From Rosa: I’m in love with this prof! Why aren’t h.s. teachers like this?
I’m not sure if she means she loves how brilliant the guy is or that she thinks he’s hot. With Rosa, it could be either. Or both.
Then I get to Oscar’s text: Have u had enuf of college alone? Please say you’ll go to afternoon class w/me. B/c that’s how college will be for u. Not lonely. Everyone will want to be around u.
From Oscar, this is practically a declaration of love. It’s as bold as someone else sending roses or proposing a moonlight stroll or leaning in for a first kiss. I can imagine him spending the whole Computer Science Fundamentals class struggling to write this text. Maybe because I’ve just been working so hard to find hidden messages in my father’s letter, I believe I can see what Oscar really wants to say: I miss you. I don’t want to be apart from you. I think you’re wonderful.
Under the circumstances, this should feel like a burden. It should feel like something I have to push away, nip in the bud. But I can’t do that to Oscar. Or—I’ll be honest—to myself. Not when reading his text feels like safety, like coming in from a storm, like that moment in the church parking lot when Mom and I stood bathed in light, facing truth together. And it’s not just Oscar. The texts from all my friends steady me. They tether me, at a time when I really need it.
I couldn’t tell Mom the mess I’m in, because she’s in it with me, and telling would have only sent us both further into paralyzing despair. But my friends are different. I need them. They help.
I’m not even going to try to make up a good lie about why I’m staying in Atlanta.
I’m finally going to tell them the truth.
Now—
the moment of truth (Well, several moments, actually)
“—and that’s why I’m not going to Vanderbilt with the rest of you,” I finish up.
I’m sitting with my four friends in a secluded part of Emory’s campus, sheltered by trees. I’ve just told them my entire story, beginning with Daddy’s arrest and running through my move to Deskins, the Court scholarship fiasco, and the story-behind-the-story I heard from Mom only last week. Then I told them how my morning went when they thought I was at the Religion and Contemporary Experience class, and why I decided to stay in Atlanta another day to visit Daddy.
I’m not sure exactly where I was in the story when Oscar moved over beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. I’m not sure what I was saying when Jala’s eyes began to glisten with tears, and she also moved close, to pat my arm every time my voice broke and I had to struggle to keep talking.
But now I’m done, and everyone’s silent.
“Well?” I say tentatively. “Did any of that make sense?”
Stuart clears his throat. He’s sitting the farthest away from me. I’m not sure he’s met my eyes even once since I started talking.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he asks. “When you bring down Excellerand, you’re so going to have the best college essay, ever. Every school in the country is going to want you!”
Rosa shoves him so hard he falls over.
“Would you just shut up?” she hisses. “That’s not what this is about! This is real.”
Stuart puts out an arm and props himself back up. But he doesn’t retaliate against Rosa.
“I was trying for comic relief,” he says. Then, uncharacteristically, he adds, “Sorry. I’m not good at this kind of thing.”
I snort.
“Who is?” I ask. “It’s not exactly covered in SAT prep classes. Or life prep classes. But, Stuart, I don’t have any hope of bringing down Excellerand. My father’s been working on that for three years, and it’s not exactly going well. I’m just trying to get out of this alive.”
“No, you’re not,” Rosa says.
And then it’s Stuart shoving her and hissing, “And that’s being supportive? At least I was trying to make her laugh!”
Rosa puts out her hand to hold Stuart at bay.
“I am being supportive,” she says. “Becca, I think you’re doing the right thing. But you’re not just trying to stay alive. If that was your only goal, you’d go hide somewhere else with your mom, totally off the grid. But that would be like letting the bad guys win. Letting the bullies win, because you’re scared to go visit your own father.”
I’m surprised Rosa has sorted through my choices so quickly and figured out my reasoning. This is one of those times it’s really good to be hanging out with the smart kids.
“And we’re talking about your daddy,” Jala chimes in. “I can tell you still love him and miss him, no matter what. And that’s okay. That’s how it should be. You have to go visit him.”
I knew what I was doing when I pegged Jala as one of the nicest kids in Deskins, all those years ago at freshman orientation. She still sees Daddy as human when everybody else in the world wrote him off as a monster. She can actually understand why I still love him.
I blink back tears.
“Thanks, guys,” I say. “I wasn’t really asking for permission or approval, or anything like that. It’s just . . . I wanted you to know. So if I do have to disappear . . .”
Oscar tightens his arm around my shoulder.
“You won’t have to do that!” he says fiercely. I’m surprised to see tears in his eyes too. “We’re going to help you solve this. Even if I have to hack into Excellerand’s files myself!”
I pull away from him slightly.
“I don’t want to make anybody else into a criminal,” I say. “Really, you guys can just go on to Nashville like you planned. I already checked the Greyhound site, and I have enough money with me to take a bus home, so—”
“You think we’d leave you here to go visit a prison all by yourself?” Oscar asks incredulously. “And then ride home alone?”
Oscar glances around the whole circle, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly at Stuart.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Oscar says. “But I’m staying here with Becca.”
“Me too,” Jala says quickly. She gives me a shy smile, which would have been a smirk on anyone else’s face. “My parents already don’t know where I am. What does it matter if I’m in Nashville without their permission, or Atlanta without their permission?”
