In the Slammer With Carol Smith Read Online Free Page B

another cup.’
    Gold knows what mate is but has never had it. ‘Not too addictive. Like coffee. And other kind substances.’ She makes a face. But when Carmen comes back she accepts the tea, extra-polite lady-style—like she’s accepting it.
    ‘Carmen’s six aunts gave her these cups,’ I say. ‘For her wedding. They are gourds really. What you call them, Carmen?’
    ‘Calabash.’
    We sip. The straws are silver all the way. ‘Those aunts—’ I say ‘—were they all on one side?’
    ‘Two my father sister, four my mother.’
    I hold my breath. ‘Mine were both adopted. The diddly two of them.’ What’s ‘diddly?’ A word you use when you don’t say more. But I have mentioned the house, almost.
    Gold’s eyes are wide, her mouth too. She knows that history, which we never discuss.
    ‘Say where—’ I say to her. ‘I want to. But I can’t.’
    ‘In Dedham, Mass.’ Then she covers up, by sucking the straw.
    Angel bursts in, his father behind him. Lopez has brought up ice-cream bars for Carmen and me. And for ‘the lady.’ ‘We are having mate,’ Carmen says, haughty. ‘Angel, go put those in the freezer.’ She smiles at me. ‘I save for us.’
    It’s different when you introduce a man. ‘He fixed the wires,’ I say. ‘From now on, Gold, you can use the bell.’ I see he is disappointed in Gold.
    She wants to notice only me. ‘I know Carol for three years now,’ she says to him, almost with an accent. Though she scores me, for talking slum.
    ‘Carol teach me to talk,’ Carmen says. She brings Lopez a mate. In the wedding picture his chest sticks out like an apache’s; now he is just a greaser with a beer waistline. But he still likes his women slick.
    ‘Yes—you have conversation now,’ Gold says to me. ‘And I must go.’ She digs in her bag.
    ‘Come on, Angel,’ Lopez says. They leave. Carmen is listening for whether the two of them go all the way downstairs to the bar again. We hear their home door open and close, one flight down. ‘No, stay—’ I tell Carmen, who is making like to follow them. She needs to be away from Lopez. So she half stays, washing the cups. I am watching Gold, who is still digging.
    ‘I hate that bag,’ I say. Because of what it has in it.
    ‘So do I—,’ she says. ‘But I must carry it.’
    I used to think it had all our case-records in it, and that mine must be what made it so heavy, but no, she said, ‘those stay at the office; we don’t take them into the field.’ Which is what they call visiting the ‘clients’—‘going into the field.’ ‘Sounds like you’re picking flowers,’ I said. I wouldn’t say that now, the bag is so worn. Three years of me, and all her other cases. Rent vouchers, for those who aren’t able to deal on their own moneywise, blanket coupons, and the food stamps I wouldn’t accept. And the prescriptions.
    Usually those are clipped neat; today they are loose in the bag. She hands me mine. ‘The substitute, Ms. Mickens, will bring you the next. Watch your step with her. She’s new.’
    I will, I know what that means. Rules. Meanwhile Gold is wanting to say goodbye to Carmen who is bent over the sink, but her ears are sticking through those curls. I am not sure how to balance the two of them.
    ‘I had a medal like that once,’ Gold says to her.
    On a chain always around Carmen’s neck, I don’t know for which saint. But I know what the tiny leather doll hanging next to it is for. The Lopez’s are more tropical than they are Catholic.
    ‘You did, Gold? I didn’t know you were Catholic.’
    ‘I was. Gold wasn’t. And the little charm? What’s that for?’
    What’s come over her? A good SW doesn’t ask. And a client’s friend—in the record I am the ‘client’—comes under that.
    ‘You say, Carol. My English no good.’ But Carmen’s teeth shine. Against her, Carol looks musty, older, though their children are the same ages. Carmen will get plumper, but she’ll stay hard-colored.
    ‘It’s