Pen Pals by Olivia Goldsmith

Author:Olivia Goldsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

Jennifer Spencer

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.

Cicero, De Officiis

“Spencer,” Officer Mowbry called out in her little girl voice. “Visitor. Stevenson, Vassallo. Visitors. McInnery, lawyer.” Jen stood up, glad of any distraction. She knew it was Lenny so there was no reason to be excited, but it would be interesting to hear what he had learned about JRU.

As Jen walked to the visitor’s room along with a cluster of her fellow inmates, she had a thought that made her hate herself. For a moment as she looked around it seemed to her as if she were one of them—she looked like them, she smelled like them, and the longer she was at Jennings the more she felt herself slipping lower and lower into their degradation. She almost felt she was a part of the prison now.

When she’d agreed to try to help Movita with JRU she’d immediately been transferred from the laundry job to the library—leaving poor Suki to fend for herself. She felt guilty but relieved. The thing was, she actually liked several of her fellow inmates: Suki, of course, and Movita, and even the laundry supervisor, Flora. She’d even stopped being afraid of Springtime—now she identified with her for trying too hard to get out of this place.

She walked through the security check and into the visitor’s room. She didn’t bother fluffing her hair—or anything else for that matter—she wasn’t worried about her appearance. Instead of her gorgeous Tom, it would only be Lenny. There was the usual noise and chaos in the visitor’s room. She looked around for Lenny and saw him waiting. He was average height, a trifle thin and narrow in the shoulders. His suit was gray—she hated gray suits—and wrinkled. Stop it, she said to herself. Sick, sick, sick. It was great of Lenny to show up at all. Remember, Tom is a bastard, not fit to serve food to some of the people here. She smiled to herself at the thought. Flora, walking next to her, saw the smile and smiled back. “He your man?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer continued. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked. “I love visitor’s day.”

Jennifer felt thoroughly ashamed of herself for her earlier thoughts. Flora was such a damn sweet woman. She tried hard to be fair with all the women who worked under her in the laundry. And she was a better, cooler manager than some of the men at Hudson, Van Schaank. She certainly had to deal with more troubled employees—although, neurosis for neurosis, the day traders at Hudson, Van Schaank & Michaels could stack up against any inmate here. But as she made her way toward Lenny Benson she admitted to herself that she was a snob. There were, as usual, some children in the crowd, and one voice overpowering the rest sounded like it belonged to one of Theresa’s relatives. Her entire extended family seemed to be overly gregarious, and they all cursed more than a commodity trader.

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