LITMIR.BIZ

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her eyes she could still feel the fluorescence burning through her eyelids. Sleep in this room would be impossible.

      There was a lot of paperwork in triplicate and some ribald talk between Byrd and the new officer, a huge black woman. Then she was taken, at last, to Observation.

      ‘Spencer, here,’ the huge female officer told the big uniformed woman in a booth at the end of a long catwalk.

      ‘Fourteen,’ was all she said in response.

      The fat woman nodded. ‘How’s the other freshman adjusting?’ she asked.

      ‘Just about how you’d expect a withdrawing crack whore to adjust,’ the woman in the booth snapped. ‘But she’ll be fine in another thirty hours or so.’ The woman officer motioned with her head, took Jennifer by her orange-plastic-coated shoulder, and turned her to the left into one of the cubicles.

      ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

      The space was one of perhaps a dozen concrete cabinets. Jesus, she thought, wasn’t Hannibal Lecter confined to something like this? It was achingly bare. A blanket, a mattress, and a commode. Not that she could use the latter, since the entire outside wall of the cell was made of thick Plexiglas and she could be seen, not just from there but also from overhead. There was no ceiling to the cubicle, and as she looked up she could see an officer patrolling along the catwalk that allowed him to look down into each cell.

      ‘Wait!’ Jennifer said, and it wasn’t a ploy or a power trip; she was truly terrified to be left here. ‘Can I please make a phone call?’

      The big woman officer laughed out loud, a guttural haw-haw. ‘Look, this is jail, girl, and you don’t have a quarter. You’re in prison now,’ she said. Then she softened. ‘Observation is tough, but it’s usually only for a day,’ she added almost apologetically to Jennifer. ‘After you get out of Observation you can make collect calls from your unit.’

      She had barely finished speaking, when someone – or something – began to screech in a subhuman wail. It was a noise of pure rage and despair. ‘I’m sorry about the noise,’ the officer said. ‘She’s going off. But you won’t be here long. Maybe twenty-four hours. So try to make the best of it.’

      ‘Oh my God!’ Jennifer wailed, then fought and won control of herself. The officer handed her a black booklet to go with the yellow one she still clutched under her arm. ‘Maybe this will help,’ she said, and Jennifer took it, imagining it must be some religious tract. Only a saint, a sadist, or a cult member would voluntarily work here with this stink and noise. She stepped into the cell. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ the big woman said, and for some reason that was the thing that filled Jennifer’s eyes to almost overflowing. She turned her head away. God, she certainly hoped not!

      She looked over at the stained mattress and paper sheets. It was only last night – in her own home – that she’d slept in a bed made with Pratesi sheets.

      Jen crouched down in the corner of the observation cell and closed her eyes. The light still beat on her eyelids but she tried to transcend to another consciousness. She could stand anything for twenty-four hours, she told herself. She thought of the nights of endless study at college and business school. She’d pulled plenty of all-nighters at Hudson, Van Schaank & Michaels, too, when she was more tired than this. So she’d pull one more now. Maybe her last. All she had to do was concentrate. But on what? Concentrating on her situation was unbearable, and without her cell phone, she couldn’t check on deals, her portfolio, or her apartment. Then she thought of it: She’d spend the night concentrating on her closet and every garment in it.

      Jennifer didn’t have a lot of clothes; when the interior designer had discussed the bedroom Jennifer insisted that she didn’t want a built-in closet, just the antique armoire. ‘But it’s only twenty-seven inches of hanger space,’ he’d protested. She’d shrugged.

      Now she sat in the corner like a child ordered to take a time out. She remembered what she’d said: ‘Twenty-seven inches ought to be more than enough for any woman.’ And it was. She’d always longed not for quantity but quality. Now she had it, hanging in her armoire back at home. Aside from the one she had foolishly worn today and doubted she’d ever see again, she had three other Armani suits – one black twill, one black and brown tweed and one dark brown heavy silk. Each one had been well over two thousand dollars, but she’d bought them as an investment, and every time she slipped into one she felt like a million bucks. Next she thought of the two Yamaguchi suits that made the Armanis seem cheap in comparison. She’d considered one for more than a month before she’d bought it, hoping it wouldn’t be sold. That was the black one with an asymmetrical jacket; a lapel and a hem were higher on one side than the other. Jennifer couldn’t wear it for a meeting that included middle managers or conservative CEOs, but it went over big with high-tech and advertising types. The other, even more costly Yamaguchi was in a neutral gray-beige miracle fiber that she could fold into her purse if she had to and it would unpack as if it had been pressed by Sister Mary Margaret herself.

      Jennifer sighed. Thinking was difficult sitting on the cold concrete floor. She began a mental inventory of her drawers. When she was home she wore cashmere sweats that she’d bought at TSE. They’d been very expensive, but nothing was softer against the skin – except perhaps silk. She had a tall lingerie chest, and when she wanted to spend money foolishly she indulged herself in La Perla lace bras and matching underpants or silk wisps from any one of a dozen French and Italian stores on Madison Avenue. She moved her fingers against the tough fabric of her jumpsuit and almost shuddered. Her underwear made her feel special and secretly feminine, and she thought Tom, her fiancé, enjoyed wondering what she was wearing under the sophisticated suit when he saw her at work. Like any good girl, Jennifer washed her panties out by hand at night – she never threw them in the machine on the delicate cycle because they were too fine for that kind of treatment.

      Jen’s knees and ankles and butt hurt, but she wouldn’t lie on that disgusting mattress, she wouldn’t use the cardboard blanket. She wouldn’t eat and she wouldn’t sleep. Not until she got out of this place. If there was one thing Jennifer Spencer knew about herself it was that she had a strong will. She thought back to the Cooper Corp. deal and the prolonged negotiations at the airport Marriott. Despite the grimness around her now, she almost smiled. Back then – and it seemed like years ago although it was only five months – she remembered how she had complained to Donald about having to stay in a Marriott. ‘What a hell hole!’ she’d told him. ‘This could drag on for days, or even weeks. Couldn’t we arrange for a Hyatt at least?’

      ‘Hey, rough it,’ Donald had replied. ‘It’s their corporate culture. Cooper executives travel coach. Even old man Cooper travels coach.’ He laughed. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d probably be having this meeting in a Days Inn, so stop bitching and get your ass to sit down at the table. This is all going to be about stamina, Jennifer. I know you can outlast them, but I’m not saying it’s going to be easy.’ He had paused and laughed again. ‘Goddamnit!’ he said, ‘No one ever makes it easy for you to make five hundred million dollars.’

      And, to the credit of her personality and her checkbook, Jennifer and her team had outlasted old man Cooper and his whole lot of Midwestern lawyers. She had sat at that table virtually unmoving, almost unblinking, for hours and hours. Thank God for Cooper’s inflamed prostate or she might have never closed the deal. But the fifteen or twenty trips to the men’s room he made each day while she sat there, coolly waiting for his return, had certainly contributed to his loss of faith and confidence. Then, when she called Donald in for the kill, it had gone fairly smoothly.

      And was this her reward? She opened her eyes.

      The shrieking in the next cell or down the hall or wherever it was reached an inhuman crescendo but finally, mercifully stopped. For a moment Jennifer wondered if they’d killed the inmate that had been making the noise. In the blessed peace she didn’t care if they had. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sorry for the woman – this was a place where misery was not just natural but required and she knew everyone didn’t have the self-control that she did – but this wasn’t The Oprah Winfrey Show and there was no need to share

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