Orange Is the New Black

us.
    “You ladies need anything up there?” one of them asked one day as we were being herded onto the elevator.
    “More fruit!” I shouted.
    “I’m gonna send you some bananas, Blondie!”
    I COULD barely contain myself when I got the news that Larry was going to visit me. It took all my self-restraint not to climb up onto one of the unit tables and pound my chest and scream. But the most dangerous thing in prison—jealousy—was not something I wanted to tangle with right now. So I kept it on the down-low. Plus, I was growing skeptical that anything would ever go right for me again.
    On the Saturday he was supposed to come from New York, I took a hot shower. Another prisoner had tipped me off that there was one window of time in the morning when for some reason we could get hot water. My wet hair hung down my back—no hair dryers in the MCC. I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the metal plate that was bolted over the sinks in lieu of a mirror. It was probably for the best that I couldn’t really see what I looked like. I noted the pencil scrapings on the wall, where other prisoners had made makeshift eyeliner by mixing the lead powder and Vaseline. I didn’t have that kind of skill.
    Visiting hours were very short in Chicago. I sat nervously watching the clock. The Jansen sisters sat nervously watching me. “He’ll be here,” they assured me. It was sort of touching how invested in his visit they were, how they had started to talk about Larry as if they knew him. I felt bad that Hester/Anne’s husband was not able to come visit her in Chicago—he lived not far from the prison where she was serving her seven-year sentence.
    After over an hour of the visiting time had elapsed, I was beside myself. I knew what was happening. The morons who ran the MCC had turned him away. I was sure of it—these people were completely incompetent in every way I had observed so far; why on earth would visitation be any different? I was beaten and furious, a horrible combination.
    And then the security door opened, and a CO walked in and conferred with the CO on duty in the unit. “Kerman!”
    I bolted across the room.
    When I finally got into the big, dirty visiting room, I felt calmer. There were a lot of prisoners with their families in there, and at first I didn’t see Larry, but when I did, I felt faint. I hugged him, and he looked a little faint too.
    “You wouldn’t believe what they put me through. These people are just unreal!” he almost shouted. We sat where we were told, facing each other on molded plastic chairs. I felt truly calm for the first time since I left Danbury.
    The remaining hour flew by. We talked about how on earth I was going to get home, what was going to happen. “We’ll figure it out, babe,” he soothed me, squeezing my hand.
    When the guards called “time,” I wanted to cry. After I kissed Larry goodbye, I practically backed out of the room so I could see him as long as possible. And then I was being herded into a room with a handful of female prisoners. Everyone had the postvisit glow of happiness, and they all looked a lot better for it.
    “Piper, you had a visit?” someone asked.
    “Yeah, my fiancé came to see me.” I grinned like a fool.
    “He came all the way from New York to see you? Wow!” It was as if he had come from the moon.
    I just nodded. I didn’t want to be boastful of my great fortune to have a man like Larry.
    I HAD been hearing about the roof since I got to the MCC. Apparently there was a recreation area up on the top of the building, and when the weather was agreeable, an officer might bring us up there. I had been indoors for weeks now; I was dreaming about the track and the lake at Danbury every night. Finally one day it was announced that we could sign up for roof time. As many women crammed into the elevator as could fit. At the top there were nylon coats we could throw on, and then we were out, high in the sky,albeit caged under razor and chicken wire. There were a couple of basketball hoops up there, and the temperature was in the forties. I immediately got hiccups from the oxygen differential and just breathed as deeply as I could. The roof reflected the building’s triangular footprint, and you could see far in every direction. In one direction were railway yard tracks. A nearby building had a fabulous art deco statue at its pinnacle. And to the southeast I could see the lake.
    I walked to the south side of the rec deck, which was