I gulp. It’d be great not to have to go through the next twenty-four hours alone. I hadn’t even thought about anybody else skipping Vanderbilt. But I have to answer Jala’s question.
“It could be dangerous staying with me,” I say. “I don’t want to risk anybody else’s life.”
“Oh, who cares?” Rosa says. “It was risky coming down here, especially with Stuart driving. It’ll be risky going off to college next year. Some risks are worth taking, and this is one of them! I’m in too!”
We all turn to look at Stuart.
“Does everyone have to stay with Becca?” he asks weakly. “Can’t it just be one person, or maybe two? It’s not that I don’t care, but . . . do you know how mad my parents are going to be if we don’t follow the original plan?”
“You are such a coward!” Rosa says disgustedly. “And a hypocrite! You didn’t even want to visit Vanderbilt in the first place! You told me you hated country music and Vanderbilt was full of rich Southern kids with twangs and their own polo ponies!”
“But—my parents,” Stuart says, and at least he has the grace to sound apologetic. “If we don’t go on to Vanderbilt, I’d have to get permission. I’d have to tell them . . .”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Of all people, it’s Jala who takes up the argument now. “You’re eighteen. You’re going to be in college in less than a year, making all sorts of decisions without them. Think of this as a test run. Figure out what’s right, not what you think Mommy and Daddy want you to do.”
Stuart is staring way too intently at the dead leaves in the grass before him.
“I think I will tell them . . . after,” he says. He looks up, calm now that he’s apparently made a decision. He’s back in confident mode, back to acting like he’s the smart
est kid in the class, so naturally his answer is right. “Of course I can’t tell them now, because Excellerand might be able to intercept cell-phone calls. But afterward—they’ll be proud of me.”
“So we’re all staying with Becca?” Rosa asks. “We’ll all just drive home Saturday afternoon, all the way from Atlanta, not Nashville?”
Stuart nods. Rosa throws her arms around him and cries, “Well, that’s good, because I didn’t have the money for the bus ride home! Not if I want to eat tomorrow!”
The others start making all sorts of plans. Rosa puts herself in charge of locating a cheap but safe hotel for the night. Stuart sends an e-mail to Vanderbilt saying that “unavoidable circumstances” will prevent us from making it to their overnight. Oscar speculates about where to look for a list of Excellerand’s government contracts, so he can see if they have any connection to the federal prison system’s computers. I listen to their chatter, and it feels a little suffocating. Is this just another adventure for them? Are my pain and agony just sources of excitement—like Rosa and me watching the mean-girls clique at school?
Rosa and the two boys are already starting to head back toward the car, but Jala hangs back with me. She gives me a hug.
“You’re following your own advice,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“Freshman year?” she says. “When Mr. Vickers was mean and bigoted? You said I had to tell. And I had to tell the right people. That’s what you just did.”
I hug her back.
“You guys were the right people,” I say.
A gust of wind blows across campus just then, momentarily lifting the leaves from the grass, revealing everything that lies beneath. Then a new torrent of leaves comes down, covering everything that much more thoroughly.
I don’t have the slightest idea what tomorrow will bring. But with my friends buoying me up, I think I’m ready for it.
Now—
Saturday morning at prison
I glance back over my shoulder. Razor wire, guard towers, a taxicab driving away . . . my friends wave at me from the back window of the taxi. Last night in the hotel room Oscar scoured the penitentiary’s online visitors guide, hoping to find some loophole that would allow all four of them to come in with me. He failed—I’m standing here alone, after all.
But they’ll be waiting for me afterward . . . just not in the prison parking lot.
Stuart freaked out when Rosa went online and discovered that Excellerand does have a contract with the federal prison system for “perimeter security technology”; he didn’t want his mom’s SUV or license plate showing up on any prison cameras. At least he was the one who thought of calling a cab, so my friends could deliver me directly to the visitors’ entrance of the penitentiary.
And he paid for the cab himself.
See, even Stuart cares, I tell myself. So it’s like I have my friends with me, even though I’m walking through this door alone. . . .
Check-in is a blur of questions. The heavyset African-American woman at the counter squints for a long time at my driver’s license and school ID. She looks at me hard. Then she frowns.
“Let’s see, your birthday’s in July, so you’re . . . don’t tell me, let me do the math here, keep my brain nimble . . . you’re eighteen, right?” she asks. “That’s a relief, because if you were younger, we’d have to have permission forms signed by your mother or guardian.”
I’m so dazed I almost correct her, “No, I’m seventeen.” Then I catch on and realize she’s helping me.
She winks at me.
“Let me guess, your mama never wanted you to come visit your daddy, the three years he’s been here, but now that you’re old enough, you’re going to visit him on your own,” she says. She looks me right in the eye. “Nothing sadder than a prisoner whose family never visits.”
I know she’s trying to praise me for coming now, but her words still hurt.
Don’t you know what Daddy did? I want to ask. Don’t you know he’s still torturing us?
But she works in a prison. She’s probably heard it all.
And did she just say, “three years”? I wonder. Did she just confirm that Daddy’s been here in Atlanta the whole time?
