Marydale Rae had never been in this part of the Holten Penitentiary, with its high windows and bars painted the same dull yellow as the walls. A uniformed guard sat behind a desk, reading. Marydale waited for a long time, watching the top of the guard’s head as he studied his paperwork or ignored her. She couldn’t tell which. There had been a time when she had known how to lean on a desk or a lamppost or a rangeland gate. She would have said, Whatcha doing, cowboy? and the man would have coughed and stuttered. Now Marydale said nothing. Finally the guard looked up.
“Damn parole board.” His lips pulled into a tight grimace. “After what you did. Six years with good behavior.” He glared at the paper before him. “Ridiculous! Some people don’t know right from wrong.”
“I was told to report,” Marydale said, keeping her gaze on the ID badge pinned to the guard’s shirt.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he barked. “A written invitation?” He took a clear plastic bag from beneath the desk and pushed it across the table. “Bathroom’s back there. Make it quick.”
In the bathroom, Marydale opened the bag. She pulled out her jean jacket, the one with the pattern of hearts embellished in rhinestones, the one that had belonged to her mother. There was her Tristess High seniors T-shirt, too, and a skirt of some light material with tiny pink flowers printed on it. There was a name for that fabric. Six years ago she had known it and every word in her SAT flash card deck. She pressed the T-shirt to her face, but everything in the bag smelled of mildew. She changed quickly.
When she came out again, the guard tapped his desktop with an accusing look, as though Marydale might try to steal her orange jumpsuit and he had cleverly caught her in the act. Marydale dropped the folded prison-issued uniform on the desk, and the guard glared. Marydale lifted her eyes to his chin. He slid a piece of paper across the desk.
“You have forty-eight hours to report to your parole officer. He’ll go over the conditions of your supervision, but it’s pretty simple. No drugs. No guns. No fighting. No dating. No burner phones. Don’t leave the county. Don’t change your address. Don’t fraternize with felons or other deviants—” He picked at his tooth, staring directly at her. “Sign here.”
She signed.
The guard pressed a button beneath his desk, and behind Marydale, a set of metal gates rattled to life and drew back slowly. She turned without speaking and moved toward the exit. Her sandals felt like a foreign country.
At end of a long outdoor walkway, she arrived at a tiny kiosk. Inside, she heard a radio crackle. Another guard eyed her, or at least he directed his mirrored sunglasses at her. Marydale presented her release papers.
“I know you,” the guard said.
She felt his eyes on her. The guards were always looking, but her orange jumpsuit had hidden her body. Now she wished she had gone into Holten Penitentiary wearing jeans, but six years ago she wasn’t thinking about release. Six years ago she had just turned seventeen.
“If I had my way…pretty girl like you. A waste,” the guard said.
The last gate rolled open, its wheels grinding on loose gravel. Beyond the gate, a two-lane highway stretched into the vast rangeland of eastern Oregon. Marydale could almost hear her friends inside yelling, Just go, girl, before they change their minds!
She turned to the guard. “I wasn’t expecting to get out until Monday.” She tried to pitch her voice low and soft. It didn’t help to demand. “May I call my friend Aldean to come pick me up?”
“I don’t have a phone,” the guard said, although Marydale could see one on the desk in front of him.
“But how do I get to Tristess?” she asked.
The penitentiary was at least twenty miles from town. Around her the land was motionless. Only the heat rippled. The guard’s sunglasses traveled the length of the empty horizon.
“Guess you’ll be waiting a long time if you hitchhike.”