full-grown adults trying to make our own way in the world. I’ve already been named VP of Marketing at God Hälsa, and Martin and his business partner are finally getting their company off the ground.
We’re sitting in Martin’s car. There’s heavy traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
“So, remind me what we’re celebrating?” I ask.
“EMC Partners just won its first major government contract—supplying the federal prison system with paper products. Paper towels, toilet paper, stuff like that.”
“Well, congratulations, Martin. It’s been a long time coming.”
“I know,” Martin says. “I really appreciate your patience. And generosity.”
“You really don’t have to take me out to lunch, you know,” I say, although what I really want to say is “I would’ve been happier to stay at my suite in the Four Seasons and order us room service.”
After a week of endless meetings and negotiations with the FDA commissioner and his lackeys, I’m ready to lie back in luxury and style, but Martin wants to show off his newfound success to his younger sister, and I don’t want to deny him that small victory.
“This place has a Michelin star,” Martin explains as we clear the bridge and turn off the highway, “and the most amazing wine list. I’ve been dying to try it out. They say all the top DC power brokers go there.”
It’s almost 2:00 p.m. by the time we arrive at the restaurant—one of those French country-style places with white lace curtains and geraniums in the window. It looks charming, but I’m pretty sure this place isn’t worth the nearly two-hour drive from Georgetown.
As we enter the main dining room, I assess the clientele. It’s your typical Beltway Blend: Hermes-tied lawyer-lobbyists, congressmen with their gold lapel pins, pastel-toned Washington wives and a midlevel bureaucrat or two thrown in for good measure.
Your tax dollars at work.
The curvy waitress is wearing a clingy dress that shows off her big tits and nice ass. She greets Martin with a sexy smirk and wiggle of her hips. She reminds me a little of Karen, who was also in the service industry before she married Martin. Now that I think about it, so was his first wife. Maybe Martin has a thing for nubile, servile females.
Then again, who doesn’t?
I’m reviewing the offerings on the menu when Martin leans in and whispers, “Over there, at three o’clock, is the assistant secretary of defense. God, I’d give anything for a meeting with him. Did I tell you that this place attracts all the DC power brokers?”
I couldn’t care less if the POTUS himself were seated at the next table; I’m famished and dying for a drink. But I humor Martin by turning my head and nodding approvingly.
“I wonder if he’s meeting with Rumsfeld,” Martin says. “Both he and Cheney have places in town, you know.”
“Town? What town?” All I could see on the way to the restaurant was vast open fields and flat expanses of pewter-colored water.
“St. Michaels,” Martin explains. “A couple miles farther down the road. It’s small and sort of touristy, but Karen and I like to pop over when we need a quick getaway from the hustle and bustle.”
I try not to laugh at Martin’s concept of hustle and bustle. For God’s sake, he lives in Old Town Alexandria and drives a leased Lincoln.
“Speaking of quick getaways,” I say, “is it true that you and Karen aren’t coming to the Hamptons this summer?”
“Yeah, sorry, but Karen will be almost due by then, and it’s a pain in the ass driving all the way to the Hamptons from DC in the summer. The New Jersey Turnpike is a nightmare, and don’t get me started on the Parkway.”
I pretend to examine the heavy leather-clad wine list, but I’m really sulking.
I remember back when I was still a struggling drug rep, sitting in that one-bedroom apartment and watching some documentary about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Right after JFK was killed, Jackie created this myth of the Kennedy White House as a kind of Camelot.
Seeing those home videos of toothy-grinned Kennedys playing football on the Hyannis Port lawn, all madras shorts and seersucker dresses and endless cocktails, I said to myself, I want that life.
“Last year, Eva bailed because she couldn’t risk being so far from DC at nine months pregnant,” I complain, “and now you and Karen are pulling the same line on me? Don’t you guys have anything better to do than breed?”
“Maybe you should think about it yourself,” Martin says. “After all, your eggs aren’t getting any fresher.”
“Fuck you very much.”
“Excuse me,” a blue-haired matron says. Her smile is saccharine as she leans in from the next table. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. If you’re looking for a summer place closer to home, you really couldn’t do any better than St. Michaels. We’ve got some lovely waterfront properties for sale.”
She hands over her business card; she’s a Realtor.
“Just think of the possibilities,” she coos.
Maybe I’m weak from hunger, but I do start thinking. I see the tempting vision of a Camelot on the Chesapeake.
“How long a drive is it from Princeton to here?” I ask.
“Less than three hours,” Martin responds. “And about two hours from DC. Really, Beth, it would be so much easier for us to get together here than in the Hamptons. Plus, if we owned a place instead of renting, we could get together every holiday and not just once a year during the summer.”
