Orange Is the New Black

situation with some discretion. She began her time in the Camp almost demurely, with no histrionics. Several other women had come up from the FCI with her, including a startlingly beautiful young woman named Wainwright who was her bosom buddy—they both sang in the church choir. Wainwright was petite, with green cateyes, an enigmatic smile, and a college education—most of the other black women worshipped her on sight. They were a visually hilarious pair, similar-looking in theory and yet so dramatically different.
    For their first several weeks in the Camp they hung together most of the time. Vanessa was friendly if approached but more reserved than her reputation and appearance would suggest. She went to work in the kitchen. “
He
can’t cook,” scoffed Pop, who fell into the “disgusted” category and was disinclined to be kind, although there was some truth in her culinary assessment. There was a ketchup-in-the-marinara-sauce episode that had the whole Camp up in arms. Pop hissed into my ear who the culprit was, but I kept it to myself.
    I liked Vanessa. Which was a good thing, because she moved in next door to me. She and Wainwright managed to finesse the housing assignments they wanted. Wainwright bunked with Lionnel, from the warehouse, who was the voice of reason/discipline when it came to unruly young black women. (“Girl, you better get some act-right, or I’m going to bust your head to the white meat!”) And Vanessa moved in next door to me with Faith, a steel-haired Oxy-dealing granny who was straight out of the New Hampshire woods and had come up from the FCI with Vanessa and Wainwright. They got along great. Vanessa’s arrival in B Dorm evoked some eye-rolling from Miss Natalie, but she was more tolerant than her friend Ginger Solomon, who demanded, “Is that what you want to see in the bathroom, Miss Piper? Well, is it?!” I meekly pointed out that Vanessa was post-op, but no, I wasn’t necessarily looking for a free show.
    Free shows were available. As Vanessa settled in, she got more boisterous, and she was thrilled to display her surgical glory at the merest suggestion. Soon half the Camp had seen what she’d got. Her D-cup breasts were her pride and joy, and given our height difference they were often the first things I saw in the morning. She was certainly better looking than many of the prisoners who had been born to our gender, but close quarters revealed some of her more masculine qualities. Her pits were positively bushy—she said that if she couldn’t wax them, then fuck it—and in the hot, close quarters ofB Dorm in the summer, she smelled unmistakably like a sweaty man. Vanessa was deprived of her hormones in prison and thus retained several male characteristics that would have been less evident otherwise, most notably her voice. While she spoke in a high, little-girl voice most of the time, she could switch at will to a booming, masculine Richard-voice. She loved to sneak up behind people and scare the crap out of them this way, and she was very effective at quieting a noisy dining hall, roaring, “Y’all hush up!” Best of all were her Richardian encouragements on the softball field, where she was a most sought-after teammate. That bitch could hit.
    Vanessa was an entertaining and considerate neighbor, cheerful and drag-queen funny, smart and observant and sensitive to what others were thinking and feeling. She was quick to pull out her scrapbook and share photos and stories of the men whose hearts she had broken, cutting up to make the time pass. (“This is the program from the Miss Gay Black America pageant—I was third runner-up!”) All the born-female aspiring divas (most of whom lived in B Dorm) immediately recognized that here was a master at whose feet they could learn. And Vanessa was a good influence on the young girls who flocked around her. She admonished them gently when they were behaving badly, and exhorted them to educate themselves, get with God, and love themselves.
    She had just one ritual that was hard to take. Every evening when she was finished with work in the kitchen, Vanessa would return to her cube, climb up in her bed, and bring out a contraband tape player, obtained somehow through the chapel. Her absolute favorite gospel song, detailing the fact that Jesus was loving, forgiving, and helping us to take every step, would soar over the cube walls, and Vanessa’s voice would soar with it. This was when the need for her hormones really