As I approached the infirmary that day, I noted that the queue was longer than it had yet been.Although some coughs and colds were clearly beginning to circulate as we entered the autumn, I could not help but wonder how many other women had been infected with the same disease I had, and were now in need of treatment.
She slowed as she spotted June Jones at the end of the line.Despite being clad in the exact same uniform as everyone else, Jones’s silhouette and flaming hair rendered her unmistakable, even from a distance.Emily had known she would run into the madam from time to time, and reminded herself that her best bet was still to face Jones unabashed, to give the impression she had nothing to hide, and hope the woman didn’t recognize her.If she did, there would be little point in denying it, or playing the fool.She would simply have to try to leverage it to her advantage, show Jones what she stood to gain by keeping Emily’s secret.
The other women in line peered at Emily as she approached.She smiled vaguely at them and leaned against the wall a few feet behind Jones, who spared a half-glance over her shoulder.
They waited in frustrated silence as each girl was called into the office in turn.A half-hour later, the door shut behind the woman in front of June Jones, leaving just the madam and Emily in the corridor.Jones spun around immediately.A smirk played at her mouth, but her eyes were hard and unblinking.
“Hey there, reporter lady.”
Emily’s insides went frigid, but she tried to keep her head.“I thought you hadn’t recognized me,” she said.“In the factory.”
“I never forget a face.Especially not a soft one like yours, all innocence and surprise.The real Mercer girls are hard.You stick out.I’m not stupid, honey.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Emily’s mind grasped for a solution.She knew June Jones couldn’t be tricked or sweet-talked.She cut to the chase.
“You’ve been in and out of here a lot,” she said, lowering her voice and meeting June’s gaze square-on.Emily wasn’t easily intimidated, but something about this woman’s presence disarmed her.“You must know things,” she continued, “know the prison.”She paused, then pressed on.“Help me.I’m trying to blow this story wide open, and that will benefit you.If you can stay out of here in future, your business—”
“Don’t you talk to me about my business,” June snapped.“You’ve never walked a day in my shoes, so don’t pretend to understand me.You’re just here playing at life to prove a point to someone, right?”
Emily felt a flush creeping up her neck.It was hotter than Hades inside now; the place had spent three months heating up in the scorching sun and humidity.She was sweating through her dress.
“And you still have no idea how this works, do you?”June continued.“Haven’t you been paying any attention?”She stepped toward Emily, who fought the urge to back away.“It’s all down in that goddamn law: if they say we have VD, they can keep us as long as they want.If they say we’re crazy, they can keep us as long as they want.They have all the power here, honey, and no one on the outside gives a plug nickel about us.No one is going to stop them.Women are dispensable, and criminals and whores and lunatics even more so.The only reason this place is here is to keep everybody else’s streets nice and pretty.No one wants to see us.No one wants the likes of us to even exist.They’d rather we were locked up til we died.Wake up, kid.”Her nostrils were flared, eyes flashing.She was angry, and that was something.Emily knew that feelings could always be manipulated with carefully chosen words.Find the right tool, and you could pick the lock.
“But I told you before, theyshouldknow about this,” Emily argued.“Theyshouldcare.I’m trying to make them care.I—”
June exhaled and dragged one foot along the ground, like an angry bull.“Then you go ahead, but I’m not helping you.I’m in good with Stone and Barrow.Why would I risk that for some reporter who claims she can fix all this?”She laughed, a harsh exhale.“It’s a bigger risk for me to help you than it is for me to keep my head down and wait til my sentence is up.This system got set up long before either of us was born.You think you can tear all that down in a day with some fancy words?”
Emily swallowed.She’d been in here for three months now.She’d been infected, practically starved and worked to the bone, but she’d done it all for the story, to gather the “fancy words” June was now dismissing as useless.She felt flustered, and didn’t like it.“I don’t know,” she said sharply.“But I have to try.”
“Why?”
Sounds from downstairs echoed up the nearby stairwell as the two women faced each other.Emily struggled to sort out her thoughts.This story could make her career, plain and simple.But there was something else growing in her mind now, too.She’d felt it when she began teaching the typing lessons, some anger-driven sense that she might be able to make a difference.That, given her position, she might even have a responsibility to.
“Let me tell you something, kid,” June went on before Emily could speak.“A smart woman doesn’t argue over the rules of someone else’s game.Don’t whine and complain.Learn how to play, how to cheat, and every once in a while, you get to win.That’s been women’s lot since the beginning of time.There ain’t no changing it, and the sooner you get that through your head, the better off you’ll be.Trust me.”
Emily watched her with mingled intrigue and offence.Her bluntness, evident protectiveness of her “girls,” and accurate—however brutal—understanding of the world reminded her of Doris.She wondered what June Jones could have made of her life under other circumstances.
“Trust you?”Emily shot back.“Well that depends.Are you going to tell the warden who I am?”
June surveyed Emily, from her dirty hair down to her scuffed prison-issue Mary Janes.Her eyes narrowed.“I’ll stay quiet until it’s better for me not to.I always like to have an ace up my sleeve,” she said.“You better just hope my hand doesn’t get bad enough for me to use it.”
Emily exhaled her cautious relief.“Thank you.”Then she pivoted.“So what are you seeing Dr.Stone for?Because I think there’s something going on, I think she’s infecting—”
The door opened and the most recent patient came out.Her face was blotchy, eyes wet.June stepped forward as the nurse beckoned her in, then glanced back at Emily.
“I’m here to play the game,” she said.
Half an hour later, the nurse shut the infirmary door behind Emily, who made her way over to the exam table on the right-hand side of the large room.Two beds were occupied today; one by a woman who was clearly nursing some sort of stomach ailment.She was propped up in bed clutching a tin bucket, and Emily caught a whiff of vomit as she passed.The other woman lay prone with her eyes closed, a cloth pressed to her forehead.It was Peggy, who was plagued with migraines.Lizzie had told Emily she wondered if Peggy had suffered some sort of brain damage from the many blows rained upon her head by her abusive husband, and wished him an early and painful death.Emily didn’t disturb her to say hello.
Ducking behind the privacy partition that separated the exam table from the rest of the room, she imagined how unpleasant it must be for the women taken to bed in the infirmary to be forced to listen to pelvic exams all day.
Emily was about to undress when she spotted the rolling cart containing the doctor’s tools, and this time, the aerosol can, which was usually brought in when Emily was already up on the table.With a rush, she swiped the can off the cart and examined it.
Trichlorovir
