Privilege 1 - Privilege (3 page)

Ariana shrugged. "I know. But I like school. I wish I could have finished."

She swallowed a lump in her throat as her thoughts turned to Easton Academy again. She'd been so close to graduation. Only one semester left. And she would have graduated with honors. Maybe even won firsts over Noelle again those last two quarters, what with Taylor gone from campus and unable to do Noelle's work for her. What a waste. What a supreme waste it all was.

But you're going to fix it, she reminded herself. You're going to fix it as soon as you can.

"What about you? What would you do with the money?" Ariana asked, taking a sip of her water.

"Travel," Kaitlynn replied. "My parents and I had this whole plan to see the world together, but we only got through Western Europe before they died. I'd see all the places we were going to see. Australia and the Far East and Africa and Russia and South America... just everywhere."

Ariana noted the wistful sadness in Kaitlynn's eyes and felt a pang in her heart. "You'll do it eventually."

"Yeah, right." Kaitlynn's hands came together in her lap and she looked down at them.

"You will," Ariana assured her.

She looked at her sandwich, at the exposed layer of roast beef on the top, and grimaced at the thick line of glistening fat running through it.

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"Ugh. They really expect us to consume this?"

Pursing her lips in disgust, Ariana peeled the beef from the sandwich, taking with it a few curls of shredded lettuce, and tossed it into the bushes. She then carefully reassembled her meal, the sandwich now half its original size.

Kaitlynn shifted in her seat, and her tone took on a hint of concern. "Ariana, don't hate me for saying this..."

"What?" Ariana asked, eyebrows raised. She took a bite of her sandwich, enjoying the sudden silence. Her shoulders relaxed completely now as she looked around the courtyard. The guards all at their posts. Rambo licking his paws. The inmates either lunching or wandering around staring at the sky, the flowers, the grass. Oblivious, each and every one of them.

"It's just... maybe you should deal with that," Kaitlynn said, lifting a hand. "You know, your... eating habits."

Ariana blinked, chewing slowly. "My eating habits?"

"Well, it's just... you order a roast beef and turkey club every day, and then every day you throw the roast beef away."

"It's always too fatty," Ariana replied.

Kaitlynn bit her lip, as if carefully considering what to say next. "Ariana, you do know what the definition of insanity is," she said tentatively.

"Tell me." Ariana was enjoying this.

Kaitlynn looked around. She leaned into the table and lowered her voice, making sure only Ariana could hear. "It's doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

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Her blue eyes were wide with unadulterated concern. So earnest it made Ariana want to giggle. But Ariana's self-control had always been her greatest asset. Except, of course, in extreme situations.

"I'm just worried about you. Maybe you should bring it up in group," Kaitlynn said.

Ariana nodded, touched by Kaitlynn's concern. "I'll think about it."

"Good."

Kaitlynn smiled. She picked up her own sandwich and took a big bite. Always polite, she waited until she had chewed and swallowed before speaking again. Ariana very much appreciated this behavior. Inside the Brenda T.'s walls, there was a lot of talking with one's mouth full. Or, for that matter, letting the food just fall right out the side of one's mouth while cackling or jabbering on.

"Know what this weather reminds me of? The summers at Camp Potowamac," Kaitlynn said, peeling the lid off her yogurt container. "Did I ever tell you about that girl Briana Leigh and I used to hang out with? Dana Dover? She was always talking about her friend Emma Walsh from home like she was some kind of Hollywood idol...."

Kaitlynn launched into a story Ariana had already heard at least ten times before. The one where Dana got a letter from Emma that was essentially a breakup letter, saying they couldn't be friends anymore because Emma had a boyfriend now and she'd outgrown Dana. Dana had retaliated by writing a song to the tune of "Y Are My Sunshine" called "Y Are a Loser." She then got her entire bunk to sing the song into her

ou ou video camera so that she could e-mail the video to Emma. It was all immature fun, and a distracting story to

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help whisk away the last remnants of irritation left over from Ariana's session with Meloni.

'"You are a loser... a big fat loser... ,'" Kaitlynn sang merrily under her breath.

"'You're such a fatty... you block the sun..., '"Ariana sang along in her mind, having committed the tune to memory long ago.

