The next day, Tiffany didn’t see Noréz, but she did get to visit with her mom and kids. “I’m so ashamed and so sorry, Mom,” she told her.
“You live and learn,” said her mom. “Meanwhile, what’s done is done. All you can do is move on from there, honey.”
Tiffany smiled. She couldn’t have chosen a better mother if she tried. She then focused on the kids, assuring them that she’d be home before they knew it.
She spent the rest of the day doing the usual – reading, writing letters, and counting the minutes till she would be free. She was glad that she was still without a celly. Especially since the other inmates could be such pests, always asking for this and for that. She dreaded the moment when she’d have to share the same cell with such a demanding creature. “What do these girls think I am,” she wrote in a letter to her sister Gabriel, “their slave? Their commissary store? Oh well, soon enough I’ll have just eighty days left of this.”
She folded the letter and stuffed it into an envelope, thinking of Gabriel. She was a few years older. They didn’t always get along when they were younger, but the two had become closer over time.
Next, she began a letter to Regina. She had been her best friend ever since she’d moved to Texas. The native Texan was bubbly, brilliant, and bisexual. It was she who had taken Tiffany to a gay bar for the very first time, though Tiffany hadn’t been impressed. Somehow, she just didn’t think that many good people went to bars, be they gay or straight. She didn’t want anyone who drank, used drugs, and only wanted sex. Anyone could find sex just about anywhere with just about anyone, but not anyone could find love wherever and with whomever.
“I know it’s crazy of me to even think for a minute that anything could happen, Regina, but there’s this guard that’s so way cool and so way hot! After I got to chatting with her the last time I saw her, I realized just how gorgeous she really is. She seems quite nice too, and I get the feeling she likes me as well. If I can’t have her out there, at least I can fantasize about her in here. She makes working at night something to look forward to, though I don’t know how often I’ll see her.”
When she was done writing letters shortly before third shift, she heard the closest entry door open and close, then the sound of voices. One of the voices sounded highly agitated as it drew closer. The cell door then opened and one of the second shift guards announced that Tiffany now had a cellmate. In stepped a shabby-looking young girl just as the door clanged shut behind her. The girl was huge and mean-looking. Her hair was tousled and so badly knotted. Tiffany wondered when the last time was that it had seen a brush. The girl’s face was badly scarred with acne, half her teeth were missing, her breath stunk, and so did she. Nonetheless, she tried to be friendly and not to let her budding anxiety show.
“Hi, I’m Tiffany,” she said extending her hand.
Ignoring it, the girl said, “Yeah, I’m Olivia,” and sat on the metal stool that was bolted to the floor. She slumped over and placed her face in the palm of her hands and then let out a heavy sigh.
“Bad day, huh?” Tiffany dared ask.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Olivia said sitting upright. “They were trying to keep me in the nuthouse saying I was suicidal, and therefore, that had to mean I was probably homicidal as well.”
Tiffany didn’t know what to say in response.
“That’s such bullshit, you know?” Olivia declared, looking straight at Tiffany who simply nodded. “Just because you could kill one person does not mean you could kill others. If someone was trying to kill you, you’d kill them if you could, right?”
“Yes,” Tiffany said.
“But does that mean you could or would kill your loved ones?”
“No, it doesn’t. You have a point.”
“Damn right I do!” Olivia screamed, slamming her meaty fist so hard on the metal table that it vibrated as if someone had crashed cymbals together in the cell, to say nothing of how it nearly sent Tiffany flying right out of her skin.
She was afraid to move or say anything. All she could do was hope that Noréz was on that night. There was no way she could stay with this stick of dynamite. Trying to calm the pitter-patter of her heartbeat, she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Olivia then jumped up and began pounding on the door. “Guard! Guard or Officer or whatever the fuck you’re called, I’m calling you!”
In seconds, the guard was at the door.
“I can’t stay here. I’m gonna die in here. I have to go back!”
“Sorry, but you’ll just have to stay put. Meanwhile, you can put in a request for…”
“Fuck no! I ain’t stayin’ here!”
“Calm down, will you? You’re no doubt making your celly pretty nervous.”
“I’m sorry if I am, but this shit won’t fly with me, Officer.”
“What shit?”
“This shit! Look at this room. It’s like a closet. I can’t breathe in here!”
“Shut up! We’re trying to sleep,” cried an inmate from a nearby cell.
“Hey!” the officer warned them. Then she turned back to face Olivia. “Just try to relax. You’re perfectly safe and you won’t be locked down all the time. Just try to get some sleep, then you can be out all day tomorrow. If you don’t behave, you’ll have to go to the hole and in the hole they’re locked down twenty-three-seven. You don’t want that, do you?”
Just then, Noréz appeared like a miracle. It was change of shift. “You again, huh?” she said. “What are you doing back in this rat hole, Smith?”
“I fucked up again.”
“Yeah, well, you better settle down and get some sleep, ok?”
Olivia nodded with defeat, head down, then turned to sit at the table with her head in her hands like she had before.
“Behave and have a good night, ladies,” said the second shift guard.
“I’ll be back soon to get you for work,” Noréz told Tiffany, who simply nodded.
When the door was shut and she was once again locked in alone with Olivia, her heart sped back up. She was afraid to breathe, much less utter a word.
She lay on her lower bunk while Olivia sat still as a statue, keeping her face in her hands. Just as she heard the second shift guard leave, Olivia began to rock back and forth and whimper. The whimpering grew louder and louder, her body shaking all over.
