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Ta “Don’t you come back,” she said, “or I’ll whoop your white ass ”
“I won’t,” Lexi promised
As she carried her pathetic shoe box through the prison, women catcalled and yelled to her She remembered how they had scared her at first, these women She was one of the she lived or how ed, a part of her would be here, behind bars Maybe a part of her always had been A girl without a mother was a prisoner of a different kind
At the desk, another unifor with her own clothes in it, as well as a small manila envelope
“You can change in there,” the guard said, pointing to a door down the hall
Lexi went inside the room and shut the door Alone, she stripped out of her faded, worn prison khakis and secondhand underwear
Inside the bag, she found the wrinkled black pants and white blouse she’d worn to the courthouse so long ago, along with her own beige bra and black panties and a flattened patchwork denim purse Black kneesocks and cheap black flats co Lexi
She dressed carefully, enjoying the feel of the soft cotton against her dry skin The pants were too big for her now; they hung off her protruding hip bones So was the bra In her zeal to keep busy and get strong, she’d spent long hours in the gym, and her body had turned almost freakishly sinewy Her boobs had all but checked out
She buttoned up the black pants and tucked her shirt into the baggy waistband before turning to the ined joy on this day, pictured it But nohen she stared at her reflection, all she saas a tired, stringy version of who she’d been
She looked like an adult More than that even, she looked at least ten years older than she ith her pale skin, her prominent cheekbones and colorless lips Her black hair had been cut off a few years ago by the prison barber, who had taken all of seven rown out into soft curls that fraular face
She opened the yellow envelope and found an expired driver’s license with a young girl’s face on it, a half-estore watch, and her pro from Zach
A knock on the door roused her
“Baill You okay?”
She put everything, including the ring, in her purse, threw the bag and envelope in the wastebasket, and left the room
At the prison office, she signed one document after another and took the two hundred dollars that was her exit money from the state How a person was supposed to start a new life with two hundred bucks and no valid ID was beyond her