“But I don’t know anything about dogs,” I said. “I’ve never even had one.” Of course, I’d wanted a puppy when I was a little girl. My dad had even brought one home as a surprise for my seventh birthday, but after three nights of the sweet little mutt whining and chewing up the edges of my mother’s couch, she insisted that my father take it back to the pound.
“He’ll teach you,” Myer said. “That’s the point. Now go on. And don’t give me any flak over this. I know your friend in the kitchen wants you there, but the warden’s on my ass to get more inmates into the antirecidivism programs.” He pushed a brochure across his desk. “Take this, too.”
“What is it?” I asked as I stood up and reached for what he was giving me.
“Information on getting your GED. Now that you’re here a while longer, you should do it.”
A “while” longer, I thought. As in ten times longer. I’ll be thirty-one when I get out. I took the brochure and thanked him before I left his office and headed toward the kitchen, where I told O’Brien about my new assignment.
“That fucker,” she said, pressing the bottom edge of a clipboard against her stomach. “What the hell do you know about dogs?”
“Not much,” I said. “But I guess I’m going to learn.”
“Hey,” O’Brien said, reaching out one of her long arms to pull me into a side hug. “Glad you’re back, bitch.”
I nodded and gave her a perfunctory smile before I went back to my bunk to wait until I needed to be at the orientation. At noon, I went to the cafeteria, but only because not showing up at meals was against the rules unless you were in the infirmary. I didn’t eat, though. Since the day in the park, I seemed to have lost my taste buds. Everything I put in my mouth had the texture of sawdust. It took a huge amount of effort to chew, and the only way I managed to eat anything at all was to wash down each bite with large swallows of water.
After an hour of sitting alone at a table with an untouched tray of mushy spaghetti and limp, slightly browning iceberg lettuce in front of me, I returned to my bunk until the clock read a quarter to two. I didn’t want to go learn about this stupid program; I didn’t want to go anywhere. I only wanted to stay in my bed, counting my breaths, counting each minute until a decade was done. But not wanting to incur Myer’s wrath, which could include ending up in solitary for refusing to follow an order, I forced myself to wander toward the community room. Looking through the windows, I saw a short, stocky man with a bright shock of thick, red hair sitting at one of the tables. He wore blue slacks and a long-sleeve, pink button-down, which I couldn’t help but think was an unfortunate choice with his coloring. It made him look like an overripe strawberry.
I opened the door and entered the room. There was no one else there; it was just the two of us. Myer must have made it off-limits to anyone else during this meeting. The man looked up and smiled, then rose from the table. “Jennifer?” he asked, and I nodded, then made my way to the table, as well.
He held out his hand, and I took it in my own limp grasp for less than a second. His fingers were warm and a little sweaty. Is he nervous?
“I’m Randy Stewart,” he said. “And this is Bella.”
I glanced down next to his feet, noticing for the first time there was a dog in the room. It looked like a yellow Lab, and its snout rested on top of its outstretched front legs. It wore a red-and-black harness over its back, which had some kind of writing on the side, but I couldn’t read it from where I stood. I’d never encountered a dog who didn’t freak out the minute someone new entered the room, demanding to be petted, but this one hadn’t even raised its head.
“Have a seat,” Randy said, gesturing to the chair across the table from him. He sat down, and I joined him. “So,” he continued. “How much do you know about our program?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay, then!” he said, with so much cheer it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. You’re inside a prison, you idiot, I thought. What the hell is there to be so happy about? Then it hit me. He got to leave. He had a life outside of these walls. I looked at his left hand and saw a gold band. He probably had a family, too. Kids, even. He wasn’t anything like me.
He reached down inside a black leather bag next to his chair and pulled out a large blue binder, then pushed it toward me on the table. “This will be your bible,” he said. “Everything you need to know about how to raise and train a guide dog, like Bella here.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about dogs.”