Last Doll Standing

Pierson.

Chapter 1

Fly

The sound of my spin shoes clicking into their pedals reminded me of the way the metal cuffs sounded as they closed around Katelyn’s wrists that day in court.

Chink, chink. And, just like that, she was whisked away.

You’ve been sentenced to twenty years with no parole in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a max security prison for women, where you’ll be placed in the psychiatric ward for necessary treatment for an indefinite period of time.

Ready to ride, Cece? Maeve asked. I nodded at my spin class partner even though my mind was somewhere else.

After clipping into the bike, the echo of the judge’s words automatically followed. I couldn’t hear one without the other anymore, and in a way, I looked at it as my weekly penance for my crimes.

When the judge slammed down his gavel three short years ago and presented the verdict, I’d never felt more horrified in my entire life. My emotions were stunted because of my post-traumatic mental fog, but everyday it got a little clearer. Everyday, the reality of what I’d done gutted me a little more until my stomach was raw with nerves. Dinah had said Katelyn would only go away for a little while.

She’d lied to me.

It was debilitating. In a way, I’d gotten away with murder. Katelyn wasn’t dead, but her life, as she knew it, was over. So on Sundays, the whole Laramie family went to church, and just like spinning, I’d taken up prayer again. Like it was an old sport I was trying on again for size, in the hopes I’d be forgiven by a higher power. Besides, it looked good for the new and improved Laramie family to attend the weekly service, displaying our cohesive unit to the world.

After church I’d go to spin class. And when the music was cranked up so loud I couldn’t think, and as my thighs began to burn on the flywheel, I’d forget about her for a little while again. My muscles scorching around the pedals, the yelling of the instructor, the beat of the house music ripping right through me—it was therapy.

Fly. Fly. Fly.

After all, it wasn’t me who put her behind bars. It was Dinah. I’d been possessed by another being, and now all I could do was ask forgiveness for a crime I’d committed in body alone; my mind had nothing to do with it. At least, it’s what I told myself. I was mentally unfit when the injustices took place, just an innocent bystander to Dinah’s actions.

Great class, dear, Maeve said as she slipped a white fuzzy boot over black spandex. She let her thick, blonde mane out of its ponytail. It flapped down her long back in one soft pull. Maeve had spun as hard as me, but she had a mere glisten of spray on her forehead, whereas my body looked like it’d been doused with a fire hose.

Yeah, I feel so much better afterward, I said, quickly throwing my fleece over my sweat-stained underarms. Maeve’s sleek long-limbed pants mocked my looser cotton ones as I slipped on my non-cute tennis shoes.

The snow fell in sugary drifts outside, and I smiled at the new white SUV Mercedes that I’d bought with my own money. I needed more room to lug around my home interior products, and something a bit more dependable for New Jersey winters.

Where’re you going for Christmas? Maeve asked as we stepped into the crisp night air.

My nose darted to the carpet of white forming at our feet. Christmastime reminded me of her too and how she was likely spending it all alone.

I’m cooking at my house. It’s going to be small, just the four of us, I commented.

Ah, us too. It’s easier that way. No muss, no fuss. Well, see you next week for our spa day, Maeve chimed, giving me a wink as she climbed into her Porsche.

As I closed the door to my new ride, I exhaled deeply, noticing the refillable pine-scented car freshener still giving off its wonderful fragrance mixed with new-car smell. Christmas was only a few short days away and it was time to start shopping for my feast.

When I returned from spin class, Mitchell was lounging on the couch eating Chinese takeout food. His feet were on the coffee table and his tie was slung around his unbuttoned collar as to say, I’ve had a fuck of a day.

How did your showing go?

He pushed some Chicken Lo Mein across the table without answering.

That well, huh?

I didn’t receive a phone call from the buyer until I was already there. Their plane was delayed by the weather. They won’t be here until tomorrow, he barked.

Was this the princess? Doesn’t she have her own royal jet that leaps snowstorms in a single bound?

Apparently not. Crazy dog-lady, Mitchell mumbled.

Excuse me? I’ve heard of crazy cat lady’s, Callie for one, but crazy dog lady?

She shows dogs professionally. They’re her life. She even has a special brooch she wears made of diamonds to resemble one of her Great Danes. Mitchell talked into his noodles.

That’s absurd. I’m sorry you had to go out there for her, I said, smelling the Chinese grease and beginning to salivate. I should wait to eat this until after I shower, I smell like a beast.

