"I know." He sets his coffee on the fence post. "And you've got every right to be angry. But she's coming whether you likeit or not and you've got two months of her. You can spend it punishing her or you can spend it getting some work out of her."
I don't answer. I've watched the security footage over and over and the fact is, she didn't hesitate. That's the thing that stays with me. She sat in that car and she saw what she'd done and she reversed.
"Assuming she's not going to be very competent with DIY," I finally say, "I'll have her muck out the pens. Scrub the water troughs. Haul feed. And she can help you with repairing the fence line too."
"Sure."
"And she can scrub the algae out of the horse trough — the big one, the one you have to climb inside."
"Maggie—"
"And the gutters on the barn are blocked. And someone needs to repaint the sanctuary sign by the road that’s peeling."
Luis sips his coffee. "That's not a work plan. That's a revenge list."
"Exactly. Sloane Archer gets what she deserves." I wipe the sweat off my brow. It's barely eight and it's already warm.
This is the heat Sloane Archer will be working in. With no Starbucks. This is Duster and the closest thing we have is the tank of burnt coffee at the diner that Ruthie brews at five in the morning and keeps going.
"Come on," I say. "Help me move the hay delivery before it gets any hotter."
The feed store is around the back of the goat barn — a corrugated iron building that turns into an oven by midday. The delivery came yesterday afternoon and I left it on the pallet because I couldn't shift fifteen bales on my own. Luis and I have done this enough times that we don't need to talk about it. He takes one end, I take the other, and we stack them against the back wall in rows of five. Each bale weighs about fifty poundsand by the tenth one my shoulders are burning and my shirt is stuck to my back.
This is the thing people don't understand when they ask if I ever get tired of it. Of course I get tired. I'm exhausted most of the time. But tired isn't the same as unhappy. People sit in offices under air conditioning and count the hours until Friday. I've never sat here watching the sun come up and wished I was somewhere else. I've never driven home from the feed store and thought, I should have taken that office job in Fresno. This place is hard work and no money and fifty-pound hay bales in the heat, but it's mine, and I love it.
Poor Luis pretends he's fine but I know he's getting too old for this now. Running a sanctuary in a place like Duster is a challenge. Finding people who care about animals isn't hard. But finding people who care about animals and can physically do the work and live close enough to show up regularly — that's almost impossible. Most of my volunteers over the years have been retirees like Luis. Good people with big hearts and bad backs. They do what they can, but what they can do is shrinking every year.
Luis is the most reliable person in my life but it won't be long until it gets too tough for him and I have no idea what I'll do when that happens.
"I wonder how Princess Pigpen's going to handle this," he says. We drop a bale onto the stack and he straightens up with a grunt. "She's going to last about three of these before she passes out."
I laugh and wipe my hands on my shorts. "Then maybe she'll learn to drink water instead of champagne."
5
SLOANE
Istand in the reception area where I came in four days ago and turn on my phone. It takes a moment to wake up and then the notifications start. Texts, missed calls, voicemails, news alerts, Instagram — the screen fills faster than I can read it. Most of it is about the sentencing. Headlines with my name in them. Messages from friends that start with Oh my god and messages from acquaintances that start with just checking in which really means I want details. I catch fragments — community service and Princess Pigpen. Then a text from my friend Sita with a string of emojis and Sooo how's jail lol.
I stare at it. How's jail. Did she really think I was allowed to have my phone with me? She probably pictured house arrest — an ankle bracelet and Netflix on the couch. She has no idea about the strip search or the vinyl mattress or the woman taping my picture to the wall or the toilets with no doors or lying awake at 3am while someone cries and the lights never go off.
Or the fight that broke out over a bag of chips from the commissary that ended with three deputies and a lockdown. Or the fact that I watched a woman shave her legs with a disposablerazor and no water and hand it to the next woman in line like it was nothing.
Or Tammy, the thin, toothless woman who talked at me every waking minute. Every time I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, she'd kick the side of my bunk and say "I know you're awake, Pigpen" until I gave up and answered whatever she wanted to know, which was everything, from whether rich people really had toilets that wash your ass for you to whether I knew anyone who could get her smack, because her usual guy had gone to state prison and she was going to need a new contact by Thursday.
I'm not ready for any of this, so I turn the phone off again and push the door open. The heat and the light hit me at the same time. Then the voices.
"Sloane! Over here!"
"Princess Pigpen! How was jail?"
"Sloane, any comment?"
There are photographers and a woman with a microphone and a few people holding phones, filming me. I haven't slept properly in four days, my hair is flat, my skin is dry, and I'm squinting into the sun in a wrinkled T-shirt. This is the photo that will be everywhere by lunchtime.
My father's Mercedes is in the parking lot. Black, tinted windows, engine running. I put my head down and walk. They follow me, shouting my name.
I quickly pull open the passenger door, get in, and slam it shut.
