Jesse took a sip of his coffee. He waited. Emily dropped her cigarette into the half inch of coffee in the bottom of her cup.
“Christ, didn’t they fuck her up,” Emily said.
“Parents?”
“Of course, parents. Probably fucked me up, too. Except I got out in time, maybe.”
How and why they had fucked up their daughters was interesting, but it didn’t lead Jesse anywhere he wanted to go at the moment.
“Do you have a picture of your sister?” Jesse said.
“Not her alone,” Emily said. “But I got a picture in the dorm of her and me and Carla.”
“I’d like to borrow it,” Jesse said. “I promise I’ll get it back to you.”
Emily nodded.
“When they kicked Billie out,” Jesse said, “do you know where she went?”
“Someplace in Boston.”
“You know where?”
“No. Some nun runs it.”
“A shelter?”
“I guess.”
“She get along okay with Hooker?” Jesse said.
“Hooker was nice to her,” Emily said.
“Anybody that might have harmed her?”
“Half the guys in the high school were bopping her. Probably some older guys, too.”
“Any names?”
“No. I don’t know. She thought it made her popular. I didn’t want to hear about it.”
“Anything else you can tell me that might help?”
Emily lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply and let it out slowly though her nose. There was something practiced about it, Jesse thought, as if it were a trick recently learned.
“I got a letter from her back in my room,” she said. “I think she said the nun’s name in it.”
“Can we get that? When I pick up the picture?”
“Yeah, sure.”
They were silent. Jesse watched her smoke. He could see her eyes well up, but she didn’t cry.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Can we get the picture and the letter?”
“Yeah, sure.”
They left the coffee shop and walked to the campus. Jesse thought how different it would feel to go there and graduate. Old stone, old trees, wide paths, white houses with dark shutters, green grass in spring, new snow glistening in winter. Different from being a desert high school grad with a sore arm.
In Emily’s room there were clothes on the floor in a pile. The bed was unmade. On her desk, books and papers were jumbled with no pattern. Amidst the jumble was a framed picture of the Bishop girls. In color, all smiling at the camera.
“How old is the picture?” Jesse said.
“Last summer.”
Jesse stared at it while Emily looked in her desk drawer and in a moment came out with a letter. It was postmarked July 3. Emily handed it to him and Jesse took it. She picked up the picture and handed it to Jesse.
“The happy family,” Emily said.
Jesse took the picture.
“I hope Carla gets out before they get her, too.”
Jesse didn’t comment. There wasn’t any comment to make.
“They aren’t going to get me,” Emily said. “I’m outta there. I’m on my own and I’m never going back.”
“Your father still pay your tuition?”
“Of course he does. You think he wants to have his daughter drop out of a seven fucking sisters school?”
“Good to be able to count on something,” Jesse said.
“Fuck him,” Emily said. “He owes it to me. I’ll take him for everything he’s got if I can.”
Quite suddenly she began to cry. Jesse put an arm on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and stepped away from
