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“Fine.”Charlotte holds up her hands and sits back down. “It is what it is. At least I didn’t let him tattoofaceon my face, you know?”
“I actually know someone who did that,” Nick says.
Laughter.
“Everybody has a story, right?” Lara asks the table, and everyone nods.
Lara looks at me.
“Own it,” she says softly. “And move on from there. There’s really no other option at this point.”
—
Brandy stares at the pile of dirty dishes. “I have never washed a dish in my life,” she says, holding up her hands. “I’m not about to start now.”
“How can you get through life without washing a dish?” I ask, filling the sink with water.
“Duh,” she says. “We have amaid.Her name is Mary and it’s her job and we pay her.”
“I don’t think there are any of those here,” Holly says. “Maids. I think we’re the maids.”
She’s dumping the coffee urns into an empty pickle bucketthat saysfor the gardenin Sharpie on the side. She barely ate at breakfast, even though she said she was hungry. A slice of melon here, a bite of toast there.
Billy looks around the kitchen at all the pots and pans and the butcher table littered with eggshells and fruit rinds. “Do we have to clean all of this?”
Lara comes out of a back room holding a sack of flour.
“Yup,” she says, hoisting it onto a metal rack. “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Next week you can move up to cooking. Then you learn the animals. But don’t ever try to be the one who helps the feed dude with the animal food. That’s Charlotte. She’s very particular about it. Until then, chop-chop. You’ve got gym after this.”
“Gym? I don’t even want to know,” Brandy mutters. “Just kill me now.”
She drags on some rubber gloves and starts plunking silverware in the sink full of soapy water.
“Did you count the utensils and stuff to compare what we put out?” I ask.
“What?”
“Like Lara said,” I tell her. “To make sure everything comes back.”
“Why does it even matter?” Brandy asks.
From across the room, Lara calls out, “Because. Sometimes…people take them. And use them. Do you want me to elaborate?”
I shake my head no.
Because no, I donot.
—
We have to change for gym. Lara said our parents were told to pack certain stuff for us, like workout clothes, T-shirts, sneakers, swimsuits, hiking boots. I think my mother forgot my hiking boots. Maybe I don’t even have hiking boots. I am not a hikey-type person. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t finishWild.
“Oh, right,” Lara says. “Tampons. Pads. Whatever you use. If you don’t already know, you have to ask for them from Tracy or one of the shift desk people. If you had them with you when you came, they were confiscated during Search.”
“Right,” Brandy says. “Because I’m going to somehow put drugs in my tampons. Got it.”
Lara laughs. “You know why they give you that awful hard hairbrush when you get here? Because some are super flexible, you know? Like, you can even peel out the part with the bristles really easily and there’s space inside? That’s where I used to hide my stash when I lived at home.That’swhy you can’t bring hairbrushes in. You can put stuff in tampons, believe me, and seal that back up.”
That seems like a lot of work to me, but then again, I had my Sprodka bottle to hide vodka in.