It was an awful song. An awful and immature retaliation from a girl who should have just risen above and let her little friend Emma move on.

But then, everyone knows that teenage girls have a gift for cruelty, Ariana thought, feeling nostalgic for her former friends, her former life.

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CREATURES OF HABIT

Ariana had learned a few things in her year and a half at the Brenda T. She had learned that people were creatures of habit. That if she paid enough attention to someone's tendencies--and she did have a thing for noticing details--she could predict what that person would do in any given situation. She found this discovery both spirit-crushing and very, very helpful.

It was spirit-crushing to learn that people lived by sad little routines day in and day out, because it made them far less interesting.

Helpful, because that predictability was going to set her free.

"Tracy? May I please use the bathroom?" Ariana asked, pausing outside the door to the common lavatory on Sunday.

Tracy Millet, the guard who lived to please, tried for a tough expression. As always, the effort just made her look more squirrelly and pinched than she already did. The other three inmates whom

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Tracy had been escorting to the common room, Kaitlynn included, all stopped and waited.

"You okay, Osgood?" she asked.

Ariana tried not to stare at Tracy's dry brown curls, which sat atop her head like a plate of curly fries. She put her hand over her lower stomach and swallowed hard. "I'm not sure. I think they might have served bad yogurt at lunch."

"Ugh. Nasty," Donna Short said. The former child rapper, who'd been locked up for smashing in the teeth of some rival artist and was now in daily anger-management sessions, backed away from Ariana. For a girl who claimed to have been raised on the street, "Sweet D." seemed to have a low threshold for bodily functions.

Tracy's threshold, however, was even lower.

"Go ahead," the guard said with a grimace. "I'll walk these three down and then I'll be right outside the door," she warned.

Ariana shoved the door open and entered the white-on-white-on-white bathroom. Everything from the tile walls to the marble floor to the porcelain toilets was bleached to a sheen. After making sure she was alone, Ariana yanked off her shoes and placed them on the counter next to the sink, feeling the chill of the floor through her white gym socks. She turned to the silver plate that served as an unbreakable (and unreliable) mirror, and stared into the mottled reflection of her blue eyes.

"One Mississippi... two Mississippi..."

Patience. Patience was the thing. Tracy was weak--pathetic, really. If Ariana stayed inside long enough, Tracy would cave. She would

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stand out there imagining what Ariana was doing and her leg would start to bounce. Then, after another minute, she would start to fiddle with her keys. Another minute and she'd be kneading the back of her neck with her palm. Finally, she would look both ways to make sure none of her superiors were around, and then stroll casually down to her post in the common room, where she would get sucked in by Deal or No Deal and all but forget about the diarrhea-ridden girl in the bathroom.

So Ariana kept counting. When she finally picked up her shoes ten minutes later and opened the door a crack to peek into the hallway, Tracy was gone. She was now standing on the inside of the metal-and-glass door to the common room, her back to the hallway. She could still turn at any moment and see Ariana, but Ariana had the sound buffer of the door and a good thirty yards of hallway between her and the guard.

Heart pounding in her ears, sneakers clutched to her chest, Ariana kept the door open but an inch and stared out. Her palms were clammy and she could hardly swallow. Everything hinged on this moment. If this didn't go exactly as planned, it would all be over before it had a chance to start.

Thirty more seconds, she told herself. And she started to count down. Twenty-nine... twenty eight... twenty seven...

Suddenly the door on the right of the bathroom was flung open. Ariana's heart flew into her throat. Nurse Knight was twenty-six seconds early. Dammit. So much for that reliable-creature-of-habit theory.

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The rotund nurse stepped into the hallway and started for the common room, her thick white shoes squeak-squeaking on the linoleum floor. Ariana had only seconds or her plan would be trashed. She couldn't wait until tomorrow night. Tomorrow night would be too late. It was either act now or keep waiting--keep rotting-- in the Brenda T.

Spurred by pure adrenaline, Ariana yanked the bathroom door open and raced in silent, socked feet to a door marked medical PERSONNEL ONLY.

