"Yes," I say. "Absolutely. No drama. I promise."
"Good." Then she opens the folder again. "Actually, since I'm out here anyway, and I drove forty minutes to sit in —" she glances around the room "— this, we might as well knock out your exit interview while I've got you. Save us both another trip as you've only got ten days left."
"My exit interview?"
"Yeah. It's a formality, mostly. Saves the last day being a scramble. I run through it now, I file what I can in advance, and on your final day Ms. Dawson signs off your hours, you sign the completion form, and you're done. Free woman." She uncaps the pen again. "Fifteen minutes and you'll never have to see me again, which I imagine is the part you're most looking forward to."
"I don't know," I say. "You've grown on me."
She gives me a flat look and gets started.
The first part is logistics, and it's easy. She confirms the hours — I'm on track, I'll have the full amount by Friday, plus the two extra days I owe for being late on the very first morning, which she reads out without comment and which makes me wince all over again. She confirms the restitution's been paid, the twenty thousand, cleared weeks ago. She confirms I've completed the jail time. She asks whether I've been driving and I tell her no, not once, I've been getting the bus and rides.
"It's suspended for another twenty months after your service ends," she says. "Service finishing doesn't reinstate your license — that's a separate process with a separate timeline. You apply, there's a fee, possibly a test. Until then, you don't drive. A second DUI on a suspended license is bad." She looks at me over the folder. "Do you understand that part? Because people get to the end of their service and think they're free and clear and they're not."
"I understand. No driving until it's reinstated. Got it."
"And you'll be on informal probation for the next five years. That just means you stay out of trouble. If you reoffend during that window, the court takes a much dimmer view, and the consequences stack." She makes a note. "Clear?"
"Clear."
"Good." She turns a page. "Okay. The rest of this is the part where I ask you how it went. There's no wrong answer and I'm not grading you, but I do have to write something, and 'completed her hours' isn't really the point of the exercise."
"What is the point of the exercise?"
"Whether you're walking out of this the same person who walked in, or a different one. The whole idea of community service — the theory of it, anyway, when a judge bothers — is that it's supposed to teach people a lesson. So." She folds her hands. "Did it?"
I sigh and look up at the ceiling stain again. "Yeah," I say. "It changed me."
Reeves waits.
"When I got here I thought it was the end of my life. Honestly. I thought Duster was a punishment and the work was a punishment and the whole thing was something to survive and get through and then forget about." I pick at the bedspread. "And the work is hard. It's brutal, some days, in the heat. But at some point it stopped being something I was enduring and started —"I stop, because I don't have a word for it. "I'm good at things now. I feel competent, and I didn't know I had that in me."
I'm starting to feel emotional and try not to let it take over from what I'm trying to say.
"The thing I did," I continue. "I think about it a lot now. Dolly — one of the pigs, the old one, she's practically blind — she was on the highway after I crashed through the wall. She could have died because I was drunk and feeling sorry for myself." My throat goes tight. "I didn't even think about that, at the time. I thought about my license and my reputation and getting home, so I drove away. And now I love Dolly. I love that pig. I talk to her every day and I held her through a storm last week, locked up inside a hot pig barn that smells like… Well, I don't know if you've ever been in a pig barn before, but you get the idea."
Reeves is quiet for a beat. "I'm glad to hear that," she says. "Most people I see are sorry they got caught. You're sorry about the pig." There's no mockery in it. "I'll take the pig."
I laugh, wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand. "It's not just the pig," I say. "I love all the animals. And I've come to love this community. I think I've even found love and I don't want to leave so really, I should thank that judge."
Reeves raises a brow. "I can't say that's something I've heard during an exit interview." She clears her throat, and I swear I can see a hint of emotion behind her eyes. "So what's the plan?" she asks. "You're young, you've got resources, a home, and you'll have your license back eventually. Where does Sloane Archer go from here?"
This is the question I still don't know the answer to. LA is sitting up there waiting for me but here's a sanctuary that needs all the help it can get and most importantly, Maggie.
"I'm still working it out," I say. "I've got some ideas. Things I've started here that I'd like to keep going so I'm not ready to goback to LA. But I don't have it all mapped." I shrug. "Is that a bad answer?"
"No. It's an honest answer." She closes the folder and clicks the pen shut for the last time. "Most people have a beautiful plan and no intention of following it. 'Still working it out' I can believe." She stands, and the wobbly chair scrapes. "Well, we're done here, providing you finish your hours. Don't make me see you again."
64
MAGGIE
Isit in the truck outside Ruthie's for a full minute with the eggs on the passenger seat before I make myself get out.
It's only been three days and it feels too soon to face people. Three days of keeping my head down, of finding reasons to be at the far end of the property whenever a volunteer was around. Sloane's been sleeping back at the motel since her interview with Reeves, which is the sensible thing, but I've missed her in my bed.
Ruthie's been texting because the diner needs eggs. I’ve been putting it off but I'm out of excuses. Best to just get it over with. So this is what it's like. The whole world knows your business but you have to face it anyway.