Screw it. If you’re hungry, just eat, he said, tossing some chopsticks across the table. They did a tap, tap and roll, stopping right at my fingertips.

If you insist, I said. I leaned back on the sofa plucking some noodles and chicken out of the container.

Your calendar is cleared for Saturday, right? Late dinner for my birthday, Josie’s big show. Speaking of princesses, how about our daughter playing one? I asked, practically singing the prideful words into my Lo Mein.

Like I’d ever in my life forget two such monumental events for the most important women in my life. Now what’s this about a princess? Mitchell mused, cocking his eyebrow up on one side.

Mitchell, your daughter has the lead role in Swan Lake, I said. I threw a fortune cookie at his head.

I knew that! he said. He dodged the cookie, letting it land in the crease of the cushion.

The role is for Princess Odette, the swan princess.

"Oh, well, I didn’t know her name. Hopefully, this princess shows up," he griped.

Oh, she’ll show, I scolded. How dare he make such a thoughtless remark?

Well, then I better roll out the red carpet for both my gals, one for your birthday and one for Josie’s lead, Mitchell backpedaled, sensing he’d made an error, but clearly not knowing how. My girlfriends and I called it, The Clueless Man Shuffle.

Oh, I’m just turning forty-three, ugh, on second thought, let’s not celebrate my birthday. Your daughter is the one we should be celebrating. Seventeen year-olds don’t happen upon leads in The New York City ballet, Mitchell. This is a career maker.

Or breaker. Mitchell slurped his noodles, the brown juice sloshing on his dress shirt, irking me even more than his comment.

I smacked his sweaty foot with my bejeweled tassel pillow, an extra prop from my Renaissance-obsessed client. The heavy burgundy ball knocked harshly on the knuckle of Mitchell’s big toe.

Ouch, hey! What’s with the hitting? He jumped, nearly spilling his entire dinner.

Sorry, but don’t breathe those words, I said.

Cece, it’s a lot of pressure. Josie doesn’t handle pressure well. Remember the mason jars in the backyard? And that was high school, he lectured.

Mitchell still hadn’t adjusted to losing his daughter two years earlier than he’d expected. He’d commented repeatedly—I thought I had a couple more years with her. So did I, but her future had carved its own path. Julliard only accepted twelve female dancers into their program every year, and Josie had been admitted at the earliest possible age. Who was I to be the one to hold her back? I didn’t like the fact she had acquired city housing at age sixteen, but we’d tried commuting and it just didn’t work for anyone. She needed to be closer to her school, to her studio, to her new life. My worry didn’t stem from a fear of her getting into trouble with the other kids, or going out into the city alone. It was her complete isolation worrying me lately.

She acted so strangely today in church, Cece. I just don’t know if all of this added pressure is a good idea for her, with her mental state and all, he complained. I knew he wanted his baby girl back in our house again, and this was his way of working it out, but the repeat conversation was tiresome.

She swears she isn’t throwing up again, I argued.

Well then, what’s the problem? She’s so distant. I couldn’t even get her to look at me this morning. And during breakfast she just pushed her fruit around on her plate like she was trying to organize a strawberry and cantaloupe montage with her fork. It was eerie, like she wasn’t even there.

She was probably thinking about her upcoming performance, not food. It’s a very big deal, Mitchell. This could be the biggest show of her life.

I realize her upcoming performance could be troubling her. But she still wasn’t herself.

I know, I know, I said, sighing. And I did know something was disturbingly off with my daughter. I suspected she was vomiting again, but she didn’t live under my roof anymore, so I couldn’t monitor her like before. My inner control freak was an utter mess when I thought of Josie.

Your nightmares aren’t easing my mind either. You had one again last night, you know? he questioned.

I nodded and ignored him. I’d started having nightmares of Josie being snatched away in the middle of the night by a man. He was always on fire. The dreams were terrifying and I didn’t know how to stop them.

I know, I’m sorry.

What’re you going to do about her, Cece? Mitchell questioned me, still not letting it die.

Mitchell expected everything to be done the minute he asked, but what he didn’t understand was calling Josie at this hour was not the best way to communicate with her. She’d probably be asleep, or at least exhausted, which would only make her more irritable when I questioned her.

My concern for my daughter was urgent, but I had a set agenda of what I was going to discuss with her tomorrow. Timing was everything when dealing with teenagers, and if Mitchell had cared to do any of the hard parenting he’d know this. Now, if he would only let it breathe overnight so I could get my carefully planned words out in the morning.

