I opened my eyes.
The air around me was hot, but my body was icy cold. I was sitting on a concrete floor, back against a tile wall.
I ached everywhere. My head throbbed. And my hand…I tried moving my fingers, until a bolt of pain persuaded me to stop.
An overhead light flickered. I rubbed my eyes, blinked, opened them wide. The place was packed with people. Nearby, a tall woman in nurse’s scrubs was pacing and chewing her nails. A young girl was huddled in a ball, weeping drunkenly. Another young girl drunkenly comforted her. To my right, an elderly woman slumped against the wall, snoring gently.
Through the press of bodies I saw bars, a passageway beyond. A man strolled by in a uniform.
Of course. I was dreaming.
Soon a wrecking ball would come bashing through those bars, or a spaceship would land, or the cell would tip into a volcano, and I would gasp awake. Blink. Calm my pounding heart.
Then I remembered.
Templeton. Marty. Aaron. Horatio. Derek Frasier—who wasn’t Derek Frasier at all.
This was no nightmare.
There was a woman to my left, a round-faced little elf with bright yellow hair. She was sitting cross-legged, chewing her bottom lip and staring into space.
“How long have I been here?” I asked.
“Do I look like I keep the motherfucking visitor’s log?” she retorted.
“Is there a visitor’s log?”
With an outraged huff, she turned away.
Through the pain and mental fuzziness, I felt my anger begin to stir. So I was in jail. I’d been in jails before, interviewing inmates for my ACLU case. Somehow, I’d gone from litigating the defects in the criminal justice system, to entering that system. The men—all those pompous, self-righteous, hypocritical men in my life—were going to love this. I was exactly where they wanted me. In a cage full of troublesome women.
Metaphor, bitches.
It was so unfair. I wouldn’t have hit that oaf if I hadn’t been drunk. I wouldn’t have been drunk if I hadn’t been under attack from all sides. And I wouldn’t have been attacked from all sides if the men hadn’t felt so threatened.
I was the woman punished for speaking up. For challenging the status quo. Talk about an insidious narrative. Talk about—
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said out loud.
The sleeping woman whimpered and slumped against me. The tiny blonde glared at me.
“Not you,” I said.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. I wasn’t the victim here. I had abused my power. I had taken my newfound liberation as license to do as I pleased, regardless of the consequences. I had downed those drinks and thrown that punch.
My predicament wasn’t about Women and Men. It wasn’t about sexism. And it definitely wasn’t about other people.
It was about me.
I buried my face in my hands. I was going to lose my job. I loved the firm. It was the only place I’d ever worked, the only place I’d ever wanted to work. Being a partner there was my identity. My world. And it was all going away. If Templeton’s charges hadn’t been enough to oust me, my arrest for assault would surely do the trick.
I gazed around, despondent. The pacing nurse was talking with another woman. Their voices rose and fell in agitation. The drunk girls had quieted down. From farther back in the cell came a bark of laughter, the hum of conversation. The overhead light buzzed. The place stank.
I heard a noise in the distance, coming from somewhere outside the cell. There was shouting and clanging in the corridor. The women arrayed along the bars craned their necks to see.
Soon, a pair of guards dragged a woman into view. She was weeping and thrashing around. One guard unlocked the door, and the other pushed her in. She stumbled a few steps and fell to her knees, close to my feet.
She raised her face, and we looked at each other. She was bruised. Her clothes were torn. Her hair was a mess. My cellmates immediately started protesting.
“Quiet down!” the guards shouted.
I struggled to my feet. “What did you do to her?”
One of the guards just rolled his eyes.
“She’s hurt,” I said. “She needs help.”
“Oh, she’ll get help.” They laughed.
“Hey!” I shouted. Their laughter died. Heads swiveled in my direction.
“Do your jobs,” I told the guards. “Or you might not have them for much longer.”
That got them laughing again, harder than ever. They left the cell. The nurse knelt beside the new woman. A few others tried to make her more comfortable. But she was scared, and didn’t speak English. Eventually she huddled in a corner, and everyone left her alone.
I was fully awake now. Restless. I wanted to do something.
“This place sucks,” I said.
My blonde neighbor snorted. “You don’t say.”
I turned toward her, too quickly. My brain thudded painfully against the inside of my skull. Didn’t matter.
“What are you in here for?”
“Why the fuck should I tell you that?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
She looked me up and down. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“What happened to your hand?”
“I punched a man.”
She looked impressed. “You might be my kinda lawyer. I’m Lola.”
We shook, awkwardly, with our left hands. “Why were you arrested, Lola?”
“I jacked a cockatiel,” she said.
“I have no idea what that means.”
With a kind of aggrieved patience, she elaborated. “I committed grand larceny in the fourth degree upon the person of my landlord’s nasty-ass bird, due to its inability to shut the fuck up, like, ever.”
“Alleged,” I said automatically. “Alleged grand larceny.”
“Yeah, well, I did the whole alleged building a goddamn alleged favor. We were like zombies from the sleeplessness.” She gave a righteous little jerk of her head. “Bunny had to go.”
“Grand larceny,” I said. “You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“Was the bird worth more than a thousand dollars?”
“That raggedy-ass thing? Please.”
“Then you didn’t commit grand larceny.”
Lola’s smile transformed her face. “No shit?”
I smiled back. “No shit.”
Hours later, I was led out of the cell and up several flights of stairs to a small interview room. It was painted a sickly green, furnished with a metal desk and two chairs. The guard waited outside—I could see his stubbly neck rolls though the grilled window.
The door opened, and a man hurried in. He was youngish, pale and paunchy, wearing a stained tie and a put-upon expression. He tossed a file folder onto the desk and pulled out a chair.
“Ms. Moore? Matt Bergman. I’m the assistant district attorney handling your case.”
“Why am I here? None of the other women have been brought out of the cell.”
“They’ll come up in about an hour, when arraignments start. I’m trying to get you out of here before that.” He opened the file. “I’ve spoken with your attorneys—”
“Who?”
He looked up. “Amanda Hewes and Sarah Kellerman.”
“Excellent. I’d like to see them.”
“They’re waiting upstairs. I thought I’d go ahead and present our offer to you now, so that—”
“I need to get back to the cell.” I stood up. “Can you have my lawyers meet me down there?”
Bergman passed a hand over his face. “Ms. Moore, I’m sure you’re overwrought, but if you could try to focus. My boss clerked at your firm during law school, years ago. He’s got fond memories of the place. We’re offering you a deal.”
“I’m not taking any deal.”
He squinted at me, perplexed. “You’re facing a serious charge. Assault in the second degree is a—”
“I’m not guilty.”
“I have witnesses. And a complainant with significant injuries. I can convert the criminal complaint into a desk appearance ticket, and you’ll walk out of here in twenty minutes. All you have to do is agree that,” he picked up a sheet of paper and began to read, “on the evening of April twelfth, you did willfully and with—”
“I’m not agreeing to anything.”
He dropped the sheet of paper, exasperated. “We’re trying to do you a favor. Why are you being so difficult?”
I didn’t like Bergman’s superiority, his air of harassed importance. I didn’t like how he was wasting my time. And I definitely didn’t like his tone.
“If you think I’m being difficult now,” I said, “wait an hour.”
“Huh?”
The guard opened the door. “The women are causing a racket downstairs. Say they want to see their lawyer.”
Bergman sighed. “You know the drill. They’ll be assigned someone from Legal Aid as soon as they come upstairs.”
“They say they’ve retained a lawyer.” The guard pointed at me. “Her.”