Left for Garbage

hadn’t picked Palm Beach, so everyone was still in Orlando, which was something that pleased Denise in a selfish, sour way. The thought of Salvatore, not to mention her parents, getting to stay at the Breakers , or somewhere like it, in Palm Beach would have sent her even further into the spiraling depression and self-pity she was drowning in these days.
    It also turned out that the ugly bitch back at Orange had been right; the jail at Pinellas was a hole as bad as Orange had been. It was even worse, actually, because here at Pinellas she didn’t know any of the guards or inmates, so all the ground she had gained back at Orange was lost along with the money in her commissary account which they had somehow ‘forgotten to transfer’.
    Like b ack at Orange, Denise was in level-one protective custody because neither jail wanted her murdered by some freak of an inmate who felt like getting famous by killing Fibber McMom, so she had been booked into the health unit here at Pinellas. The jail was about a tenth of the size of Orange, and there was no computer room, and she was only allowed into the day room for an hour each day while everyone else was in the attached dining room. Another difference was that this jail was so small there was no way to flirt privately with a guard to get him on her side, like at Orange. When in the dayroom, she didn’t even want to bother turning on the TV. She was bored out of her skull and sick of watching herself on television, since all they did was mock her and make snide comments about her looks.
    Yesterday, Denise had overheard some sad sack bitch whining on and on and on about how she shouldn’t be there. Denise rolled her eyes, thinking of what Salvatore had once told her: No one in jail or prison was ever guilty, at least in their own minds. Denise had laughed with him, knowing he didn’t mean her, of course. Anyway, he was right.
    Nearly three years of being locked up and Denise hadn’t heard one woman yet take responsibility for ending up in jail. Denise guessed that it wa s probably more of the same in State Prison, but she had stopped herself from thinking anymore on that. She was not going to end up in prison. Salvatore had promised her, or almost, anyway. Then suddenly he’d changed, and because of him, she’d had to say new things, and now she worried. Would her parents do the right thing and back her, or would they act like the selfish assholes they were and let her rot in here?
    Lately, Salvatore had been quieter , and it seemed every time he came, which wasn’t as often now due to the long drive to her new digs, he brought some huge depressing pile of papers he expected her to read and comment on. This new practice of Salvatore’s enraged Denise almost as much as it scared her. After more than two years of him telling her they had enough reasonable doubt for ten mistrials, let alone the twelve ‘dumb as fuck’ jurors he would seat, she had also heard him say many times, “If it even goes to a trial …”
    Well , that ‘if’ was no longer an option. Trial was certain to begin within weeks, and Salvatore had started acting like everything was super-serious, all life and death, as a matter of fact. That was the exact thing he’d said during his morning visit three days ago - it was a matter of life and death .
    “The S tate wants you to die, Denise. Don’t you get that they want to kill you? Why the fuck do you think I brought Penelope Bledsoe onto our team? She’s a death penalty advocate, Denise. This is the big time. Look at this shit the prosecution’s throwing at us. You fucking look at it!” he’d shouted when Denise had disdainfully turned her head away from his latest pile of boring papers.
    Denise had glared back at him through narrowed eyes and swept her hand across the small table in the visiting room, knocking his stupid papers onto the floor where they fanned out across the room.
    Salvatore’s eyes followed the papers, incredulously, before nodding at her. “Okay, Denise. Was that to remind me that you think you’re a fucking two year old, that you’re just a teeny wittle girl, so how can you be expected …? No,” he said shaking his head in anger, “how dare I expect you to act like the grown woman the rest of the world thinks you are, that the State thinks you are, and that the jurors, who have the ability to kill you, will think you are.” Before Denise could answer, Salvatore got up from his chair and knelt on the floor to