“Are you ok?” Tiffany asked her.
“No!” she screamed, standing upright with clenched fists. “I’m not ok!” In a flash, she grabbed Tiffany by the shoulders and shook her violently. “I’m not ok! I’ll never be ok!”
Tiffany tried to pry Olivia’s hands from her shoulders, but couldn’t. Never did she find the sudden sound of a key entering a lock to be such music to her ears as she did at that moment, along with Noréz’s call for assistance over her walkie-talkie. When the door opened, Olivia released her grip on her shoulders and Tiffany ran out of the cell. She spun back around just in time to see Noréz punch Olivia square in the nose. Blood spurted from it, momentarily stunning Olivia into silence.
“You just fucked with the wrong inmate and the wrong officer, dipshit!” screamed Noréz.
“You-you broke my nose,” Olivia stammered in shock after a moment. “Oh my God, you fucking broke my nose!”
“Turn around!” Noréz demanded.
“You sick bitch, you…”
Noréz cut her off with a swift punch to the abdomen. Olivia doubled over and Noréz kneed her in the jaw.
“Stand up and turn around now!”
Tiffany could see that Olivia was now terrified and wanted very much to comply with Noréz’s orders but was in too much pain to do so.
The entry door then opened up and four guards, both female and male, came bursting forth.
“Get her out of here. She attacked that one,” Noréz said motioning to Tiffany, “and I had to use force to subdue her.”
“Bullshit!” Olivia screamed, still hunched over. “I didn’t do shit to her and then you beat the shit out of me! Ask her, she saw it!” she screamed, pointing at Tiffany. “She just kicked my ass right in front of you, didn’t she?”
Tiffany lowered her gaze toward the gray cement floor. The other guards glanced at her but only for a second. She raised her gaze once again and watched in shocked silence as they led Olivia away.
“This is bull fucking shit!” she continued to scream. “Noréz, you broke my nose and punched me and kicked me for no reason and I’m gonna kill you for this! I’ll get you! You just wait, bitch!”
Olivia’s raging threats faded into the night as she was led out of the pod and the door shut behind her.
The scene had stirred up the other inmates, many of whom stood at their doors asking what happened. Noréz told them to never mind and to hush up.
They did so immediately.
Then she motioned for Tiffany to follow her. She thought they were going to the supply closet, but instead, she was led to one of the tables at the end of the dayroom. “Have a seat,” she told Tiffany. “This table’s out of view of the cameras, though they’re not usually monitored at night anyway.”
Tiffany sat on the cool metal bench.
“You ok?” Noréz asked, sitting next to her.
Tiffany nodded. “A little shaken up, but yes, I’m fine. Thanks for rescuing me. If it wasn’t for you I may be dead now.”
Noréz smiled. “But you’re not, so let’s just forget about it and put it behind us.”
Although confused, Tiffany nodded. Olivia had been right; Noréz had gone overboard and without provocation of any kind from what Tiffany had seen. On the other hand, there’s no saying what Olivia might’ve done to her if she hadn’t come along when she did, so perhaps what Noréz had done was necessary after all. Especially given the fact that Olivia was so much bigger. With this in mind, Tiffany decided that Noréz had only done what she thought was best and really didn’t have much of a choice.
“Would you like something to drink?” asked Noréz.
“Yes, please.”
Noréz stood up and left the room. Tiffany expected her to return with a cup of water, but instead, she held a bottle in her hand. “Here,” she said handing it to her. “It’s vanilla-flavored soda. You like that?”
“Yes, I love it,” said Tiffany with delight. “Are you sure it’s ok?”
“Sure. You can finish it off. I’ve had enough already.”
Tiffany took the bottle with appreciation and drank several gulps. “That was so, so good! Thank you so much, Noréz.”
She smiled. “Just keep it our secret.”
“Absolutely,” Tiffany assured her.
The two sat in silence for a moment while Tiffany drank and Noréz watched her with a smile of both pleasure and amusement. To Noréz, it was as if the girl had never tasted anything so sweet.
“You know,” Tiffany began, “it’s not just the big things I miss like my kids, it’s the little things, too.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “Little things like this, my strawberry-kiwi lip gloss, my perfume, my makeup.”
“I think you look great without makeup.”
“Do you?” Tiffany asked with a laugh.
Noréz nodded. “You’re too pretty for makeup.”
“Well, thanks,” Tiffany said finishing the soda.
Noréz continued to gaze at her with an intensity that made her both excited and nervous at the same time, causing her to blush and become extremely self-conscious. She knew then that Noréz knew she was attracted to her. “So your first name begins with a V,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Mmm-hmm,” said Noréz with a slight nod, still not breaking her gaze.
“Let’s see… there are only so many V names.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Valerie, Vicki, Veronica, Velma…” She looked at Noréz inquisitively.
“You got it,” Noréz told her.
“Valerie?”
Noréz shook her head.
“Vicki?”
Noréz nodded and Tiffany contemplated the name. “I like it,” she said. “It goes with you.”
“Another secret, ok?”
“Ok, Vicki,” said Tiffany, realizing that between the divulging of her name, the soda, and the beating she’d given Olivia, this wasn’t an officer who believed in playing by the rules. At least not with her and those intending to harm her.
Vicki took the empty soda bottle, stood up, and unlocked the supply closet.
Tiffany stood up as well.
“See you later,” Vicki said with a wink as she left her to do her job.
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