Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (28 page)

Please. These women thrived on gossip and any drama that went on in there. I wanted no part of it, which was why I was mad at Tonya. This was exactly the kind of thing I tried so hard to avoid. I went back to our cubicle, got ready for bed, lay down, and read some of Joel Osteen’s book
You Can, You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner
, which I absolutely loved. He tells you to dream big and pick big goals, to try to do your best with everything and to stay positive—all things I was really trying to do while I was in there. I was glad I was reading such an inspirational book because I felt like I was going to lose my shit at any second. While I was at Danbury, I was trying really hard to keep a lid on my temper and just talk things out. I was upset that we were now the talk of the camp. But I understood why Tonya went off on Abby. She did have it coming to her because she was so possessive over the TV. Even so, I thought the best thing for now was to say as little as possible to Tonya so I didn’t say or do anything I would a shot for or regret later on.

Tonya came back into the room about a half hour later and started to talk to me, but I ignored her. I gave her the silent treatment.

“OK. So you’re not talking,” she said. “I just want to go to bed.” So did I. I just wanted this day to be over.

J
oe, my mom, and the girls came to visit me the next day, which made me happy and took my mind off my bunkie drama. When I saw Audriana, I hugged her so hard and kissed her over and over.

“I am so proud of you, honey!” I said.

She hugged me again. “I love you so much, Mommy.”

“I love you more,” I said back.

When my mom, Gia, Milania, and Gabriella got up to go to the bathroom, Joe surprised me by kissing me on the lips, which is not allowed. Kissing in front of other people usually makes me feel embarrassed because I’m so old-fashioned like that, but this time, I didn’t care. I missed him so much and this was way overdue! We started making out the way we used to when we were younger. It felt so good to kiss him. We told Audriana to stand in front of us so no one would see us. She thought that was the greatest thing. It was so cute. I think she liked seeing Mommy and Daddy so happy and so in love.

E
ven though I was still mad about the TV drama, I thought it was behind us. But two days after the big fight, we got called into the head CO’s office about the TV incident because Abby had reported Tonya and me to the counselor.

I thought it was ridiculous that I got called to the CO’s office, because I didn’t have anything to do with this. I thought Tonya would let him know I didn’t have anything to do with it, but she didn’t say anything. I was shocked because if the tables were turned, I would have said she had nothing to do with the argument.

When he asked each of us what happened, I told him that I was not involved and that this was a ridiculous argument over the TV. He seemed to agree and told us to try and work it all out with the TV and to stop fighting over it. That’s what I thought I was doing already . . . but at least I didn’t get a shot.

During step class a few days later, my friend Jessica told me that she was sitting near Abby and Tonya in the dining room when Abby asked her if she thought it was wrong drag me into the fight. Jessica said Tonya admitted that she and Abby were the ones who caused the fight—not me—and that she felt bad about it. After step class, I took a shower and was thinking about everything that had happened. I really liked Tonya and didn’t want to fight with her. We had gotten along so well all these months and I considered her a good friend.

After head count that night, I decided to read some more of my Joel Osteen book. Tonya came back to the cubicle and didn’t say anything to me. We hadn’t said a word to each other for five days, but I felt that it was time for us to get beyond this stupid fight and move on.

“Can I talk to you?” I said while she was getting something out of her locker.

She just gave me the side eye and said nothing.

“One of us has to make the first move and say something, so I will,” I said.

“You’ve made me feel really uncomfortable in my own room by not talking to me all week,” she said. “You know, you can be a real bitch.”

“Sometimes I can,” I said. I went on to tell her that I felt like I was dragged into the fight with Abby and that I didn’t like how she yelled at me when all I was trying to do was stop them from fighting. She said she could see why I felt that way and apologized. I appreciated that.

“I’m glad we talked,” I said, giving her a hug.

“Me, too,” she said, hugging me back.

“We good?” I said.

“We’re good.”

