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“Is that near Dahomey? My church supports a missionary family there-the Sapersteins. You wouldn’t happen to know them, would you?”
“Oh, sure, I know them; I have them over to di
“Really?”
“Look, you fool, Dahomey is now Benin, and ‘da hood’-Well, I was just making that up on account of my mother got a little apostrophe crazy. I admit that. But I’ll be watching you in there; this glass is one-way. Don’t you be slipping your sister anything, or taking anything from her. You’re allowed to hug her-but no kissing on the mouth.”
“Ugh.”
“You’d be surprised what people try in order to get stuff in or out.”
“Stuff? Like what?”
“Cocaine mostly. One woman who normally wore a glass eye came in wearing a fake eye made of coke that had been painted with food dye to look like the real thing. But when she left I noticed that her hair was pulled down. I asked her to pull it back and whoa! You could practically see her brain.”
“Well, my body parts are all real-as I think you know by now.”
“And protected by the most insane underwear I’ve ever encountered. Where did you get that stuff-that crazy bra, in particular? From the Army Surplus Store? I mean, is that like for combat, or something?”
“It’s sturdy Christian underwear, although clearly it is not invincible. I’m going to have to surf the Net for a more unassailable model.”
“Girl, you have definitely lost it; I shouldn’t even be letting you in here. Although”-she paused and cocked her head as she pursed her lips-“I like you.”
Alarmed, I took a step back. “ ’Twas only a fleeting thought, put there by Lucifer the Lustful. I beg thee, kind miss, please do not misconstrue my sexual preference.”
“Say what?” ‘V’h’Neek’qQ”WA’a laughed. “Go on through, before I change your mind. When you’re done-or if there’s any trouble-rap on the glass.”
Susa
“You look positively voluptuous,” I said.
My baby sister gri
Susa
“Hopefully fast enough, and long enough, to make the U.S. less oil dependent on the Middle East.”
“You see! And you said I’d never amount to anything.”
“I never said that!”
“Well, you thought that.”
Few things a
“And look how wrong I was; for surely you are an exemplary inmate. I mean, if not in deed, at least in your animal appetites.”
“Thanks-I think. Was that sarcastic?”
“What matters is, what do you think? As Dr. Phil would say, perception is everything.”
“Mags, you’re still weird. You know that?”
“ ’Tis a badge I choose to wear with honor. Okay, Susa
She had the temerity to blink. “Who said anything about an emergency?”
“That’s what your message read. Shall I call the warden to collaborate it?”
Susa
I gasped. “But you’ve been in here five years; you can’t be pregnant!” I gasped again, as reality sunk its baby teeth into my overnourished skull. “Oh no, don’t tell me it was one of the guards. Clyde? Houston? What’s his name with one eyebrow and no chin?”
“Eric? Give me a break! For your information, Miss High and Mighty, I’m not nearly the slut you think I am. I have never once cheated on my Melykins. Not once. Not ever.”
I must have been staring at her incredulously because she waved a long, but otherwise shapely, hand in front of my eyes. “Earth to Magdalena, are you in there?”
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m just having a hard time processing the fact that marrying the Mantis might actually have been good for you.”
“He was my salvation, Mags-and I don’t mean that in a sacrilegious way. Mama was always so strict, and let’s face it: you weren’t any better. It was all or nothing with you. If I didn’t toe the line a hundred percent, you got furious. Remember the time you threw me out because I wore a low- cut blouse and fire-engine red lipstick?”
“I didn’t throw you out; I made you choose between dressing like a hussy and living on the street, or showing some respect while enjoying the comforts of home.”
My baby sister opened and clenched her jaw several times, and frankly, I was surprised by just how much the issue seemed to affect her. Then, much to my astonishment, she threw her arms around me and began to sob. Furthermore, since folks in our family are genetically incapable of touching one another for more than two seconds without resorting to some vigorous backslapping, I was stu
“Hey, break it up, you two!” ‘V’h’Neek’qQ”WA’a rapped sharply on the glass with her billy club.
Susa
Much to my credit I simply handed her a wad of tissues from my oversize pocketbook. “What is it, dear? I’m your big sis, remember? You can tell me anything.”
She had to swallow before speaking. “Anything?”
“Anything. And just so you know, now that I’m married, and well acquainted with the sweet mystery of life-so to speak-I am no longer the prude I used to be.”
She snorted, drenching me in the process. “Yeah, you were pretty awful. That time when we saw the horses-”
“That was then; this is now,” I said, using a favorite expression from her younger years.
She began to blubber again. “It’s-M-M-Melvin.”
“He’s dead?” Oh woe is me. There was far too much hope in my voice. There was too much hope in my soul as well. What kind of a Christian was I? How could I be happy to hear about someone’s death? Didn’t that, in a way, make me just as guilty as a murderer?
“No, stupid,” my sister croaked, “he’s not dead. My Melykins is about to do it again, and this time I have a feeling he’s going be caught.”
Melvin “the Mantis” Stoltzfus was not only Susa
“Caught doing what?” I practically shouted. “And where?”
“Pulling another heist,” she whispered, her voice now hoarse. “Somewhere in Somerset County.”