The woman pats my hand even as she tells me I have to leave my cell phone and other valuables behind in a locker. I appreciate the kindness. I am fragile here. I think I would feel fragile visiting Daddy in prison no matter what—even if I weren’t worried about Excellerand killing Mom or me, even if I wasn’t so puzzled by Daddy’s last letter.
My new best friend—Gloria, I see by her name tag—guides me through the rest of the procedure. I have to go through a metal detector; I have to have my hand stamped with invisible ink; I have to be buzzed through the doors, each conspicuously guarded by both humans and cameras.
Cameras probably monitored by Excellerand, I think, but it’s too late to worry about that. Do I really think Excellerand could swoop in and kidnap me from the middle of a federal prison? If I’m afraid of that, I might as well be afraid of air.
And after? After I leave the prison, if Excellerand knows I’m in Atlanta, if they have all my information now . . .
I can’t let myself worry about that either.
A silent, stone-faced guard walks me down a long corridor that seems to be partly underground. I feel buried. Trapped. From down here I can’t see the guard towers or the high prison walls that surround this building, but I’m still acutely aware that they’re out there. My heart pounds. I’ve lost count—how many fences and walls and locked doors and guards and high-powered guns stand between me and freedom?
This is prison.
My parents never let me visit Daddy when he was locked up before and during the trial. Daddy kept saying, “I don’t want Becca to see me like this, and it’s all a mistake, so I’ll be out soon.” And then we left Atlanta in such a rush; I didn’t visit him in prison then either. But I’ve seen enough movies and TV; I thought I could imagine it.
TV and movies can’t show what it’s really like, knowing you can’t just turn around and run, knowing you’re at the guards’ mercy . . .
And I’ve been here only a few minutes. How must Daddy have felt, walking in here, knowing he was supposed to stay ten years?
We climb a flight of stairs, and then there’s another set of barred doors for us to be buzzed through, along with a window where I have to show the stamp on my hand again. I haven’t been out of the guard’s sight, but it’s like no one trusts me to be the same person I was when I got the stamp only a few minutes ago, before the doors and the corridor and the stairs.
Am I the same person? I wonder. They’re making me doubt it myself.
The last door clicks shut behind me as I step into the official visiting room.
If seeing Daddy is too much for me, I really won’t be able to get away, I think.
Stone-faced guard glides away. Maybe he said something to me before he left; maybe I just didn’t hear. Another guard behind a desk says impatiently, “Sit. Your inmate will be here soon,” and that’s the first time I see that there are chairs. I slide into one.
The guard behind the desk watches me suspiciously, as if he’s certain that if I’m related to someone in prison, I must be scum, too. Crazily, I want to tell him, “I have straight A’s. I’m going to Vanderbilt.” Is this how Daddy felt, too, with his criminal family? Is that why he started lying and telling people he had gone to Vanderbilt?
I will probably never go to Vanderbilt. My chances of going to college at all aren’t looking good right now. And those are the least of my worries.
I keep my head down and clutch the metal sides of my chair. I don’t dare to even look around, to see how other visitors cope with the guard’s suspicious glare.
Then there’s the buzzing sound of a door being unlocked and opened on the other side of the room. I look up. A man in a khaki uniform steps into the doorway, and it kind of looks like Daddy. But the Daddy I remember was always confident and grinning, and thi
s man is shattered and seems to be trying to hold back sobs. I tilt my head, staring. The man stumbles into the room and stops; his gaze skips over me, falters, and comes back. But then he just stands there, trembling. No—shaking. Shaking with sobs.
This is Daddy. Daddy now.
Mom was not his picture of Dorian Gray, I think.
Daddy looks even more destroyed, even more distraught and devastated. His beard is stubble and his hair is buzzed off in an unflattering burr, and he appears decades older than the last time I saw him.
I stand up, and it’s like I’m giving him permission: He careens toward me. He throws his arms around me and sobs against my shoulders. I’m sobbing now too.
“You came!” he wails. “I thought you and your mother never would. I thought I’d never see you again. And, oh, you’re so grown up now, so beautiful. . . .”
“I missed you,” I whisper.
We both collapse into chairs, and I can see how hard Daddy is trying to get control of himself. He starts to reach for my hand, then stops.
“They have rules,” he says, glancing nervously toward the guard behind the desk. “You can’t hug too long, you can’t hold on . . . Not that I’ve had any visitors I wanted to hug the past three years. Why . . . why didn’t you or Susan come before?”
I stare at him. I pull my hand back, so it’s not even close to Daddy’s.
“You know,” I say. And I can’t help it: My voice comes out harsh and judgmental. “Because of Excellerand? Because you’re still being selfish, trying to get out early and not pay for your crimes, by turning in Excellerand instead? And so Mom and me, we have to hide, we have to live in fear, because we don’t have prison walls protecting us . . .”
Daddy jerks his hand back too, and puts it over his mouth. But he can’t hold it there. His fingers slide down, pulling at the loose skin of his cheeks.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “That ended. Two and a half years ago. There wasn’t enough evidence. Excellerand never knew I had anything on them. Why would you think you and your mom are in danger?”
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