Bernadette and I huddled up to compare notes. Even in the mornings, in her bathrobe and single hair curler, she carefully margined her lips in glossy cherry lipstick. It was startling to see her pale mouth, and I could tell she was self-conscious to be without her signature color. She kept chewing on her bottom lip, flushing it momentarily with bright blood. She was still wearing the beaded blouse she’d started the night in. This turned out to be a crucial detail.
“I couldn’t get this off,” Bernadette said, indicating the button on her beaded blouse. I leaned in, pinching the fabric between my thumb and pointer finger. The crystal appliqué had gotten tangled in the buttonhole. “I knocked on Robbie’s door for help. She has those fabric scissors.” Robbie was a fashion merchandising major. “I remember her groaning that it was three in the morning. And I looked at her clock because I knew she was exaggerating. And I said it’s two thirty-five, Robbie. And she said do you want my help or not?” Bernadette exhaled, incredulous. “When did this happen? How did I not hear anything? She was fine. When I left. She was fine.”
“We’ll go see her at the hospital as soon as they let us out of here,” I promised her. Everything I promised that morning seemed possible now that I’d had the chance to conduct reconnaissance. A stranger had come into The House, likely to steal from us, and he’d encountered some of the girls and panicked. Home invasions were not an uncommon event. No one had intended us harm, and though Jill and Eileen had been bruised and bloodied, it was one of those things that looked worse than it was. Like when you nick the back of your ankle in the shower and it gushes with the force of a main artery. It had to be like that; otherwise, like Bernadette had just pointed out, we would have heard something. I dusted my hands on my thighs, my concerns allayed for the time being.
It felt like we were in that room for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty minutes because the birds hadn’t started up yet when a new officer opened the door. We’d fallen into a listless stupor, but the moment an outsider entered the room, everyone wiped their faces and sat at attention. We were used to gathering for meetings and announcements, and the officer seemed unprepared to have the floor so unanimously ceded. He stalled out for a long moment with something like stage fright.
“Do you have any news?” I prompted. He nodded at me, grateful for the reminder of what he was doing here. He was broad and barrel-chested, a local boy with a badge, but his voice didn’t carry. We had to lean in to make out what he was saying.
“There’s a lot of people on the second floor now, and they’re gonna be here awhile. We’re gonna move you downstairs.”
I raised my hand, not to be called on but to announce that I was going to speak. That was how it worked in chapter too. If you had something to say, you signaled, but no one called on you. This wasn’t class and we weren’t students here. I was always saying that we were associates running the business of The House. “What’s happening with the other girls?” I asked. “How are they doing?”
“The girls are at Tallahassee Memorial.”
“All of them?”
He nodded, his face shiny and sincere.
The relief was stabilizing, not just because it was the answer I wanted but because it was an answer. In the month of uncertainty that was to follow, what I wanted, what we all wanted, was clarity. What had happened? Who had done it? What did we do now?
“When can we call our parents and let them know what’s going on?” I asked.
The officer swished his mouth to the side, thinking. “Maybe an hour? That’s about how long it’ll take to fingerprint a group this size.”
The girls broke ranks then, their questions and objections unruly but reasonable. I allowed it, figuring everyone had earned a few moments of disorder. I stood and moved into the center of the circle, and everyone shushed one another. “We’re being fingerprinted?” I asked in a calm but concerned spokeswoman’s voice. “Why?”
“Everyone always gets fingerprinted.”
“Who is everyone?” I snapped, losing patience.
“Anyone at a crime scene. Not just assailants.”
“Assailants? Does that mean there were multiple?”
“What? No. Maybe. We don’t know.”
“So you haven’t caught the person who did this?”
“We got a lotta guys out there looking.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. “Can everyone at least get back into their rooms to change before we go downstairs?”