Sisters in Sanity Read Free Page B

real school—a windowless room with a dozen desks where I’d do more self-directed study while watched by guards who didn’t look like they could spell their own names. I was also moved into a shared room with three other inmates: a fat girl named Martha, a rich, snooty waif named Bebe, and blonde, bulimic Tiffany, who alternated between hysterical smiliness and hysterical tears.
    When I wasn’t in school, therapy, or meals, I was doing physical therapy. This consisted of spending four hours in the hot desert heat dragging five-pound cinder blocks from a giant pile across fifty feet of dusty yard and stacking them into a wall. Sounds likepure torture, I know, but it actually wasn’t so bad. I mean, for sure my muscles killed me at first, and we worked without gloves, so my hands turned bloody and then all callused. Plus, the work made me thirsty and I had to drink a ton of water but could only pee once an hour. Still, the counselors-cum-guards were lazy and preferred to stay in the shade, so the cinder-block yard was the one place that us inmates could talk freely amongst ourselves.
    “This is ruining my hands,” Bebe bitched. “My nails used to be so pretty.”
    “Can it, Rodeo Drive,” scolded the Level Four girl next to her.
    “How many times do I have to spell this out for you, yokel. Rodeo Drive is in Beverly Hills, and it’s where podunk tourists shop. I don’t even live in Beverly Hills. I live in the Palisades. So shut it already.” Everyone called Bebe “Rodeo Drive.” People were jealous of her, I gathered, because she was so pretty with her long, shiny black hair and blue catlike eyes. Her mom was Marguerite Howarth, a famous soap-opera actress. Bebe had been my roommate for two days but hadn’t deigned to speak to me, so I wasn’t about to put myself in her line of fire. Butit was obviously my lucky day.
    “Where are you from?” she asked me.
    “Oregon. Portland.”
    “I’ve been there. Rain and people wearing the most unattractive flannel.”
    I happened to love Portland and didn’t appreciate LA people dissing it, but I had to admit she was right about the flannel.
    “And what are you in for?”
    “No idea.”
    “Oh, come now. You must have some idea, my dear girl. Bulimia? Promiscuous behavior? Self-mutilation?” Bebe said, ticking off potential abuses.
    “None of the above.”
    “Well, let’s see. You have the hair and the tattoos. If I were to take a wild stab in the dark, I’d say you’re a musician or an artist.”
    “Musician,” was all I said, but inwardly I was kind of surprised. My mom had been the artist.
    “Ahh, heroin? Meth?” Bebe ventured.
    “No, none of those. I just play in a band, have pink hair, and have a freak of a stepmother.”
    “Ahh, we have a Cinderella in the house!” Bebe called to the crowd before turning her attention backto me. “How very Disney. What did Clayton diagnose you as during your intake?”
    “Opposition something something.”
    “Oppositional defiance disorder. You’re ODD,” said a sure voice from behind. It was the girl again, the tall bitchy Sixer with the good advice. “We all get tagged with that label. It’s a no-brainer. What’re your other offenses?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She sighed. “Okay, newbie. Let me give you the remedial catch-up. Red Rock inmates fall into five broad categories: You’ve got your substance abusers, but never anything worse than pot or ecstasy because a weekly AA meeting is all the drug treatment this place offers. Then there are your sexual deviants, comprising slutty girls and dykes. Cassie over there”—she pointed to a girl with short red hair and freckles—“is in on lesbo watch, and Bebe here is in on slut watch—she got caught making it with the pool boy.”
    “That’s not entirely accurate, my darling Virginia,” Bebe said, shaking her long mane of hair. “I got caught making it with the Mexican pool boy. That was my real offense. An unthinkable crossingof class