I’ll call her after my appointment in Alpine tomorrow. It could be a huge job. They want someone to decorate their entire twenty-thousand square foot home, I beamed.

No way, that’s great. Who’s your competition? What kind of money is it good for? I had Mitchell’s full attention now. The subject of dollars could distract him like no other topic, and lately I’d been making lots of them.

Well, I charge by the hour, and I’d say it’s about eight bedrooms and nine and half-bathrooms of somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand dollars.

Get out of town. You could charge that much?

It’s a new-build without a speck of paint on the walls. It’ll take me months just to get the layout down and they want a top to bottom design, I reveled, shaking my head at the dream job.

Well, who’s up for bids? Mitchell asked, sitting upright now, leaning in with interest.

All the usuals—Kleimer & Company, Judy Stucco, Lamberts. I sighed at all the competitors who’d pulled the rug out from under me the last few years. There weren’t a lot of top designers, but they held the bulk of the share, especially in the luxury market.

Those stodgy fucks. Don’t know why people go with them over you.

They always throw out the degree card, as if a diploma gives them any better advantage over what paint color works with what carpet choice. I sighed.

Well, call me and let me know how it goes.

You betcha, babe.

All this talk of green is making me hot. Why don’t you go wash that fine body of yours and we can make it rain upstairs, Mitchell said with a playful grin.

Money did two things to Mitchell. It made him distracted and it made him horny. It seemed every time I acquired a new assignment, he was getting on his knees begging me for some. The tables had definitely turned.

***

On Christmas day when I’d tried to concentrate on my dinner menu, thoughts of Katelyn in a mental institution spoiled my cranberry sauce.

All I imagined as we sat around the table for our holiday feast was how she was sitting down to eat all alone, dreading the new year, probably being fed a slimy meal on a tray from a cafeteria employee who didn’t want to be at work. There’d be no love mixed in with her meal.

My wine glass had been filled to the top. Mitchell helped me serve the carved ham and green beans almandine because I was feeling too tipsy to do it myself.

Why do you keep filling your wine glass up so full? Right here should be the cutoff line, Mitchell laughed, pointing to the halfway mark on the crystal.

Because it’s Christmas, I answered.

It was a very full portion of cabernet, and I couldn’t drink enough of it tonight. Truths were threatening to lap over like the brimming wine in my Mikasa glass. That was the thing about keeping a horrible secret. The blood I’d spilt kept sloshing to the surface like the smooth, cool legs of my wine, swirling at the crest and then falling back down again in purplish streaks as I took some off the top. But the more I drank, the more I kept filling, and pretty soon I feared the secrets would spill over the sides, leaving a crimson mess. And I didn’t like messes.

The day after Christmas, the shame was riding me hard, especially since I’d thrown Katelyn’s first year of letters away in the garbage without reading them. She’d tried to reach out to Mitchell, but she had to have known I’d get the mail before him. Did she really think I’d let him read her letters?

Fear kept me from opening them, as I suspected she knew I was the one who’d framed her. And the thought of her holed up in some sterile white room in pants with no drawstrings, a clothing accessory normal to most panted people, but a safety hazard for the imprisoned, unnerved me. She was probably sharpening her fingernails right now, imagining how she was going to tell Mitchell the truth and slit my neck with her talons in the process. That’s what I’d be doing if I were her.

Mitchell’s real estate office had been told to discard any packages addressed from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility from their former incarcerated employee. She’d been officially cut off from him.

So, maybe it was the reason I’d sent her a Christmas card of the whole Laramie family. More of an olive branch, so she’d stop sending the bad juju into my life that was robbing me of my sleep.

The only thing the card said was—I hope you’re doing well. The entire family was smiling in beach attire from our new summer home we’d purchased at the Jersey Shore. Part of me really did hope she was fairing well—as well as could be expected for someone relegated to prison life. I also hoped she was allowed to wear another color besides orange. It was not a complimentary color with her hair.

The other half of me, the scorned wife who’d been betrayed, wanted her to see how happy we were at our summer cottage. The summer home located only a few miles from our house in Montclair. I wanted her to see how much better this picture looked than the one she had fantasized about in her cottage. And then maybe, just maybe, she would realize she was truly the one in the wrong for trying to fuck with this loveliness.