It was about to click shut and auto-lock Ariana out. She flattened her hand against the door just as the metal of the latch touched the metal of the plate. The slight click sounded like an atom bomb explosion to Ariana, but she shoved into the room anyway. If Tracy or Nurse Knight were right behind her, so be it. She was not going to look back to find out.

Ariana breathed in. Waited. Nothing. No one was coming for her. The first phase of her plan was complete. She had made it inside the Drug Den.

The small, closetlike space felt like a meat locker, the air-conditioning jacked up so high her skin instantly began to tighten. All along one wall were metal cabinets with glass doors. Behind each door sat rows and rows of clear pill bottles, each filled to the brim with colorful little pills. Hundreds of thousands of little pills, all designed to keep the inmates under control, keep them sedated, keep them functioning like good little robots.

Ariana felt a flash of anger. Saw herself yanking the cabinets from

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the walls and tipping them over. Letting them crash and shatter and slam to the floor. Screw them for trying to control us. Screw them for thinking they know what's best.

But that wasn't why she was here. She gripped her forearm and breathed:

In... one... two... three...

Out... one... two... three...

In... one... two... three...

Out... one... two... three...

Until the fantasy faded away.

Her mind cleared. She focused. She was wasting precious time.

Ariana shoved open the sliding door on the first cabinet and quickly found a nice big bottle of the antianxiety drug Ativan. Thank God for alphabetization. She popped the top off and emptied at least fifty of the little white pentagonal pills into the bottom of her sneakers, then dumped the rest of the bottle into the garbage can. Holding her breath, she quickly rearranged the used paper towels and crumbled patient-care pages over the bottle to hide it, then shoved her feet into her now very uncomfortable shoes.

She carefully closed the cabinet door and breathed in. The hard part, she felt, was over. She had beaten the system. It was all she could do to keep from grinning. Shoulders back, chest held high, Ariana strolled into the hallway, letting the drug room door click shut and lock automatically behind her. Nurse Knight was nowhere in sight, and Tracy was so wrapped up in the TV, Ariana had to knock on the door of the common room before the woman even 29

noticed her. When she did, she blanched, clearly realizing she'd fallen down on the job.

"Feeling better, Osgood?" she asked, opening the door.

"Much better, thanks," Ariana said with a pleasant smile. Her cheeks twitched, wanting to pull the smile wider, but she held back.

"Good. Because that's your last bathroom break for the night," Tracy said sternly.

Ariana walked into the common room, where the inmates were gathered on couches and chairs, reading or journaling or watching TV or staring off into space. She sat down between Kaitlynn and Crazy Cathy on one of the sofas.

"Everything okay?" Kaitlynn asked. "You looked pale back there."

"I'm fine," Ariana replied.

"I think she's gonna win the million," Crazy Cathy said, taking a break from chewing on the collar of her shirt. "I think she's gonna win. I think she looks lucky."

Ariana glanced at the TV screen and at the pretty housewife jumping up and down as she shouted out case numbers on a fluorescent stage. Normally, Ariana hated this stupid show and all the stupid people who never took the good deals when they were offered. Normally, she hated how Crazy Cathy always insisted every contestant was going to win. But tonight, somehow, none of it seemed as cloying. Tonight, as she sat with pills digging into the soft skin of her foot, all the dull predictability felt comforting. In fact, she was counting on it.

"You know what, Cathy?" Ariana said. "I think she's going to win too."

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AN ATTEMPT

In the dead silence of night Ariana hit the floor with a thump, the side of her skull colliding with the cold concrete. Her shoulder exploded in pain. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the final few pills skittering across the floor. And then:

"Ariana? Ari?"

Kaitlynn's voice filled the tiny cell. The light flicked on, a big after-hours no-no. "Oh my God. Ariana! What's wrong?"

The bedsprings squealed and Kaitlynn was on her knees. Her cold hand touched Ariana's cheek. Ariana didn't flinch. Her breath came in short, barely audible gasps, her chest motionless.

"Ariana! Can you hear me?"

There was a crunch. Kaitlynn had just knelt on one of the pills.

"What the hell--" There was a brief, satisfying pause. A rightly predicted pause. "Oh my God. Oh my God, no. No, no, no!"