CHAPTER 15

Hazel

"She should excuse us."

I swallowed hard enough to hear it myself.

I didn't look at Elvis, didn't need to. I already knew he wasn't going to say anything. I picked up my things and stood.

"We have a business party tonight," Elvis said, just as I reached the door. "Several delegates will be attending."

I turned. He was sliding his black card across the desk toward me.

"Go with the driver. Get something for the event."

I looked at the card for a second, then picked it up. Under normal circumstances, your boss handing you his black card would feel like a lottery. Today, it didn't land the way it should have.

‘No one of importance. Just my assistant.’

The words were still sitting in my chest. I left without saying anything.

I didn't wait for the chauffeur.

I walked the length of his estate alone, the air on my face, and flagged down a taxi at the gate.

"119 Blackwood Correctional Centre."

The driver glanced at me briefly in the rearview mirror.

"Yes, ma'am."

I turned to the window and watched the streets pass. Different feelings moved through my chest and head.

I hadn't planned on coming back here. We pulled up to the gates. The name was right there in bold letters, same as always.

119 Blackwood Correctional Centre.

I paid the driver and got out.

Finding my way around wasn't hard. The layout hadn't changed, and most of the wardens still recognized my face.

Nostalgia arose over me as I walked. These walls had sharpened me. The nights I'd fought another inmate over food. The nights I'd stayed awake staring at the ceiling, thinking about Jarvis, holding onto the version of our future I'd built in my head, telling myself it was still waiting for me on the other side of the sentence.

A single tear ran down my cheek.

I let it go and kept walking.

"I want to see Mummy T." I slid some cash to the warden at the desk without making eye contact.

He nodded and disappeared.

Mama T had taken one look at me during my first week here and decided I was hers to look after.

She fed me when I couldn't, warned me when I needed warning, and asked for nothing back except that I survive the place with some dignity intact. She was the reason I did.

She came out with her arms already open, smile stretched wide, pulling me in so tight I had to tap her back to breathe.

"Hazel. I have missed you, baby. Tell me you're here to invite me to your wedding."

She knew about Jarvis. Everyone in here had known, I'd never been quiet about loving him.

"There's no wedding." I kept my voice light. "I caught him cheating."

I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn't tell her with who. Some things were still too raw to say out loud, too ugly to put into words in a place that had already seen enough ugly.

"It's fine, Mama T. I'm over it." I pressed some cash into her hands and closed her fingers around it. "He doesn't know I'm out yet. If he comes to visit, tell hun."

She looked at me the way she always had, like she could see past the surface of whatever face I was putting on.

I hugged her once more, quickly, and left before she could say anything that would undo me.

#######

The ride to the venue was uncomfortable from the moment we set out.

I sat in the front seat. Elvis and Tessy were in the back. Every few minutes, I caught myself glancing at the side mirror, and more than once, his eyes were already there.

I looked away first each time, which was new. Usually, I held the stare. Tonight I didn't have it in me.

Tessy talked the entire ride, with her hand resting on his arm the way you only touch someone you feel you have a right to.

I watched it in the mirror and kept my face neutral.

Were they together? Had they ever been? Did it matter?

I didn't know. What I did know was that she looked at him like he belonged to her, and he hadn't moved his arm.

The hall was already alive when we arrived, beautiful and glamorous, full of people in expensive clothes having conversations.

I fell in behind Elvis, moving through the room in his orbit the way I'd gotten used to.

Tessy slowed her pace until I caught up with her. Her eyes moved over me slowly, starting at my head, stopping somewhere around my knees.

"Your dress is a little inappropriate for this kind of event, don't you think?" Her voice was pleasant

"Look around. Business happens at these parties. This isn't a club."

I kept my mouth closed. Smiled just enough to be polite.

Hazel from two years ago would have had something to say brutally that would have left her gobstruck, but that wasn't the play right now.

"Stick close," she continued. "Elvis will text when he needs you." One more pass over my outfit before she turned and walked back to him.

I watched her go.

My eyes dropped down to myself briefly, the dress, the hem, the legs beneath it. My legs had never done anything to anyone that they hadn't asked for.

I missed who I used to be. Friday nights. Music and movement, and not caring about any of it, the next morning.

My mother calling at two a.m. pretending she wasn't worried. Look at me now, standing at the edge of a business party in a dress someone just told me was too short, following a man around a room who introduced me to people as no one important.

"Any chance you'd say yes to a drink and some company? Fair warning, I'm desperate. This party is putting me to sleep."

I turned.

He was already holding out a glass of wine, in an easy posture, with a full beard, small diamond studs, tattoos climbing up the side of his neck. Not trying too hard, easy to look at.

"Thank you." I took the glass, swirled it once, and sipped.

"Harry."

"Hazel." I took his hand.

Something moved across his face. "That's a perfect name. Goes with your eyes." He tilted his head slightly.

"I've been watching you from across the room for the last ten minutes, trying to figure out how to come over without looking like an idiot."

I laughed, a real one, quiet but genuine.

My eyes drifted across the room out of habit. Found Elvis almost immediately.

He was looking directly at me. Not the glancing, quickly-corrected kind. A steady, fixed look with something sitting behind it that I couldn't fully read from here.

I looked back at Harry.

"You don't look like an idiot," I said.

Soft music had started somewhere, low and slow, and the dance floor was filling up with couples.

"One dance?" Harry offered his hand.

"Sure."

He was good, easy to follow, not trying to lead too hard. He talked while we danced, compliments threaded between sentences, and most of them were good enough to make me smile without even trying.

I let myself enjoy it. For the first time all evening, I was just a girl at a party.

"Hazel."

I knew the voice before I placed it.

Elvis was standing at the edge of the floor. I had watched him dancing with Tessy not five minutes ago, when had he crossed the room?

His face was a controlled blank that I had learned, over the past weeks, meant something was happening underneath it.

I excused myself from Harry and followed him out.

He walked fast. I kept pace. We moved away from the entrance, away from the noise and the light, until he stopped suddenly and turned around.

"What exactly do you think you're doing in there?" His voice was low, tight at the edges.

"Flirting with that man? Let me guess, you think getting close to someone like that is your way in? The soft life?"

He stepped forward, two fingers pointed directly at me.

"Men like that will always see you as something temporary. You will never measure up to what they're actually looking for. Never." His voice rose slightly. "Have some decency, Hazel."

The word landed, and snapped my nuts.

"Enough." My voice came out slurry, which surprised me. "That's enough, Elvis."