I assume Martin is using the “royal we,” since neither he nor Eva has the finances to buy a summer place or even go in on one with me. Martin and the Realtor talk about some lots for sale on the waterfront. They seem unusually friendly with one another.
“I forgot to mention the best part,” the Realtor says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s also a great tax refuge,” Martin finishes her thought.
hannah
twenty
January slowly gives way to February, and t
he freshly fallen snow on the city streets gradually turns slushy gray with salt, sand and exhaust. It’s freezing cold outside but almost unbearably warm in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis, the venue for this year’s New York City Diverse Lawyers Association’s awards ceremony.
The Drinker, Barker and Horne table is prominently located near the stage and populated by last-minute table fillers. The firm is winning Diversity Champion of the Year, so the partners felt compelled to buy a twenty-five-thousand-dollar Gold Sponsorship, which gets us a table for eight and a full-page color ad in the glossy program. Unfortunately, the luncheon organizers failed to realize the event conflicts with the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, which is taking place this year in New Orleans and happens to coincide with both Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras. By the sparse attendance, it appears most of the city’s lawyers couldn’t resist the tempting trifecta of alcohol, business development and debauchery.
“What a depressing way to spend Valentine’s Day,” the birdlike young woman seated next to me mumbles to herself. She reminds me of a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg but by way of Mumbai rather than Brooklyn. She’s a first-year litigation associate, the lowest rung on the firm’s ladder, even lower than me or the head mailroom clerk, who also happens to be seated at our table. At DBH, as with most major law firms, there’s roughly a one-in-twenty chance that a first-year associate will make partner. Every fall, law firms across the country bring in a new crop of associates in hopes of yielding one partner in ten years’ time. As each year passes, the once-promising young lawyers buckle under from the burden of billing twenty-five hundred hours per year and repaying their massive student loans. The streets of New York are littered with JDs trying to avoid the ever-present threat of being tossed into the trash heap like yesterday’s losing Lotto scratchers.
As the keynote speaker recounts her inspirational rags-to-riches tale, everyone at my table is looking down at their laps, their faces lit like a Caravaggio painting by the glow of their iPhones. In keeping with the theme of the luncheon, my firm’s table looks admirably—and deceptively—diverse. The handsome African American man across the table from me is Andre, the security supervisor. The buxom Filipina next to him is the backup receptionist. I’m not sure, but I could swear the other two guys work in the firm’s cafeteria. They look different without their hairnets. Except for the firm’s Diversity Counsel and the Indian RBG, everyone else at our table is staff or, as most people at the firm call us, non-lawyers. That phrase has always irked me: non-lawyers. How can you define someone by what they are not? Then again, I don’t really love the term “staff” either. It makes me feel like Mrs. Hughes from Downton Abbey.
I can’t help but eavesdrop—or should I say e-drop?—on my dining neighbor’s texts.
BORING!! No lawyers here. Just staff, the young lawyer writes.
Humiliating is the response.
Tell me about it.
What R U doing for V Day?
Fucking nothing. Literally.
Me 2. How long do U go w/o sex b4 U get Ur virginity back?
LMAO. I’d say the statute of limitations is 2 yrs.
Shit, wanna go out 2nite? I might get in under the wire.
The Indian RBG inserts a smiley face with a stuck-out tongue.
Two years seems like a reasonable statute of limitations on virginity. By that standard, my virginity has been restored since before the senior Bush administration. No pun intended. Checking my own phone, there’s a red dot on my CorrLinks icon indicating an email message from Beth. It’s not like me to be so rude, but an email from Beth is too tantalizing to ignore.
Dear Hannah,
I’ve had the craziest day—the craziest week, actually—and it’s not even over yet.
All week, my cube’s been getting deliveries of Valentines and little gifts from women I hardly even know. Here’s the listing of the gifts so far: two bottles of Bath & Body Works body wash (in Sensual Amber and Dark Kiss scents—don’t love them but it’s the thought that counts, right?), a box of Tampax Pearls (the prison provides free pads, but they’re so cheap I’m sure they’re filled with asbestos or something), an extra large bottle of Banana Boat SPF 50 sunblock (Eva would kill me if I let the West Virginia sun ruin my peaches and cream complexion) and several king-size chocolate bars (Almond Joy and Mounds, my favorites!).
This morning, Juanita and I got back from our Ballet Barre workout class to find a warm blueberry muffin, a crocheted heart-shaped pillow and a jar of Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream. (Did I tell you my friend Sandy got promoted to head of commissary, and we convinced the warden to stock some quality beauty products? I told them my skin was breaking out from the nearly expired drugstore brands they usually offer, which is partly true. I think my bunkie’s world-famous nachos with four-cheese topping are also to blame.) The muffin was from my awesome bunkie, who honestly has a future as the next Food Network Star: Prison Edition, the jar of Kiehl’s was from Sandy and the heart-shaped pillow was from...wait for it...Deb the Destroyer.