But I felt nothing but dread since I’d dropped the Christmas-tree-stamped envelope into the mailbox. My sleeplessness increased, my belly eating itself away, my concentration in a constant state of attention deficit. Everyday, I feared I was losing it again, so I still popped pills to thwart off migraines, even though I hadn’t had one in years.

Chapter 2

Katelyn—Brake Fluid and Bug Juice

The smell of her own breath woke her up each and every morning. Her eyes would open right before the nurse’s station alarm went off, indicating it was time for her morning medication—her brake fluid as the other inmates called it.

The high-security, single room was musty from being sealed shut, the air re-circulated and dry. It was like being stuck on an airplane she couldn’t get off. And it always seemed the odor and swirl of stank through her room reached its worst after eight hours or so of complete containment.

The room was all white. There were no bright cheery pictures on the wall or curtains framing her one and only window. The window was a block form, which wasn’t transparent to the naked eye. Flecks of light danced like foreign shapes on its crinkled glass; a big tease for what really lie outside. Beyond the inflections of dimpled plexi were four steel bars, reminding her everyday of where she really was—prison.

Katelyn stared at the light most days, locked in there all by herself. She knew from her guided walkthrough of the floor, known as the Therapeutic Behavior Unit, she was in one of sixteen rooms in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The TBU was their nice way of saying, The Nut House. Although, Lord knew from the daily influx of patients streaming in everyday from the other nine hundred units, the TBU wasn’t the only place to find the mentally unfit in this joint. And Katelyn knew she’d been there about two years and nine months too long, but something kept her from voicing her opinion to the staff.

It may have been the whoop and holler of the other inmates, cussing each other out with their street lingo in a language Katelyn couldn’t seem to understand, and one in which she clearly didn’t speak. When the guards forced her to walk through the green space, the other women’s voices sounded like white noise in a wind tunnel. But it wasn’t the whistle of the wind she was hearing, it was a nonsensical verbiage she couldn’t comprehend.

Bitch, you better step off. Don’t make me go three knee deep.

Step off what, she’d wondered? Is she asking her to step three knee lengths away?

Katelyn heard on more than one occasion, She spent time on the river, don’t give her beef.

Okay, so beef meant trouble, but what river?

Katelyn would later learn on the river referred to a max-max security prison in Louisiana, surrounded by the Mississippi River on three sides, a big—screw-you-don’t-even-try-to-escape clause, earning the prisoner a big badge of Don’t-fuck-with-me upon release. It was like those famed t-shirts that read—I climbed Mt. Everest, only this one would say—I did 20 years on the river and I’m a badass.

If someone got you three knee deep, Katelyn came to learn it meant the other inmate had stabbed you badly enough to make you want to die, but not severely enough to actually make you perish. Nice place she lived in.

The ethnic rainbow of colors passed Katelyn daily in the courtyard, the picture of them moving slightly out of focus, their voices like the squabbles of a television she’d left on three rooms away on a station she’d never watched. In this movie, she pretended she was already dead as a means of camouflaged survival. No one was going to mess with the deranged psych patient from TBU.

Another reason Katelyn let herself rot away in Room T15 was because of the little orange pill they’d made her take twice a day. As the effects of the antipsychotic wore off, and she started to reclaim her senses, they’d give her another, and she’d keep floating on by without a care in the world. Her brain was a balloon kept afloat by something other than helium, and every time she got low, they’d fill her back up and she’d drift along until the next day.

The main reason Katelyn remained in the special unit for so long was because of one woman, Director of Psychiatric Services—Roberta Patterson. Every Sunday after church Roberta would drop by Katelyn’s room and personally shove a two hundred mg tablet of Thorazine down her throat. She’d preach a different story each week about her precious fallen angel, Tobias Patterson. It was either a tale from his childhood, where he’d graciously given of himself to help another or one from his adult role as a hard-working financial investor, husband and father to his two sons.

Roberta, known on the floor as Bertie, was a robust African American woman who waved her finger in Katelyn’s face when she was trying to teach her something and used her hands to talk when she wasn’t. Bertie was always trying to teach Katelyn a lesson—by making her consume obscene doses of a medication she didn’t need and forcing her to listen to her pitiful stories.

