Chapter 63
SLOANE
"So that's it?" I ask.
"That's it." Officer Reeves closes the folder on her knee and clicks her pen shut.
We're in my motel room, which is a strange place to have this conversation.
She's in the chair, the wobbly one by the dresser, and I'm on the edge of the bed with my hands tucked under my thighs.
The fridge shudders to life and Reeves visibly startles.
Then she recovers, smooths her jacket, and ignores it.
Embarrassed to spill the details, I've spent a significant portion of this interview looking at the Florida-shaped water stain on the ceiling.
Now that it's over, I can finally look her in the eyes.
"You're not in any trouble," she says, raising her voice over the noise of the fridge.
"I've spoken to Ms. Dawson, I've spoken to you, it's all consistent, all consensual.
As far as the court's concerned it's merely a morally gray area, not an offense.
" She tucks the pen into her shirt pocket.
"But do me a favor. Just — keep it in your pants until your hours are up, all right? Sleep here."
"I —"
She holds up a hand. "I've got a caseload that would put you in the ground.
I've got two genuine flight risks, a kid who's about to violate over a missed curfew, and a man who I'm fairly sure is selling methadone from the community center he's serving his hours in.
I don't have the time or the patience to deal with any more —" she searches for a word, gives up, lands on the unflattering one "— any more chick-fights, or whatever it is the two of you would get up to if this went sideways.
No more drama. Just finish your sentence quietly. Can you do that for me?"
"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 go back 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."