The keynote speaker has finished, and the sparse audience breaks out into a round of applause, drowning out my gasp of surprise. Beth has written to me several times about Deb the Destroyer, the fearsome repeat convict who uses her massive bulk and terrible tongue to keep order at Alderson, but even Beth’s colorful stories didn’t adequately prepare me for the reality of the woman. When Beth pointed her out to me at my last trip to Alderson, both the ground and the inmates literally shook as the Destroyer entered the visitors’ building.
Apparently, Deb’s secretly been taking crochet lessons from one of the old-timers. Can you believe it? I wish I could send you a photo. It’s an elongated heart shape, with concentric ovals of red and pink yarn. I swear it looks like a giant clit. My bunkie’s already taken to calling it the Pussy Pillow.
My cheeks flush reading Beth’s words. Working among lawyers has inured me to most profanity, but words describing female genitalia still make me uncomfortable.
They’re serving a special Valentine’s Day/Mardi Gras meal at CDR today. Jambalaya, corn bread, creamy coleslaw, king cake, chocolate mousse and sparkling (nonalcoholic) apple cider. God, what I would do for a glass of real champagne. I’ve heard that Deb makes a pretty tasty homebrewed hooch, but I don’t want to press my luck by leading her on. My bunkie keeps teasing me that the Pussy Pillow could be a self-portrait. That girl is a complete laugh riot.
Anyway, thanks for updating my Amazon wish list and getting me the Nora Roberts book. Most stylists charge a Pepsi six-pack for a haircut but mine won’t accept anything less than the latest Nora or Danielle. I’d be tempted to find a new stylist, but the pickings around here are pretty slim, so I appreciate you keeping me looking my best. I can’t be seen with dark roots, even at Alderson.
Will you be able to visit me soon? I’m dying to hear what you’ve found out since your last trip.
Have a good one.
Love, Beth
After spending two hours at the Diverse Lawyers luncheon, I have to work late to get all my work done. It’s past seven by the time I re-shelve the last book, neaten up the piles of legal research on my desk and shut down my computer. I decide to treat myself to a store-bought dinner instead of heating up a can of Progresso soup.
“That’ll be $12.02,” the clerk says, placing my salad in a large paper Whole Foods bag. Twelve dollars for a salad-bar salad? It’s those darn beets. They’re surprisingly heavy.
“Don’t you have a smaller bag?”
“No, sorry,” she responds, not looking sorry at all. I open my soft leather coin purse and remember giving my change to the homeless man sitting outside the Marriott Marquis. I felt so guilty seeing the untouched rubber chicken lunches that I couldn’t just pass the man by, as if doling out $1.36 in nickels and pennies would somehow make up for the thousands of dollars in wasted food.
“All I’ve got is a twenty,” I say. I scan t
he counter for a “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” jar and show the clerk my empty coin purse.
“Okay,” she says. She rings up the twenty and counts out seven dollars and ninety-eight cents in change. She apparently missed my internationally recognized gesture for “cut me a break on the two cents.”
The brown paper bag rattles against the wind like a child’s kite as I slowly make my way home. I gather the woolen scarf around my neck and lean into the icy draft. My neighborhood in Hoboken had been a quiet backwater when my parents helped me buy my one-bedroom condo back in the early 1990s, but like everything else in the greater New York metropolitan area, it’s gotten popular and gentrified over the years. Along Washington Street, the old-school Italian red-sauce restaurants with their sticky checkered plastic tablecloths have given way to farm-to-table gastropubs with artisanal toast, and faux turn-of-the-century barbershops that cater to young men with boxy beards and waxed mustaches.
It feels good to enter my warm apartment. I turn the radio on in my kitchen. It’s one of those walnut-sided Sony radios from the 1970s. I took it from my parents’ home after they died. The radio dial is set to WQXR, the classical station, and Ravel’s Bolero is playing. They always play Bolero on Valentine’s Day. Everyone who’s ever watched The Partridge Family knows that Bolero is the music of passion. I remember it from that episode where Keith tries to get lucky with a cheerleader—although it seems every episode involved Keith trying to get lucky with a cheerleader.
I neatly transfer the salad to a large white dinner plate. It’s sad enough eating a salad-bar salad for Valentine’s Day, but eating it straight out of the plastic container seems pathetic. I pour a glass of white wine from the shiny cardboard box in the fridge and take a sip. I’m not proud of the box wine, but Real Simple gave it good reviews, and I was getting self-conscious about all of the empty bottles in my trash—as if the local hoboes rummaging around for recyclables would go around bad-mouthing me.