I was using locker 664 instead, I didn't think my mother would disown me. I punched in my key code-2358, for ACLU-took a bracing breath, and tried not to glance in the mirror as I walked by.
There wasn't very much that I liked about the outside of me. I had curves, but to me, they were in all the wrong places. My hair was an explosion of dark curls, which could have been sexy if I didn't have to work so hard to keep them frizz-free. I'd read that stylists on the Oprah show would straighten the hair of guests with hair like mine, because curls added ten pounds to the camera-which meant that even my hair made objects like me look bigger than they appeared. My eyes were okay- they were mud-colored on an average day and green if I felt like embellishing-but most of all, they showed the part of me I was proud of: my intelligence. I might never be a cover girl, but I was a girl who could cover it all.
The problem was, you never heard anyone say, 'Wow, check out the brain on that babe.'
My father had always made me feel special, but I couldn't even look at my mother without wondering why I hadn't inherited her tiny waist and sleek hair. As a kid I had only wanted to be just like her; as an adult,
I'd stopped trying.
Sighing, I entered the whirlpool area: a white oasis surrounded by white wicker benches where primarily white women waited for their white-coated therapists to call their name.
DeeDee appeared in her immaculate jacket, smiling. 'You must be
Maggie,' she said. 'You look just like your mother described you.'
I wasn't about to take that bait. 'Nice to meet you.' I never quite figured out the protocol for this part of the experience-you said hello and then disrobed immediately so that a total stranger could lay their hands on you... and you paid for this privilege. Was it just me, or was there a great deal that spa treatments had in common with prostitution?
'You looking forward to your Song of Solomon Wrap?'
'I'd rather be getting a root canal.'
DeeDee grinned. 'Your mom told me you'd say something like that, too.'
If you haven't had a body wrap, it's a singular experience. You're lying on a cushy table covered by a giant piece of Saran Wrap and you're naked. Totally, completely naked. Sure, the aesthetician tosses a washcloth the size of a gauze square over your privates when she's scrubbing you down, and she's got a poker face that never belies whether she's calculating your body mass index under her palms-but still, you're painfully aware of your physique, if only because someone's experiencing it firsthand with you.
I forced myself to close my eyes and remember that being washed beneath a Vichy shower by someone else was supposed to make me feel like a queen and not a hospitalized invalid.
'So, DeeDee,' I said. 'How long have you been doing this?'
She unrolled a towel and held it like a screen as I rolled onto my back. 'I've been working at spas for six years, but I just got hired on here.'
'You must be good,' I said. 'My mother doesn't sweat amateurs.'
She shrugged. 'I like meeting new people.'
I like meeting new people, too, but when they're fully clothed.
'What do you do for work?' DeeDee asked.
'My mother didn't tell you?'
'No... she just said-' Suddenly she broke off, silent.
'She said what.'
'She, um, told me to treat you to an extra helping of seaweed scrub.'
'You mean she told you I'd need twice as much.'
'She didn't-'
'Did she use the word zaftig?' I asked. When DeeDee didn't answer- wisely-I blinked up at the hazy light in the ceiling, listened to Yanni's canned piano for a few beats, and then sighed. 'I'm an ACLU lawyer.'
'For real?' DeeDee's hands stilled on my feet. 'Do you ever take on cases, like, for free?'
'That's all I do.'
'Then you must know about the guy on death row... Shay Bourne?
I've been writing to him for ten years, ever since I was in eighth grade and I started as part of an assignment for my social studies class. His last appeal just got rejected by the Supreme Court.'
'I know,' I said. 'I've filed briefs on his behalf.'
DeeDee's eyes widened. 'So you're his lawyer?'
'Well... no.' I hadn't even been living in New Hampshire when
Bourne was convicted, but it was the job of the ACLU to file amicus briefs for death row prisoners. Amicus was Latin for friend of the court; when you had a position on a particular case but weren't directly a party involved in it, the court would let you legally spell out your feelings if it might be beneficial to the decision-making process. My amicus briefs illustrated how hideous the death penalty was; defined it as cruel and unusual punishment, as unconstitutional. I'm quite sure the judge looked at my hard work and promptly tossed it aside.
'Can't you do something else to help him?' DeeDee asked.
The truth was, if Bourne's last appeal had been rejected by the Supreme
Court, there wasn't much any lawyer could do to save him now.
'Tell you what,' I promised. 'I'll look into it.'
DeeDee smiled and covered me with heated blankets until I was trussed tight as a burrito. Then she sat down behind me and wove her fingers into my hair. As she massaged my scalp, my eyes drifted shut.
'They say it's painless,' DeeDee murmured. 'Lethal injection.'
They: the establishment, the lawmakers, the ones assuaging their guilt over their own actions with rhetoric. 'That's because no one ever comes back to tell them otherwise,' I said. I thought of Shay Bourne being given the news of his own impending death. I thought of lying on a table like this one, being put to sleep.
Suddenly I couldn't breathe. The blankets were too hot, the cream on my skin too thick. I wanted out of the layers and began to fight my way free.
'Whoa,' DeeDee said. 'Hang on, let me help you.' She pulled and peeled and handed me a towel. 'Your mother didn't tell me you were claustrophobic.'
I sat up, drawing great gasps of air into my lungs. Of course she didn't,
I thought. Because she's the one who's suffocating me.
Lucius
It was late afternoon, almost time for the shift change, and I-tier was relatively quiet. Me, I'd been sick all day, hazing in and out of sleep brought on by fever. Calloway, who usually played chess with me, was playing with
Shay instead. 'Bishop takes a6,' Calloway called out. He was a racist bigot, but Calloway was also the best chess player I'd ever met.
During the day, Batman the Robin resided in his breast pocket, a small lump no bigger than a pack of Starburst candies. Sometimes it crawled onto his shoulder and pecked at the scars on his scalp. At other times, he kept Batman in a paperback copy of The Stand that had been doctored as a hiding place-starting on chapter six, a square had been cut out of the pages of the thick book with a pilfered razor blade, creating a little hollow that Calloway lined with tissues to make a bed. The robin ate mashed potatoes;
Calloway traded precious masking tape and twine and even a homemade handcuff key for extra portions.
'Hey,' Calloway said. 'We haven't made a wager on this game.'
Crash laughed. 'Even Bourne ain't dumb enough to bet you when he's losing.'
'What have you got that I want?' Calloway mused.
'Intelligence?' I suggested. 'Common sense?'
'Keep out of this, homo.' Calloway thought for a moment. 'The brownie. I want the damn brownie.'
By now, the brownie was two days old. I doubted that Calloway would even be able to swallow it. What he'd enjoy, mostly, was the act of taking it away from Shay.
'Okay,' Shay said. 'Knight to g6.'
I sat up on my bunk. 'Okay? Shay, he's beating the pants off you.'
'How come you're too sick to play, DuFresne, but you don't mind sticking your two cents into every conversation?' Calloway said. 'This is between me and Bourne.'
'What if I win?' Shay asked. 'What do I get?'
