Then
“Jasmine, sit next to Tanya,” she says.
Tanya starts to protest but gives up when Ms. Pat steps out of the office. “Loser,” she whispers to me.
“Jerk,” I reply.
She doesn’t say anything else.
Ms. Pat tapes the large chore chart to the office window. I put my hand on my knee, getting ready to raise it before anyone else. Laundry/Linens is first on the list.
“We’re doing something a little different this weekend, ladies,” Ms. Pat announces.
The room erupts in a collective groan. “Always so grateful, right?” she asks Ms. Kim.
“Unbearably.” Ms. Kim laughs.
Ms. Pat writes Amari’s name next to the laundry category, then Tanya’s. The girls go silent. “To mix the cliques up, we’ve decided to assign the chores this time.”
Tanya clenches her teeth and starts shaking her leg so hard that I can feel it through my cushion. Amari is gripping the sides of her chair like she’s ready to jump out of it.
“I’m not doing shit with Amari,” Tanya says.
“Excuse me?” Ms. Kim walks over to our couch. “Want to try that again?”
Tanya clears her throat.
“Just cut it out. You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Ms. Pat says impatiently.
Tanya gets up from her seat. Ms. Kim steps in front of her with her arms crossed. “Write me up if you want, I’m not doing this shit,” Tanya says, and steps around Ms. Kim.
“Sit down now, Tanya,” Ms. Kim says.
Tanya ignores her and starts toward the dorms.
“Let her go to her room, she can stay in there for the rest of the weekend,” Ms. Pat tells Ms. Kim.
Tanya waves to us before she disappears into the hallway. Some of the girls laugh but I keep my eye on Amari, hoping her outburst isn’t next. We finally make eye contact. I shake my head, in case she was thinking about it.
“Well, Amari, since you handled that much better than your counterpart, who would you like to replace her?” Ms. Pat asks.
Amari loosens her grip on her chair and her usual smirk spreads across her face.
“Jasmine,” she says without hesitation.
The laundry room is considered “off unit” because we have to pass through the double doors and make a left before the elevator.
Usually, the girls who get laundry are really close to their discharge date and are therefore considered low AWOL risk.
Amari and I don’t fit that profile, but I definitely won’t be calling attention to it, or making them regret it.
Ms. Kim tells us to wait for her at the double doors while she grabs the laundry room key from the office. Amari bolts to the door and I move quickly to catch up.
“I was this close to going off back there,” she whispers.
“I know. I was willing you not to,” I say.
“Aww, you wanted me to read your mind?” She chuckles.
I stick my tongue out at her.
Ms. Kim calls for us to get in line. In the hallway, I realize that I must only look straight ahead when I’m coming and going from the unit, because I don’t remember seeing the LAUNDRY sign before. A burst of hot air hits us when we walk in. Amari jumps back and onto my toe. I wince.
“Sorry, but it’s hot as hell in here!” she exclaims.
“Language, Amari!” Ms. Kim says.
I look around the room. Washers and dryers line the perimeter of the small space. There’s a big window opposite the door and a table for folding directly underneath it. I lean on the table to take the pressure off my throbbing foot.
“My bad,” Amari says. “You okay, Jasmine?”
I nod, wiggling my foot in my shoe to ease the pain.
Ms. Kim fiddles with the thermostat on the wall. “Okay, it should cool down soon. You’ve done laundry before, correct?” she asks, quirking a brow.
I assume she’s being sarcastic but tell her yes anyway.
Ms. Kim looks directly at Amari. “I meant you,” she says.
“I’ve seen it done. Didn’t look that hard.” Amari shrugs.
Ms. Kim seems pleased enough with that answer and reminds us not to leave this room until she comes back. She looks at us sternly one last time before she walks out, thankfully leaving the door open.
“Hold up, you’ve never done laundry?” I ask Amari.
“Nope,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll follow your lead.”
I stand there, studying her curiously for a moment.
“Just tell me what to do first, Jas,” she says.
I point to the dryer. “If there are dry sheets in there, we can just put them on the table. Then move the wet ones from the washer over to the dryer.” I look at her to make sure she’s getting it.
Amari nods and opens the dryer. She pulls out a huge bundle bigger than her head, then throws it on the table and starts to detangle the sheets.
“Okay, so how have you never done laundry?”
“Housekeeper does it.”
I open the washer next to me, and the smell that comes out of it makes me gag.
Amari’s eyebrows furrow. “Okay, judgy,” she says.
I point to the washer because if I open my mouth to tell her, vomit might come out.