I was happy that we were able to talk things through and make up. But I still felt like I was back in high school with all this girl drama! I also felt like I was back on
RHONJ
, although the drama on the show was nothing compared to what went on in that prison.

I wanted to avoid more trouble in the TV room, so I took charge of writing down what shows we all wanted to watch, since the girl who was doing it before had gone home. I was now the Gatekeeper of the TV schedule, and I took my new role seriously.

I tried to keep the peace, too, when I could. While we were watching TV one night in October, one of the new, young inmates from the Brooklyn Crew got mad because Maria Camila, who had been there forever, had saved seats in the second row by taping her name and her friends’ names to the chairs, like she always did. That’s how it worked in there. But the new inmate had a problem with that, saying no one’s name was engraved on the chairs, so she and her pals were going to sit there. Not so fast, said one of the prison elders, a woman in her late thirties who had been there for ten years. She told the newbie to get up and out of there. At more than three hundred pounds, she meant business!

Now, I don’t care where I sit. I grab whatever chair is available. But these two were fighting so hard, for what the young girl considered “turf” and the elder considered “respect,” they were close to punching each other out. It was getting tense. Normally I would be the one to walk over and try to break up a fight like this, but since I had so little time to go before I was leaving, I did not want to rock the boat. So I told my friend to go over there and play diplomat. I just yelled from the back row, “Cut the crap!”

While there were some women, like Shaniqua and Koolaidra, who were respected and well liked by so many inmates, there were also ladies in there who just rubbed everyone the wrong way. When one woman who worked in food service left Danbury after being in there for more than ten years, inmates actually stood in the hallways and cheered because they were so happy she was finally leaving. She always told on everyone and caused people a lot of angst. I wasn’t a big fan of hers either, but I still felt bad for her when they chanted her name, saying how happy they were that she was finally leaving. On the other hand, she was getting the hell out of there, so I’m sure she didn’t really mind either way.

N
ow that Tonya and I had made up, I thought all the craziness was over. But a week and a half or so after the TV fight, one of the admins called me into his office upstairs to say that the men down the hill wanted him to check on me and make sure I was OK because
they
had heard about the TV incident! Word sure traveled fast around there. I told him to tell them I was fine—and to thank them for looking out for me. I didn’t even know these guys, but they were watching my back. Who would’ve thought . . .

I wished those guys were there a few days later, when fireworks went off inside the prison after
US Weekly
ran an excerpt of the diary I had been keeping there since the day I arrived. In one of my entries, I had written how officers had come up to our floor because an inmate had hit her roommate. I wrote, “She is a crazy lady who fights with everyone.”

I didn’t say who she was, but when the story came out, a ton of women went up to this woman and told her that I talked shit about her in the magazine. These snitches couldn’t have run any faster to tell her about this. This woman was in her seventies and had been in and out of prison her whole life. She was a career criminal. I had heard that she had actually choked her roommate, which is why the officers raced up there.

“You tell Teresa that I am going to get her when she least expects it!” she told the women. “I am gonna beat her ass and slap the shit out of her.” People were scared of this woman because she had no problem doing that. She used to run with notorious gangsters and drug lords, so she feared nothing and nobody. She seemed like a nice old lady but was considered hot-tempered—
caliente
in Spanish—and would curse women out in two seconds if they crossed her.

In the middle of this melee, someone told an officer about her threatening me. I got called to the Special Investigation Services, which they called SIS, where they asked me if I felt threatened by her. I said no—how could I really be threatened by a seventy-something woman?

Later on that day, Shaniqua asked me to come to her room. She and I clicked from the beginning. She always looked out for me. I just loved her. She said the old lady wanted to talk to me. When I got there, the old lady was upset and crying. She invited me to sit down on Shaniqua’s bed with her. She took my hand in hers, which shocked me, saying she had no problem with me. She said people from SIS had talked to her and she was nervous that they were going to ship her out. I told her she had nothing to worry about with me; that I was cool with her.

