Free Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles Page B

next semester,” I say, holding my hands in my lap and trying not to fidget, “I believe one can learn a lot from people with life experience.”
    Did I just hear Mrs. Reynolds snort? “Don’t you mean ‘old people’?” she retorts.
    I bite the inside of my mouth. “Um, what I meant was, um . . .”
    “Take it from someone with life experience . Don’t pussyfoot around, it only wastes time. Can you cook?”
    Does macaroni and cheese count as cooking? “Yes.”
    “Play gin?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you talk too much?”
    Her question throws me off guard. “Excuse me?”
    “You know, do you just talk to hear your voice, or do you keep quiet until you have something interesting to say?”
    “The latter,” I answer.
    “Good. I don’t like senseless chatter.”
    “Me, either.”
    So much for not pussyfooting around.
    “I’ll expect you here from three thirty to seven o’clock on weekdays, a few hours on weekends. I can give you an hour break so you can do homework.”
    “Does that mean I’m hired?” I ask.
    “It seems so. I’ll give you fifteen hundred dollars a month, enough to pay for that tuition you need. You can start after school on Monday.”
    Wow. Way more than I’d make if I worked anywhere else. “It’s too much,” I admit. “You could probably get someone for a lot less money.”
    “Probably. But you want to go to Spain, don’t you?”
    “Of course, but . . .”
    “No buts. Buts can be categorized as senseless chatter.”
    I want to kiss and hug the woman and thank her a hundred times. But I don’t think she’s the kissing and hugging type. And if I thank her a hundred times, I think she’d have an aneurysm from the amount of senseless chatter.
    Mrs. Reynolds stands, using her cane to steady herself. Which reminds me to add, “I have a limp.”
    Instead of asking me about it, the woman just says, “So do I. So do most of my friends. At least the ones who aren’t dead. As long as you don’t complain about yours, I won’t complain about mine.”
    And that, if you can believe it, is the end of my interview.

fifteen
    Caleb
    “Yo, Caleb, come sit with us,” Brian yells from the middle of the cafeteria.
    I had planned on grabbing a sandwich and sitting next to my sister. Today she’s wearing jet-black lipstick to match her black, faded jeans. Mom didn’t even flinch when Leah walked down the stairs this morning. I shuddered at the sight. Whoever made up that black lip stuff has got some serious issues.
    I’m standing next to her, contemplating what to do. She doesn’t look up from reading a book and says, “Go sit with Brian. I don’t care.”
    “Leah, come with me.”
    She looks up, black lipstick and all. “Do I look like I want to sit with them?”
    That’s it, I can’t stand it anymore. I lean my hands on the cafeteria lunch table and say, “You might want to freak me out with all this black crap, but I’m not buying it. Now why don’t you wipe that shit off your lips and cut the death act already. It’s wearing thin on my nerves.”
    Instead of being grateful I’m being brutally honest, she abruptly picks up her books and runs out of the cafeteria.
    What the hell am I supposed to do now?
    Brian is still waving me over, but I hesitate.
    It’s not that I don’t want to sit with my old friends; I just don’t feel like being bombarded with questions about jail. Because these guys wouldn’t last one day in the DOC and they’d probably think I was lying if I told them what really goes down in there.
    Don’t think for one minute that anyone is immune to being convicted. Man, there’s so many guys of all different races and religions and colors and sizes. Jews and Christians, Muslims and Catholics. Rich kids who thought they were above the law and dirt-poor kids who didn’t know any better.
    It’s a whole different ball game when you’re on the inside, with an unspoken inmate hierarchy and rules. Some stuff you can figure out right off the bat and some things