She walks over cautiously and lifts the lid.
“Holy shit,” she shrieks, “what is that?” She takes a deep breath before peering in to get a closer look, then slams the washer shut and goes back to the table, pulling me with her.
“Somebody must’ve left them in there too long—now they’re all mildewy,” I say.
“Should we throw them out?” Amari asks.
“Throw them out? Is that what your housekeeper does? Us regular people just rewash them.”
Amari shoots me a look and I laugh so she knows I’m joking.
“Well, technically, I don’t know what our housekeeper does. I don’t frequent that part of the house,” she says, and goes back to detangling the dry sheets.
“Oooh, that part of the house. So, what’s this house like? Besides big, I guess?” I pull down a jar of laundry pods from the shelf above the machines and grab two. Taking a deep breath, I open the stinky machine with one hand and throw the pods in with the other.
“Honestly? Different. It was cool before my parents got divorced. Then my mom married this new asshole and that was it,” Amari says.
I turn the washer dial slowly so the clicking doesn’t interrupt her train of thought. She usually changes the subject long before she says anything that might reveal what her life outside is like. I don’t want her to stop.
“My stepdad was waiting for a chance to get me out of there and I guess I handed it right to him. So here I am. Moral of the story: Stepdads suck,” she says.
I move next to her and start folding a pillowcase. She looks over at me and smiles briefly but doesn’t say anything else.
“Well, I’m getting a stepdad, too. And that sounds like it sucks,” I agree.
“Mine does, yours might not,” she points out.
“But why does he hate you?”
Amari shrugs as she folds another pillowcase. Her technique isn’t great, not that I’m going to say anything. She’s nervous but I want to learn as much as I can about her, especially since we might not get a moment like this again.
“Is that an ‘I don’t know’ shrug or an ‘I don’t want to tell you’ shrug?” I ask.
“We’re not supposed to talk about why we’re here, remember?”
“Says the queen of breaking rules,” I say. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
Amari hands me two corners of a large sheet and tells me to step back. She grabs the other two corners.
“Oh, and I didn’t ask why you’re here,” I add.
“Because you don’t know that they’re for the same reason.”
I start to shake the sheet out when I realize that I’m following her lead now. “Wait, you do know how to do laundry!” I cry.
“I said I haven’t done it, not that I haven’t seen it.” She laughs and throws her side of the sheet up in the air.
I toss my side up too, and it makes a wonky air balloon. We laugh some more, then fold the sheet in half. Bringing the corners together, we linger for a moment before moving apart with the smaller rectangle.
“I crashed his car,” Amari says, not looking at me, as we match the last corners. She lets go of the sheet and I lay it on the table to finish folding.
“They were in Europe for like three weeks and when they got back, they threw some stupid dinner party at the house. Instead of spending time with me, my mom handed me a couple hundred dollars and basically told me to get lost. I gave the money to my friend to get us drinks and pills, and we got very lost in another world. Next thing I know, I was in the back of a police car in cuffs and my stepdad’s new Maserati was wrapped around a telephone pole. ”
“Amari, I—umm—wow,” I say, unable to find the right words to respond to everything I just heard.
She looks away and starts folding a pillowcase.
“I’m sorry that happened. Just so you know, I’m not judging you,” I reassure her.
“I would get it if you were. I don’t even know why I told you all of that,” she says, her eyes vulnerable for the first time.
“Because you wanted to get it off your chest, and I wanted to hear it.”
Amari puts the folded pillowcase down and leans on the table. She’s looking at me like she’s trying to find the lie. “Me crashing my stepdad’s car because I was high and drunk doesn’t bother you?” she asks.
“I mean, I’m here because I ended my night in a police car too. Who am I to judge?”
A big part of me really means that. There are a lot of rich kids who make mistakes like hers but don’t usually deserve sympathy. Amari’s different. I know what it feels like to be misunderstood.
“Yeah, but you said you didn’t do anything. I did,” she says.
“Are you sorry?” I ask.
She takes a moment before she responds. I’m nervous for her answer, though I don’t know if it will change how I feel. “Yeah. They’re assholes, but now my mom is really embarrassed, and my dad barely talks to me. So, I guess I’m sorry that I made things worse.”
“Then that’s it. All is forgiven,” I say.
“Thanks, your holiness.” Amari laughs and makes the sign of the cross.
“You’re going to hell!” I shriek. I quickly cover my mouth when I realize how loud I was.
We turn back to the laundry, our eyes locking as we barely hold in our laughter.