Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (26 page)

But it was overall a lot quieter in A Dorm. I didn’t have five hundred people whooping it up outside my room anymore at all hours, talking and laughing, or eating a ten-course commissary meal on the bed and leaving wrappers and dirty plastic containers all over the place. Since I knew so many people in A Dorm, we would sit on the steps in the streets and hang out talking. There were days I felt like a teenager again, hanging out with my buddies, passing the time, with nothing much to do except shoot the shit. (Wow, did I learn a lot, too. They told me about G-spots and sexual positions I’d never heard of in my life. My girlfriends back home and I never talked about anything this explicit. This was all new to me, but it made me laugh.)

If A Dorm was like living in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, D Dorm, which was a new discovery on my part and somewhat close to A Dorm, was like living in the slums of Calcutta. D Dorm used to house the dog program, where inmates raised and trained service dogs. Even though the program had ended and the pups had gotten shipped out, the rooms still smelled like dog shit to this day. For real. I felt bad for the sixteen women who lived there. Their metal beds had rusty frames, the mattresses had piss stains all over them, spiderwebs lined the walls and ceiling, and the women had no windows—just a fan.

The nurse’s office, which was across from D Dorm, was minuscule, with an old, mold-covered desk in it and some first aid supplies. The prison ob-gyn occupied the next office over. Supposedly, the ob-gyn spent three or four days a week down the hill, seeing patients in the men’s prison. This was the first time I had ever heard of an ob-gyn treating male patients, and I’m sorry, but I laughed so hard when I heard that one that I had tears running down my face. We all did. Literally, what could that doctor have been
doing
down there?

The camp psychologist had his own, tiny office. He had more patience than almost anyone I had ever met and listened to the inmates complain for hours on end. But I heard he routinely offered the same non-helpful, non-advice: deal with the circumstances and make the best of them. So it seemed like kind of a waste of time to go see him. That’s why we just bounced things off each other rather than take advice from the “professional”—and anyways, that doctor got to go home every day. I don’t think he fully understood what it was really like to be an inmate and live without your loved ones for months—and in some cases, years—on end.

O
f course, my birthday rolled around on May 18, and to keep myself sane, I knew I had to treat it like any other normal day. I went about my business, and after reading all the sweet messages from my friends, fans, and family, I went to yoga.

At the end of a yoga session, the instructor will guide you through Shavasana, or Corpse Pose. During this part of the practice, you lie on the floor in total relaxation mode, and though my birthday was no different from any other day, in that position I thanked God for my family and my health and for getting me through these past months. I thanked God every day for all the blessings in my life, including Joe, my daughters, my parents, my family, and my friends. I asked God to keep me on the path He wanted me to be on. My birthday wish was for health and happiness for all of us and to go home to my family as quickly as possible.

Joe sent me an email that day telling me how much he loves me and how he wants us to grow old together. He told me that God often pairs husbands and wives who are both strong, which is why we are so good together. He would tell me he would never take me for granted again because now that he was taking care of the girls, he saw just how much I did to take care of the house and everything else. He said now he understands just how busy I really was at home, which of course, makes me laugh.

Every day since arriving in prison, I tried to think more positively about things that were happening to me at the moment—and about the future—and on my birthday, this became incredibly important. After reading
The Secret
and learning about the Law of Attraction, I made a vision board, sending the Universe and God messages about all the things I wanted in my life. (My friend Blaire made fun of me for cutting out magazine pictures and taping them to my board. She said it was like I was in kindergarten again. We laughed!) One of the things on the board was a handwritten note asking God to bring me home as soon as possible. Other images and words I put on my vision board: making forty million dollars so I could take care of my girls and help needy children around the world; making yoga DVDs; creating my own shoe, clothing, bathing suit, and children’s clothing lines; getting a place in Florida on the beach; opening a restaurant; and a wish for the entire world to be happy and healthy and for everyone to have a place to live, enough food and clean water, and to be with their families.

Here are some other words, phrases, and pictures that I had on my vision board:

I know it’s a long list, but I have a friend who tells me all the time: “Dream big and it will happen.” It has happened to her. I have seen it. So I was dreaming big! After I got out of prison and had spent time with Joe and the girls and gotten the girls settled when Joe left, I wanted to start new businesses and create an amazing future for me and my family. I knew I could do it. I had to, for them.

I
had asked my friends not to do anything for my birthday, but Yazmeen, the amazing and loving prison chef I adore, surprised me with a birthday dinner that night! Nikki, Tonya, Franchie, and some others arranged it for me, which was so touching. They were such good friends to me. Tonya has connections with one of the girls who worked in the warehouse—she was able to get fresh spinach for me! I hate canned spinach and refused to eat it the whole time I was there, so for me, this was one of the best birthday treats I could ask for! It was so weird to think about the lavish birthday celebrations I’d had in the past . . . but honestly, this one was as rewarding, in different ways.

Yazmeen made sautéed chicken with spinach over angel hair, which was so delicious. She made me the most amazing salad, too, the kind you would find in a fancy restaurant. She said she wanted to impress me and she did. She even joined us and ate with us, which I loved. She is such a good cook that I hope she opens her own restaurant when she gets out of prison.

My friends gave me cards and gifts from the commissary, like body lotion, powdered pepper mix to spice up my food, and vitamins and supplements like calcium and vitamin D. Nikki and another friend even made me crocheted booties, which was so thoughtful. (Crocheting was so popular in prison, they even had classes and knitting circles. It’s never been my thing, but my friends did try to teach me.)

