At the seven-thirty count, Marydale held a kite form out to the guard.
“Please,” she said quietly. “I need to call my lawyer.”
“Don’t they all,” the man said, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket, but he returned about an hour later. “You’re in luck. I got your lawyer on the phone.”
Marydale felt the cold light of the block grow a little bit warmer. Kristen had found her. She’d called.
“Cell A13,” the guard yelled to the control station at the end of the block.
The latch clicked open. It was so easy—just a press of a button—yet she was not even allowed to push the bars open after the electronic lock had been released. The guard had to open the bars and lead her to one of the telephones mounted on the wall by the guard station. Marydale touched the receiver.
“Well, pick up,” the guard said.
Her hands were shaking. “Hello?”
“Marydale.” Kristen sounded oddly formal. “This is Kristen Brock from the Falcon Law Group. The prison monitors all calls except confidential communication between attorney and client. Do I have your permission to represent you in your upcoming hearings?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?” Kristen asked, her voice gentler.
“My taillight was out. Ronald Holten works in parole. I think he fired my PO.”
“That’s not okay. I’m going to look into that,” Kristen said. “They can’t have a relative of the victim supervising a parolee. I’m going to file a complaint today. I just started the DataBlast case,” she added. “It’ll take a week, maybe two, but I’ll be there as soon as I finish. I wish I could be there now.”
“You’re going to make partner.” Marydale could feel someone watching her with more than the guard’s paid-by-the-hour attention.
“In the meantime,” Kristen said, “I’ll need you to write down everything you remember about your case.”
“You mean the taillight?”
“No. Start with Aaron, when he first threatened you. You shouldn’t have been convicted. I’ll think of something. And I’ll be there soon. I promise.”
Marydale heard someone on the other end of the phone line call to Kristen.
Kristen said, “In a minute.”
“What is it?” Marydale asked. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the courthouse.”
“You almost done, Rae?” the guard called out.
“Kristen?” Marydale said. It was a plea. It was a prayer. “I love you.”
“I will call you tomorrow,” Kristen said. “I love you, too.”
Slowly, Marydale returned the receiver to its metal hook. It felt like closing a door to air and light.
A few prisoners were lingering by the guard station. Marydale felt someone’s eyes on her, as demanding and inescapable as a hand on her shoulder. She looked up.
It was like seeing Kristen at the bar in Deerfield only in reverse; instead of hope suddenly surging through her body, it was fear and a cold, clammy feeling of being fondled from afar. Gulu stood by the wall, pushing a mop slowly back and forth across the shining floor. Hello, baby, she mouthed. And Marydale wanted to run back to her cell and close her eyes and close out the walls around her.
Gulu called to the guard on duty. “Sir, I’ve got to move a pallet of floor wax. My back’s killing me. Would you send Scofield or Oberlan out to help?”
The guard’s face said, You really think I’d fall for that? But he already had.
“Inmate.” He pointed to Marydale. “What’s your name again?”
“Rae,” she said reluctantly.
“Go help Clarocci with her wax.”
I got you, Gulu’s eyes said.
Marydale followed a pace behind Gulu as Gulu led her down the wide central corridor to a supply pantry. Behind a wire mesh grate, an older woman with a tight helmet of box-dyed curls watched four television screens.
“Name?” the guard asked from behind her mesh window. “What do you need?”
Gulu flashed her custodial pass. The woman pressed a button and the door beside them opened. The guard glanced at Marydale.
“Station said I could bring her to help me lift up a crate,” Gulu said.
The woman pushed a sign-in clipboard through a slot beneath her window. Marydale wrote her name and showed the woman her ID badge.
“Five minutes,” the guard said, and returned to the gray-and-white screens at her station.
Inside the large supply room, Gulu ducked behind a shelf stacked floor-to-ceiling with bottles of cleaning fluid shrink-wrapped on pallets. She leaned up against one of the shelves.
“Were you talking to your girlfriend?” Gulu asked.
“You said you needed floor wax,” Marydale said.
“Chester and Tia saw you at lunch, said you didn’t even come over to say hi. You too good for us now?”
“I’m not looking for any trouble.” Marydale folded her arms.
Gulu came closer. “You were always trouble, Scholar.”
“What do you want?”
“Only thing I’ve ever wanted.” Gulu’s face was inches away from hers.
“You say that to all the girls.” Marydale knew it was only half true.
“We could pick up where we left off.”
“Where was that?”
“Did you miss me, Scholar?”
The answer was once and not anymore, but that was too complicated to explain in the minutes afforded by a guard’s lethargy.
“No,” Marydale said.
Gulu grabbed the back of Marydale’s hair and yanked her into a grinding kiss. Their teeth collided. Marydale smelled the familiar stink of prison breath and cheap toothpaste. She knew better than to fall back or protest. She did not need to look for the camera to know that Gulu had positioned them in a tiny, perfect blind spot.
“I thought you’d at least have come back around to say hello, put a little something in my commissary,” Gulu said when she pulled away.
“I have a girlfriend,” Marydale hissed.
“What’s going on in there?” the guard yelled.
“We’re almost done,” Gulu called out.
“Three minutes,” the guard said.
“She straight?” Gulu asked.
“You’re straight!”
“Not in here, and I’m not getting out anytime soon, so…” Gulu planted her hand on the shelf behind Marydale’s head. “Anyways, you always liked the straight girls. So tragic.” She laughed. “And that’s not what I meant. Is she straight.”
“She’s a lawyer,” Marydale said. It felt like holding up a talisman to ward off a loaded gun. She saw Kristen in her gray suit and her tortoiseshell glasses. Kristen cared, but she was so far away, farther than the miles between Tristess and Portland. There was a distance between the prison parking lot and the cells that could not be measured on a map.
“Well, shit, a lawyer!” Gulu said. “She gonna come and save you? I heard you got out of Tristess. This girl gonna come down from Portland and visit you on Thursdays? For how long? You gonna sit around and cry for her? You know Ronnie Holten’s in charge now. He’s got a hard-on for everyone, but he loves you.” Her smile tightened. “She’s not coming, Scholar. And if she does, she won’t stay.”
Gulu took a strand of Marydale’s hair and twined it around her fingers, then gave a sharp pull. “I’ve been here long enough. I’ve seen girls like you come and go, and I know. I can smell her on you. City girl. Big lawyer. Maybe that’s why you fucked her, told yourself you loved her. But once you’re in here, you can’t go back. But we could still be something, Scholar. You were always special.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’re not getting out, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
“It’s a parole violation,” Marydale shot back. “They can’t hold me forever.”
“You think so?” A split second later, Marydale felt Gulu’s arms clasp around her. She thought Gulu was going to kiss her again. Then she felt Gulu’s fist connect with the bottom of her rib cage. Gulu pushed her backward, hitting again and again…but not hard. The blows weren’t the attack; it was Gulu’s screams that were dangerous.
“Help me,” Gulu yelled. “Guard! She’s got a piece. She’s going to cut me!”
With the grace of a stage actor, Gulu stumbled backward, clutching Marydale to her as she fell slowly. They barely made a sound when they hit the floor, but Gulu screamed, “It hurts. Get off me. She’s going to kill me!”
Marydale felt a cold scrape of metal as Gulu slipped something into the waistband of her pants. She tried to rise, but Gulu squeezed her, even as she thrashed around beneath Marydale. An alarm sounded. The lights in the pantry brightened. Someone hit an emergency lockdown switch. Guards’ footsteps pounded the floor.
Gulu whispered in Marydale’s ear, “Ronnie Holten says to say hi, Scholar. We missed you.”