“Whatever you want it to mean, I guess.”
“I really think toward the end we were getting along great, though.”
“Let me ask you one thing. This gas money you had. Who got it now?”
“She does.”
Another silence. Probably more than a minute. Allie wanted to say something more, some defense of her bond with the older woman, but she was afraid her roommate had fallen asleep. Or that it would only sound pathetic. Not necessarily in that order.
“Well, you hang on to what hope you want,” Manuela said after a time. “You will anyway. Don’t matter what I say. But if she don’t call in the next couple days, at least you oughta think how maybe this big bond was really more between her and your money.”
Allie opened her mouth to argue. To say, “No, Bea’s not like that.” But Bea was like that. Bea stole cell phones and pawned them. Money was everything to Bea. To some degree this was through no fault of her own—everyone has to eat, as the older woman had pointed out. Still, it was true. With Bea it was all about the money.
Allie closed her mouth again and tried to sleep. But between the hunger and the knot of fear and disappointment in her sore belly, she knew sleep was unlikely anytime soon.
Allie stood in the lunch line the following day, up on her tiptoes to try to see what was being served. It didn’t look promising. Some kind of goop of brown gravy, with that white rice that’s had all its rice nutrition wrung out of it. And when does anybody ever put anything in brown gravy unless it’s meat?
The line shifted suddenly, and she found herself face to face with an older girl who may well have been an inmate. But she was on the other side of the stainless steel food island, serving.
“I can’t eat any of this,” Allie said desperately. She could have eaten the rice, but the prospect felt dismal. “I’ll starve. I’m getting hungrier and hungrier, and I don’t know what to do.”
Before the serving girl could answer, Allie heard her name called. Just her last name.
“Keyes?”
She looked around to see a uniformed female guard at the entrance to the cafeteria, or mess hall, or whatever you called this horrible room in this horrible institution.
“Keyes?” The woman barked again.
Allie’s hand shot into the air. Almost gratefully. As if the woman had offered to take her away from all this and buy her the best meal of her life. Only when it was up, waving, did Allie think—or, really, feel in her gut—that maybe having your name called in this place was not a happy event.
“I’m here,” she said, a little weak from the not knowing.
“You want to come with me, please?”
A collective ooh ran through the girls, a taunting recognition that Allie was in some kind of trouble. And that each of them was relieved it was Allie being called and not her.
Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Allie followed the woman out of the cafeteria.
“What? Did I do something? Am I in trouble?”
“You have a phone call,” the woman said simply.
Allie’s heart jumped, rose to a peak of expectation so suddenly it felt painful, a pressure in her chest.
Bea had found her. Bea was calling.
I knew she would, Allie thought. I knew she cared. That she couldn’t just drive away and leave me behind.
She followed the guard down a long, dim, ugly hall—everything here was depressingly ugly to Allie—and around a corner. Allie saw a bank of six pay phones mounted on the wall. One was off the hook, its receiver dangling.
The guard pointed Allie to it and stood fairly close, her back against the wall.
Allie grabbed up the receiver.
“Bea?”
“Oh, honey. Oh, Allie. I was so scared!”
Not Bea.
“Mom,” Allie said.
“Yes, it’s your mom. And I’m so glad you’re safe I could just cry, and I might, but I’m also so mad at you I could just . . . Lucky for you I’m not there in person, young lady! I don’t think I’ve ever slapped you before, but I’d really like to right now. What the hell were you thinking, Allie? It’s not like you to use such abysmal judgment. Anything could have happened to you out there!”
“Tell me about it,” Allie said quietly.
“Washington State? What in God’s name were you doing in Washington State? Every time I think about it I get so mad I could just—”
“Mom,” Allie said sharply, and a blessed silence fell. “Stop talking now.”
Amazingly, it worked. Her mom did as she had been told.
“Look, Mom. I didn’t run away for no reason. I was in a really, really terrible position. And you’re the one who put me in that position. When you hear the story you’re going to feel incredibly guilty, so save yourself some guilt and don’t yell at me anymore until you know what happened.”
A silence on the line.
Then her mother said, “I’m listening.”
“I didn’t mean now. It’s a long story. I was thinking, like, next time we’re in the same room together. No way either one of us’ll get that much phone time. How did you even manage to call here, anyway? I thought inmates could only make collect calls.”
“Don’t use that word in reference to me.” Her mother’s voice sounded tight and uncomfortable.
“What word?”
“That I word.”
“Inmate? Why not? We’re both inmates right now. If I can face it so can you.”
Another long, awkward silence. Allie glanced up at the guard, who did not look back.
“I got special permission to call,” her mom said. “I convinced them it qualified as an emergency. I was so scared, Allie.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I wanted to call but I didn’t even know where you were or how to get in touch with you. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You could have tried. Did you even try?”
“I was about to. When they picked me up.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little late?”
Allie’s rage rose to the surface, and she knew she would let it out now. It had to get out. Allie had no choice, no way to control it.
“I was pretty pissed at you, too, Mom. How could you do this to me? Do you have any idea what kind of hell my life turned into when they dragged you out of our house? I know it was Dad’s idea. I know that because I know him. And I know you. He’s the one who got greedy. But you went along with him. Why did you go along with it? Why didn’t you just say no? Tell him to get another accountant and leave you out of it? Then he’d be in jail, and I’d be home with you right now. But no, you have to do whatever he says. And I’m just so mad at you for that!”
Allie heard something like a sigh on the other end of the line. Or it could have been a soft sob.
“I know, honey. I’m mad at me, too.”
Allie stood a moment in that dingy hall, feeling her rage drain away. It had to. It had to go now. Because her mother was no longer a brick wall at which to direct that rage. She had gone back to being a wounded human, with feelings. Allie couldn’t bring herself to hurt her anymore.