“You want a glass, hon?” Caitlin asked.
“No thanks.”
For all she knew, Caitlin was complicit in this whole thing, whatever it was. Some of that money, from the unnamed donors, from the “other compensation and benefits,” could easily be ending up in her pockets, and there was just no way to tell.
Caitlin hesitated by the refrigerator door. “Maybe I’ll skip it too.” She replaced the bottle and closed the refrigerator, almost gently, as though she might have regretted her choice.
Michelle took a moment to hang the Lexus keys on the hooks by the garage door, then followed Caitlin through the kitchen.
“Also I thought it might be a good idea, when we go to an event, for me to have a little background on the donors. Like for this San Francisco trip. Who’s going to be there, what they’ve contributed. And other donors in the area who you might want to reach out to.” Michelle smiled, gave a little chuckle. Don’t overplay this, she told herself. “Just so I can back you up a little better.”
They’d entered the Great Room. Michelle could hear the distant whine of a vacuum cleaner, somewhere in the house.
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Caitlin finally said, tossing her beige Prada tote onto the sofa. “Tell you what, let’s dig into it first thing Monday morning. Cause you know what I’d really like to do right now? A yoga class.”
“Okay,” Michelle said. “Sounds good.”
Deep, cleansing breaths.
It was a risk going to see him, now that she was Michelle again. She had to go as Emily, but what if someone recognized her as Michelle?
Not likely, she told herself. Who among Caitlin’s friends and the Safer America crew would be visiting an inmate at Harris County Jail?
Saturday, 5:30 pm. There were so many visitors here tonight. Michelle supposed that made sense. No visiting hours at all on Thursday and Friday, no visiting hours until 3:30 on Saturday. The weekend, so people had time off. Maybe. Looking at the crowd around here, as usual, mostly women, she wondered how many of them had the kind of jobs where they worked Saturdays and Sundays. Fast food. Retail. Jobs that didn’t pay well. Some of them likely didn’t have jobs at all. Deondra, the woman she’d met on her first visit here, she’d looked like she worked in an office, put-together outfits, styled hair, but so many of these women, dressed in T-shirts and leggings and cheap, bright cotton chinos, she could picture them running registers in a McDonalds somewhere, stocking shelves at Walmart.
She wasn’t sure, of course. She couldn’t know. Her brain was just spinning scenarios as she waited in line after line in the refrigerated, chemical, stale-piss chill of Harris County Jail.
She noticed it more, this time, how many of the people waiting were black, and brown. Oh there were white people too, about a third, she estimated, but surely the population visiting this jail didn’t reflect the overall demographics of Houston. More than a third of the population of Houston couldn’t be African American, but more than a third of the people waiting here-the women waiting here-were black.
Well, they just must commit more crimes.
Was that a friend’s voice she heard, some embarrassing relative’s, Matthew Fucking Moss’s or her own?
If they do, there are reasons.
Whose voice was that?
You know that blacks are ten times more likely to go to prison for a drug offense than whites? Even though they use drugs at about the same rates?
That was Troy Stone.
She looked around, at the lines of people, of women, shuffling along on scuffed-up linoleum, at the guards in their uniforms, at the metal detectors, thought about the pods and floors of prisoners in this massive building, and felt for a moment that the weight of it all might crush her.
Who was making money off this?
“Hey. I like the hair.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “You look like a rock star.”
She had to smile. “I don’t think so.”
His own grin wavered. He looked so pale, from what she could see through the glass. Maybe the light in here did that to everyone, but she didn’t think it was just the light. Had he been outside at all since he’d been arrested?
He leaned closer to the glass. His cheek was bruised, she noticed now. Not badly. But she could see it.
“What happened?” she asked.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s not… there’s no point. There’s nothing…”
“Tell me.”
There’s nothing you can do.
“I fell, that’s all,” he said.
“Love you, baby,” the woman to her left said loudly.
He gestured to the speaker grate. Michelle put her ear close, grateful that she’d remembered the wet wipe.
“Have you heard back from Sam?”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “What did he… when you talked, did he have any recommendations for you?”
“He thought I should just keep… doing what I’m doing. Working.”
“For Gary? That… that’s it? He didn’t offer to… to help you, or…?”
“He’s checking into things,” she said, hoping it would calm him. “It’s just going to take a little time.”
She could hear his ragged breaths through the speaker grate, and then she couldn’t any more. She looked through the glass. He’d pulled away from the grate, braced his hands against the edge of the counter, eyes closed, breathing hard. Trying to get a grip.
“Dan-” she started. “Jeff. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. The same. I just…” He shook his head like he was trying to shake something off of it and let out a long sigh. “Sorry. Just a lousy couple of days.”
Christ, she thought. She’d seen him in a lot of moods, in some very bad situations. But she’d never seen him like this.
Panic rose in her throat. She tasted bile.
He was watching her. Something in his face changed. He seemed calmer now. She guessed that was for her benefit.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
She needed to be fine right now. Needed to be calm. Panic wasn’t going to help.
“How’s… how’s work?” he asked.
“I told you we don’t have the money. Now what am I supposed to do?” the woman to her right said.
“Oh, you know. Complicated.” She wished she could tell him about it. He’d be the one who could help her make sense of it all. If they could actually talk to each other, maybe between the two of them they could figure out a way out of this. A way to win Gary’s game.
“Don’t you give me that shit,” the woman next to her half-shouted into her speaker. “This is the last thing I need to hear from you right now.”
“I don’t want your life to get any more fucked up because of me,” Danny said.
“It’s not,” she said, suddenly exhausted, even though it was. But she’d chosen this life with him. She’d had her chances to leave, several times. She’d stuck with him. And now she was well and truly stuck.
She got as close to the speaker as she could, and though she didn’t want to touch it, her lip brushed against the cold metal. “My life was pretty fucked up before,” she said. “And… I like the life we have. I miss you, and…”
Her throat closed up, and she could feel the tears gathering. Stop, she told herself. This wasn’t a time for tears. He was already on edge, and she wasn’t going to make it worse. “We’re going to fix this,” she said.
He leaned close to the grate. “I wish I could protect you. Make sure you have what you need. It’s just… I don’t have a lot of options.” He laughed shortly, like he was making a joke, but something in his voice had shifted, to an urgency that sounded like business. He pulled back from the speaker grate and stared at her.