“This woman who hates me and wants me out of here is making up lies about me,” she said.

“When you see this woman, just look the other way,” I said. “Ignore her.”

She went on and on about all the women in there who had something against her and why. I listened for a while and finally said, “OK. I am going to go walk on the track now.”

“Are we good?” she asked when I stood up.

“Yes, we’re good.”

I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I didn’t want any part of this nonsense because I didn’t care and because I had so many other things to worry about. Jim was calling me left and right about saving our house, paying the restitution, and other businesses matters I had to deal with. On top of that, I was still doing my best to mother the girls and run the house—from prison. I was still involved in every detail of Joe and the girls’ lives from there, just like I was at home. I was on the phone with them every day, making sure they were signed up for their activities, did their homework and long-term projects, ordered costumes for their recitals and competitions, did their chores, and had Joe fill out forms for school. Drama played a role in my prison life, but I tried my best to keep it at as much of a minimum as possible. After all, that wasn’t what was important in life.

E
ven though I was trying to focus on what was important, sometimes other women’s relationship drama was just too loud to be ignored. And let’s be real . . . it was kind of entertaining! The women in there went through relationships like crazy. It was worse than in high school! The Stud had liked this lady named Delilah for a while. Delilah didn’t have the whitest teeth but she had good hair. She was dating a sweet woman named Rheenie, who had a crew cut and was very butchy.

When Delilah and Rheenie broke up, the Stud started up a short-lived relationship with Delilah, who she had been trying to get with for a while, but Delilah was still talking to Rheenie. One night when I went into the bathroom at about 3 a.m. or so, I saw Delilah running out of one stall (which already had someone in it . . .) and into another.

The next day I told the Stud about seeing Delilah in the bathroom, potentially during a hookup. The Stud started laughing and said, “But I just broke up with her! That didn’t take long!”

But this innocent story—one that took less than two minutes to tell—turned into a big drama at the camp. I have a feeling that the Stud ran to Delilah and told her that I had seen her in the bathroom late at night—and that I figured she was with Rheenie. Delilah could be a bitch, so she totally froze me out of everything—including a big luau she threw for the Stud’s birthday on the grounds near the volleyball court. (There was sand on the ground so we would feel like we were at a beach or on an island when we were playing volleyball . . .)

Delilah went all out for the party. She spent days making decorations from things she bought at the commissary. When her guests came down the sixty-four stairs that led to the court, she had someone waiting at the bottom, giving out leis she had made for them all out of tissue paper, asking them, “Do you want to get laid?” before handing them over, which made everyone laugh.

Everyone dressed to impress—well really, as best as one could for prison. They donned their best sweats, T-shirts, and new sneakers, wore makeup, and had their hair done.

Rheenie was obviously not invited. She sat on one of the picnic tables on top of the hill with her posse, watching her ex-girlfriend throw this lavish (well, lavish for prison) blowout for the Stud. I felt really bad for her. Rheenie watched the party for more than three hours. After it ended, she went up to the Stud and said, “We had sex today before your party.” The Stud started screaming at her, threatening to beat her ass, which got Rheenie all riled up. Someone ran over and told them to stop fighting before the guard saw. The Stud made a beeline to Delilah and broke up with her right on the spot. What a great way to end your birthday party—with a real bang!

The craziness didn’t end there. The next day, Rheenie stormed into Delilah’s room, grabbed her by the hair, and screamed, “How could you have sex with me and then throw a party for her?” Rheenie didn’t know that Delilah was dating—and having sex with—both of them.

I was lying in bed reading a book when I heard all the commotion down the hall. One of my friends walked by my cubicle and said that when Rheenie started pulling Delilah’s hair, other girls jumped in and pulled Rheenie off of her. I didn’t even get up off the bed, but I said really loud, “I cannot believe all this drama!
Madonna mia
!”