Left for Garbage

how it would have gone down: mornings in the kitchen and Mom oh-so-kindly handing me the newspaper with the want ads pre-circled for my convenience. Dad hanging around all day before heading off to his impressive career as car wash security man while managing to find the time to lecture me on the joys of employment as he hunts for his flashlight.
    Still , I wish I had confessed about not working there anymore before actually getting to the studio, though, because I guess that made me look kinda bad. Oh God, that was way embarrassing. Here I am walking down this long hall with these officers following me, and I’m thinking what door should I stop at to pretend it’s my office? I couldn’t randomly pick one. That wouldn’t have worked. Sometimes you can say what you want and it comes out okay, and other times it doesn’t, and that was one of those times.
    I knew at some point I’d have to turn around, but I just kept walking. It’s pretty comical, if you think about it, because I really did feel like I worked there, so I was kind of hoping as if magically my office would appear. By then I could actually picture the pile of papers on my desk and a framed photo of Deeley in a gold frame. There would be an old Starbucks cup, half-filled with cold coffee, and one of my jackets from last winter, and I would tell them how I kept forgetting that I needed to take it to the dry cleaners.
    Instead , it turned out to be the weirdest walk of my life and I’ve wondered, if I had walked just a little further down that hall and led them into the nice conference room where we ended up anyway when we sat down to talk, could I have gotten out of that situation maybe if I’d known there was a conference room? A few more steps and we would’ve been in it. I might’ve been able to pull it off and now everybody, including Aaron, would’ve just thought I got fired because I was put in jail. But maybe it wouldn’t have worked, either, because they put me in here for more reasons than one.
    No sense in dwelling now on things that already happened, things that anybody out there would understand has nothing to do with what’s really going on. But it would’ve been nice to not have that embarrassing moment, which probably complicated the more radical parts of this travesty of justice. Turning around to face the police, well, it was hard; I’m not going to lie and say otherwise. Anyway we were there, I was trapped, so I just took a deep breath, turned around in the hall, and told them, straight-up, “I lied. I really don’t work here.”
    I could tell from their faces , though, that they had already realized it, because one of them cracked a smile, and whenever I look back on it, I have to work really hard not to get pissed. I mean that whole exercise was just a set-up to make me look terrible. But still, I think they respected me for having the guts to tell them the truth straight out like I did.
    They would have understood from the conviction in my voice that obviously I meant to cooperate with them from that point on. Having a pretty face, let’s be honest, doesn’t hurt after you’ve been cornered , and I know they were noticing and appreciating my appearance. Not that they’ll ever admit it in court, of course. Sure, they’ve charged me with lying and obstructing justice, but I know, and they know, I was willing to cooperate despite what they’re saying about me.
    I’m also charged with child neglect but they have no ev idence of any such thing. I was … am … a good mother, and the only reason my bail is so high is because of that inflammatory bullshit charge. My outrageous bail would never be so high if my stupid mother hadn’t gone and said my car smells like a dead body. That’s why I’m here, not because I took the cops on a wild goose chase to Universal. She comes here and presses for information where I can’t say anything that isn’t recorded. She’s a real brain trust, old Mom. Now that I’m here, they’ve screwed themselves because I can’t say anything to help anyone find Deeley, not while I’m kept in this rotten place. All of my conversations with Mom and Dad and Seel during their visits are recorded and taped, which I feel is an invasion of privacy and does not afford me the ability to be honest at this point, which is not my fault.
    What I think should be against the law most of all is them being able to record my phone calls to the outside. We have to call out collect. It’s the only way