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“Come on now, Miss Charlie” Dexter Black’s voice was scratchy over the jailhouse payphone He was fifteen years her senior, but the “miss” was meant to convey respect for their respective positions “I told you I’et me outta this mess”
Charlie Quinn rolled her eyes up so far in her head that she felt dizzy She was standing outside a packed room of Girl Scouts at the YWCA She should not have taken the call, but there were feorse things than being surrounded by a gaggle of teenage girls “Dexter, you said the exact saot you out of trouble, and the minute you walked out of rehab, you spent all of your money on lottery tickets”
“I could’a won, and then I would’a paid you out half Not just what I owe you, Miss Charlie Half”
“That’s very generous, but half of nothing is nothing” She waited for him to come up with another excuse, but all she heard was the distinctrattled Expletives being shouted Grownthem all to shut the hell up
She said, “I’ my anytime cell-phone minutes on your silence”
“I got soet me paid”
“I hope it’s not anything you wouldn’t want the police to find out about on a recorded phone conversation from jail” Charlie wiped sweat from her forehead The hallas like an oven “Dexter, you owe me almost two thousand dollars I can’t be your lawyer for free I’ve got a e and school loans and I’d like to be able to eat at a nice restaurant occasionally without worrying my credit card will be declined”
“Miss Charlie,” Dexter repeated “I see what you were doing there, re is that I got soht be worth some money to the police”
“You should get a good lawyer to represent you in the negotiations, because it’s not going to be me”
“Wait, wait, don’t hang up,” Dexter pleaded “I’o e first started You remember that?”
Charlie’s eye roll was not as pronounced this time Dexter had been her first client when she’d set up shop straight out of law school
He said, “You toldjobs in the city ’cause you wanted to help people” He paused for effect “Don’t you still wanna help people, Miss Charlie?”
She mumbled a few curses that the phone monitors at the jail would appreciate “Carter Grail,” she said, offering him the name of another lawyer
“That old drunk?” Dexter sounded picky for a e prison jumpsuit “Miss Charlie, please can you—”
“Don’t sign anything that you don’t understand” Charlie flipped her phone closed and dropped it into her purse A group of wo crowd consisted of retirees and young mothers She could hear a distant thump-thump-thump of heavy bass from an exercise class The air smelled of chlorine from the indoor pool Thunks from the tennis courts penetrated the double-paned s
Charlie leaned back against the wall She replayed Dexter’s call in her head He was in jail again Forhe could snitch on a fellow o away If he didn’t have a lawyer looking over the deal from the district attorney’s office, he would be better off holding his nuts and buying more lottery tickets
She felt bad about his situation, but not as bad as she felt about the prospect of being late on her car payment
The door to the rec rooht, the sae as Charlie, but with a toddler at home, a baby on the way and a husband she talked about as if he was another burdenso over Girl Scout career day had not been Belinda’s stupidest mistake this summer, but it was in the top three
“Charlie!” Belinda tugged at the trefoil scarf around her neck “If you don’t get back in here, I’onna throw myself off the roof”
“You’d only break your neck”
Belinda pulled open the door and waited
Charlie nudged around her friend’s very pregnant belly Nothing had changed in the rec rooiven her respite fro sucked up by twenty fresh-faced, giggling Girl Scouts ranging frohteen Charlie tried not to shudder at the sight of theirls, but there was so familiar about each and every one of them
The lish oths The dorks The freaks The geeks They all flashed the saed up at the corners of their mouths because, at any tiht look stupid, the wrong color nail polish could be on fingernails, the wrong shoes, the wrong tights, the wrong word and suddenly you were on the outside looking in
Charlie could still recall what it felt like to be stuck in the purgatory of the outside There was nothing le of teenage girls
“Cake?” Belinda offered her a paper-thin slice of sheet cake
“Hm,” was all Charlie could say Her sto around the sparsely furnished rec roo, thin and beautiful in a way that Charlie did not appreciate when she was aht T-shirts and blouses opened one button too ly confident They flicked back their long, fake blonde hair as they laughed They narrowed expertly made-up eyes as they listened to stories Sashes were askew Vests were unbuttoned Soirls were in serious violation of the Girl Scout dress code
Charlie said, “I can’t remember e talked a
bout ere that age”
“That the Culpepper girls were a bunch of bitches”
Charlie winced at the name of her torturers She took the plate from Belinda, but only to keep her hands occupied “Why aren’t any of the me questions?”
“We never asked questions,” Belinda said, and Charlie felt instant regret that she had spurned all the career wos The speakers had all seee-filled sash in a closet somewhere at home She was a kick-ass lawyer She was uy She was in the best shape of her life These girls should think she eso her with questions about how she got to be so cool instead of snickering in their little cliques, likely discussing how ’s blood to put in a bucket over Charlie’s head
“I can’t believe their make-up,” Belinda said “My mother almost scrubbed the eyes off my face when I tried to sneak out with mascara on”
Charlie’s mother had been killed when she was thirteen, but she could recall many a lecture froe sent by too-tight Jordache jeans
Not that Lenore had been able to stop her
Belinda said, “I’ to raise Layla like that” She hter, who had soelic child despite her , tequila shooters, and uneirls, they’re sweet, but they have no sense of shaet s” She snorted, leaving out the best part “We were never like that”
Charlie had seen quite the opposite, especially when a Harley was involved “I guess the point of feminism is that they have choices, not that they do exactly e think they should do”
“Well, ”
“Now you sound like a mother” Charlie used her fork to cut off a section of chocolate frosting froue She handed the plate back to Belinda “I was terrified of disappointing my mom”
Belinda finished the cake “I was terrified of your mom, period”
Charlie s roiled around like driftwood in a tsunami
“You okay?” Belinda asked
Charlie held up her hand The sickness came over her so suddenly that she couldn’t even ask where the bathroom was
Belinda knew the look “It’s down the hall on the—”
Charlie bolted out of the rooht to her mouth as she tried doors A closet Another closet
A fresh-faced Girl Scout was co out of the last door she tried