CH 2
The inmates filled the cafeteria. The Hispanics still took charge of the kitchen, and Red was sitting over with the elderly women eating her breakfast. Alex arrived quickly and took an empty table. She decided to look down and eat, asking for no trouble and giving no trouble. In prison, even a look could change an inmate's fate. Alex knew it all too well. She could still feel the suffocation of being stuck in a dryer. She could still feel the shock she received when Healy threatened to lock her in the SHU along with Piper. She still remembered the trouble she had getting a pair of working glasses after she found her old ones snapped in half when she exited the showers. Alex just looked down and ate, sick of the routine without having even completed a single 24-hour cycle of it.
She didn't know whether to expect someone she knew to sit down with her. A part of her was really hoping that Piper would, but she knew that could go either way. Maybe Piper was frustrated that Alex was ready to flee Queens, had she not gotten locked up again. Maybe she would be too curious about why Alex was there to resist the seat across from her. Or maybe Nicky Nichols would come over to torment Alex, or be Alex's friend for the moment - no matter how caring, she was changing sides all the time, that one. Or maybe Alex would get another lovely attack from Tiffany Doggett. Her mind flooded. She finished her food. No one showed up to talk to her, torment her, or give her a smile. She decided to look around towards the end of her lunch. Piper wasn't even in sight.
Healy assigned Alex right to laundry. The two walked the halls. "I've got a shortage and it seems like none of the women here care to wash or fold laundry. I had Gonzales on laundry duty. Didn't know how to turn the damn washers on."
"Well, sir, I guess I'm your girl then."
"Don't disappoint me, Vause. Welcome back," Healy remarked sluggishly.
"I won't."