Bertie seemed to find redemption for the loss of her son through punishing Katelyn. It was clear to Katelyn there was never a person who hated her more than Roberta Patterson, not even Cecelia Laramie. Because when Katelyn looked at her, to Bertie, Katelyn was every reason Tobias wasn’t there. And if she could keep Katelyn in an awful state, punish her, give her twenty times the recommended dose for someone with her supposed condition—borderline schizophrenia, then somehow Katelyn gathered Bertie was honoring his memory. Somehow Bertie had reclaimed a piece of him, brought justice to his sweet wife, made her grandsons proud, by punishing her.

Because on the day Tobias died, two grand towers fell in New York City. Tobias was in the north tower, the first one to be hit, the second to go down, and he never had a chance to say goodbye. They’d taken him away from Roberta and his family. The horrible, soulless people who made those towers crumble and burn to the ground were terrorists. And Katelyn was the first terrorist who had ever been placed at Bedford Hills Correctional facility. So, she was Roberta Patterson’s very special pet project.

Katelyn had observed other counselors attempt to intervene and consult on her file because of the length of time she’d been held in TBU, but Bertie thwarted their attempts, saying Katelyn was a special case who was only responsive to her. After a while, Katelyn actually believed Bertie’s accusations, refusing to let anyone else at the facility counsel Katelyn except her, which only validated Bertie’s claims more.

Bertie kept her loaded up on Thorazine and Katelyn took it every day like a good little girl, allowing Bertie to keep her in emotional purgatory; trapped in a body which still had its senses, but rendered powerless against them.

****

The distinct chiming of the bells meant it was time for TBU’s weekly social activity hour. Wouldn’t want the crazies to lose their social skills. In her group of sixteen, Katelyn wasn’t surprised to see Carlene back in the circle. Carlene was a pyromaniac who frequented TBU after starting four fires in her two and half years at Bedford. It was pretty impressive to Katelyn considering the prisoners were locked down most of the time. This week’s activity was Win, Lose or Draw. Christy, a young occupational therapist in her early twenties, enthusiastically began drawing a picture of a house.

"Ohh, ohh." Carlene screamed, throwing her orange-sleeved arm up in the air.

Yes, Carlene.

"Fire." she screamed.

No, no. It’s not fire. Let’s see if anyone else can get it, Christy said.

To Carlene it was always fire. Every time they played, for every picture drawn, the answer was—fire. The last fire Carlene started was rumored to be pretty impressive. She’d hunkered down in the green space after finding a few twigs, which had fallen and skittered under the chain link fence. She rubbed the sticks together, caveman style, until she got some sparks and started a little blaze. Damn girl could be a pro at Survivor. They caught her before she was able to spread her hard-earned love and tossed her back in TBU.

Christy drew a door, windows, and a chimney before Kiara, a black girl with a spitfire attitude, yelled out, "House, bitch."

Language, Kiara, Christy chided, but, yes, you’re right, Christy verified, flipping her long blonde ponytail as she enthusiastically nodded her head, and wrote House in big bold letters on the dry-erase board.

Next, Christy began to draw a boat. Katelyn could clearly tell before Christy even drew the steering wheel or the propeller it was a boat, but her lips felt numb and frozen to her face. She could hear the words jumble in her head, but saying things out loud was such a struggle, like she always had cotton balls stuffed inside her mouth, making it hard to form sounds, leaving her mouth and lips in a state of perpetual dryness.

Christy made some waves next.

"Ohh, ohh." Carlene yelled again, slicing her skinny arm through the air like a schoolyard kid who needed to use the restroom.

Yes, Carlene.

"Fire."

No, it’s not fire. Does anyone besides Carlene and Kiara want to try? Christy asked, trying to drum up enthusiasm for her game.

You still here, Red? Kiara whispered to Katelyn. Kiara liked to call Katelyn Red because of her hair. Even though, the facility had chopped it all off, leaving it sit in clumps of ratty curls and knots on her head like the matted weaves in an old, frayed kitchen rug.

Yeah, she mumbled back.

You might want to tell them to chill on the brake fluid. You trippin.’ Been here too long. Something ain’t right, Kiara whispered back.

It’s Bertie. Katelyn barely mouthed back. It took so much effort. Katelyn didn’t know what made her confide in Kiara, but she also didn’t think anyone had actually asked her the question before—why was she in this unit so long?

No way, girl. Bertie ain’t no bug.

A bug was slang for a prison staff member considered untrustworthy. Katelyn nodded her head at Kiara as if to say, Oh yes she is!

You talkin’ crazy now, Red.

Katelyn nodded, it was