Turning forty-three in prison was all part of my journey—and I know I’ve said this before, but it really made me appreciate the little things. That celebration was small, elegant, and perfect. For dessert, one of my friends made me oatmeal squares, which I love. Another friend made cookies out of egg whites that looked like tiny lemon meringue pies. We didn’t have candles, so we pretended that we did and they sang me “Happy Birthday.” It was one of the best days I ever had in there, thanks to the kind women who had become my prison family.

While I loved the commissary, I was grateful that so many of the ladies there offered so many different services to make money on the side. The twelve cents an hour that we made from our prison jobs just wasn’t cutting it for most people who didn’t have the resources I did outside of prison. I hired a woman named Jenny, who used to be a seamstress, to alter my uniform so it fit me much better. It made me feel good to wear clothes that finally fit me so well. It was well worth the twelve dollars I paid her in commissary items (that was my birthday gift to myself!).

I also paid Jenny three dollars to make me an eye mask, so I wouldn’t be woken up every night when the guards shined the flashlight in our eyes. Again, it was some of the best money I ever spent.

Jenny’s prices were good, but there was another woman named Hookup, a short, funny, firecracker Haitian woman who sold goods and services for ridiculous prices, like the other commissary queen, Magic, did. One morning after working, grabbing my coffee, and watching the news, which I did every day, I told Nikki I would meet her on the track for a walk. When I got there, one of our other friends was telling Nikki how Hookup wanted to charge her eight hundred dollars to cross-stitch some designs on eight pieces of clothing. That was insane! Everyone else charged ten to fifteen dollars for their services.

Our friend said she had to go, so Nikki and I kept walking. When we walked by the gym, we saw two inmates smoking behind it, like everyone did all the time. We glanced at them, they glanced back, and we just kept talking and walking.

I forgot all about that until later on, when Nikki told me that one of the women, from Brooklyn, stopped her in the computer room. “Hollywood better not snitch on us,” she said. “I know you cool, but I dunno about her.”

“Teresa isn’t like that,” Nikki told her. “She minds her business and doesn’t care what anyone does.”

“She better not or we’ll beat her ass.”

Whatever. Did they really think I’d tell? What did I have to gain?

Different groups of women in there tended to hang out with each other. The African-Americans, whites, Latinas, Asians, Jewish ladies, and Russians would all hang out with their own kind. But I was friends with people from every group and hung out with everyone. That didn’t mean I got along with every single person in every single group.

I made friends with two Russian ladies who were just great. I liked them a lot. But they were friends with two others, Olga and Jerischa, who were nothing but troublemakers. Some of my true prison friends told me that Olga and Jerischa would trash-talk me, saying, “She walks around here like she owns the place. Who the hell does she think she is? Does she think her shit don’t stink?” and on and on.

It was so crazy to me how Olga and Jerischa would smile to my face and be so friendly and wonderful when they saw me, but would talk bad about me behind my back. My Russian friends stuck up for me and told them that they were wrong about me. “She is the sweetest girl,” they told her.

When I confronted Olga about this, she denied bad-mouthing me, too. “Why would I say something nasty about you?” she said, looking me dead in the eye. “How dare you even accuse me of such a thing!”

I literally was like . . .
Wait . . . am I being filmed for
Housewives
right now?!
It was all so dramatic!

A side note: Jerischa lost more than one hundred pounds while she was in there—in something like nine months. After she slimmed down, she asked her husband for permission to have sex with another woman before she got released because that had always been her fantasy. She chose to fool around with the Stud, who was the prison heartthrob.
Madonna mia
, sometimes prison felt like a
telenovela
!

While a lot of the ladies turned gay for the stay in there because they were lonely, needed a little something something, or wanted to make money, other girls would flirt with the male officers, especially the handsome ones. They would get all dolled up for them and act sexy around the cute ones, which the rest of us thought was hilarious. I even heard rumors that some of the inmates gave the officers blow jobs in exchange for nail polish and other items. I heard talk that some of them even had sex with officers in the woods. If the latter is true, I don’t know what they got in exchange for that.

Some women didn’t have money for the commissary, which is why they sold inmates laundry, nail, and hair services. I heard that some women even sold their own bodies to other inmates, just to make enough money to buy essentials at the commissary. My heart breaks for women (and men, because I’m sure it happens in men’s prisons, too) that have to go down that road just to survive. Sure, some people fool around in prison because they want to and it makes them happy. If so, whatever. But when someone is driven to go to those lengths out of desperation, well, that makes me sad. People who have never experienced the system sometimes think it’s like a “free ride.” That undeserving people get shelter and food at the expense of taxpayers. After having seen and heard the incredibly moving and difficult stories of some of my fellow inmates, and experiencing just what that food and shelter consists of, I cannot justify that way of thinking. Sure, there are convicted felons who deserve to be where they are. But many of them don’t.

I was incredibly lucky to have the necessary funds in my commissary account to allow me to live “comfortably” day to day in prison. I even used some of my commissary money to buy things to send as gifts to my family and friends. We were able to mail anything we bought there. I sent my mom black seed face cream, soap, and body lotion, and my dad jalapeño peppers, because he had a weakness for them. I knew he liked them and wanted to send him something so he knew I was always thinking of him. I also sent my daughters popcorn, caramels, and Cookies ’n’ Creme Hershey bars so they could make the delicious popcorn balls other inmates made for me in here. Since Gia is a teenager, I also sent her some Clearasil face wash. I couldn’t buy gifts online from in prison from Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus, where I used to love to shop, but I was happy I could send my family and friends little gifts. On tough days, knowing that I could still do things for my family while in Danbury really turned my entire perspective around. I know my girls could go to the drugstore for these things, but somehow, sending them from in there made me feel a little more connected to them.