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I walk past the cubicles and out onto the second tier. I can hear the TVs and the chatter and Jolene’s hoarse laugh coming from below. I see her sitting at one of the tables playing cards, blackjack, it looks like, and she’s the dealer. The table is full of her women, all black except for a new blond girl who is sitting quietly between Jolene and Big April, an obese woman whose chins sag to her cleavage. I stop on the stairs and watch Jolene take Big April’s money, a small mound of pieces of notepad paper. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke, and the sunlight from the open rec door makes it look heavier than it is, bluish, a wide band of it hovering over everyone’s heads. I think of Lester, his Toyota station wagon pulling away from the neon light of the El Rancho Motel, disappearing into the fog. There is a loosening warmth between my legs and I want to feel him inside me again, but feel sure now I never will.

Behind and above me the deputy tells me to move along, no loitering on the stairs, and Jolene looks up and laughs. “Get down here, Remote.” And I smile at her and nod like she’s just said something I never understood before, but now finally do.

I descend the stairs, my eyes on the wide flat cloud as I walk down under it, this blue ceiling of smoke we make. And I feel it above me as I move past the women at the phones, past other women at other tables, all of them smoking, blowing out thin angry streams into the air, and I stand at Jolene’s shoulder. She stops dealing and looks up at me, her dark eyes waiting, though she’s never heard me speak, and I nod at her pack of Marlboro Lights. At first she doesn’t seem to understand what I want, but then I smile, and put two fingers to my lips.