No spoilers for season six in this!
I is for interview
"What is the worst part about incarceration?" The interviewer sat back, pencil poised, as Lorna considered her answer.
When Caputo had come to her and said that a journalist wanted to ask the inmates questions, and he thought she'd be good for the role, she hadn't expected that question.
The brunette bit her lip. The worst thing about incarceration...she drummed her fingers on the table. Lorna could have sat there for days, listing the awful aspects of incarceration; the food, the lack of privacy, the inhuman treatment, the lack of decent shampoo - seriously, her hair was so frizzy now - the unflattering outfits…
"Leaving people behind." The words were out of her mouth before she really thought about it, and she shifted in her seat uncomfortably. Offering the interviewer a bashful smile, she nodded. "That's the worst thing."
"Your family must miss you," the interviewer replied, still scribbling in the notebook. He looked up expectantly for Lorna's answer.
She nodded again. "Mhm," she said. "You're used to seeing them everyday. When they leave, it hits you hard." She stole a glance to the side of the visitation room, where Nicky watched her through the glass. The blonde grinned at her when she caught her eye, giving her a thumbs up. Lorna's cheeks tinged pink, and she gave a little wave.
"When they leave?"
Lorna sat up, her attention back to the interviewer. "Oh yeah. I've got a few years left on my sentence yet. People leave all the time here. Just last week, Yoga Jones left. She was real zen, you know. But Red cooked us a family meal, and we said goodbye to her." Lorna smiled at the memory, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I think she even cried when she left."
The interviewer sat back, tapping his pencil. "I assumed you meant your real family."
Lorna's brow furrowed. "They are real. If you worried about DNA in this place, you'd never sleep at night. People need people." Lorna glanced over at the window again, her eyes shining. Nicky was still right there. When wasn't she?
Lorna stepped out of the van, clutching her bedding in the wire mesh bag. Her heart thudded in her ears, so loud that it was hard to know what the women around her were saying. It all felt so foreign. She didn't belong here. She was normal. Law-abiding. She bit her lip. These women were terrifying. She stalled in the line, and received a quick blow to the back from the woman behind her. Franny was right. Prison was going to eat her alive.
"Hey, Natalie Wood!"
Lorna looked behind her. She held her bag closer to her, resting her chin on the scratchy fabric.
"No, you!" Lorna focused on the voice calling to her. A blonde with a smile as big as her hair was gesturing to her. "If you get lonely, doll, come and find me!"
Lorna laughed. It was the first laugh she remembered since before the trial had started. "I will!" Lorna called back, looking over her shoulder to catch another glimpse of her. She was lost in the sea of inmates. But Lorna had a feeling she would be seeing her again.
"You don't find the other inmates...scary? To be frank, Miss…" he glanced down at his paper and located her name amongst the notes."Miss Morello, you don't seem the type to fare well in prison. The other women, they don't intimidate you at all?"
Lorna giggled softly, shaking her head. "Once you've seen Demarco all dolled up to see her grandkids and helped Sister Ingalls up after a dizzy spell, you tend to lose the fear. Of course there was Vee, but Miss Rosa, God rest her soul, sorted her out."
Lorna smiled like she hadn't commented on a murder, and the interviewer nodded thoughtfully. "Most of them are very nice people. But they don't live so good. You know, with the overcrowding and struggling to pay rent...not my Nicky, though. She says money isn't everything." Lorna gave the interviewer an indulgent smile. "But most people who have it do say that, don't they?"
Lorna flipped through a travel magazine, sighing enviously at every page with a beautiful beach or one of the seven wonders. "I'd be the happiest girl in the world if I was lying in the sand there," she said, leaning against Nicky. She pointed to the page, her hand caressing as if she could feel the sand between her fingers.
"I doubt it," Nicky said. "The Bahamas are overrated, in my opinion. I didn't look like the happiest girl in the world. I looked pissed because the sand was too grainy and the water was fucking freezing."
"You've been?" Lorna sat up. "Tell me all about it!" She held the picture up and could almost feel the warm sun beating down on her. "I wanna feel the sand between my toes."
Nicky shrugged. "Marka was supposed to come. It was celebrating a month sober - you know, for the first time, at least. But my uncle Ray offered her something better." A sad smile crept onto her face. "That's when I discovered I liked cocaine, too."
Lorna found Nicky's clammy fingers under the blanket that covered them both. "She really did that?" Lorna stroked Nicky's hair absently, her fingers working through knots that had formed underneath the surface. She leaned down to kiss her forehead.
Nicky nodded. "But hey, heroin in a tiki hut is so much classier than off of some junkie's couch."
"Don't say that," Lorna said, frowning. She braided a small strand of Nicky's hair as she thought. "When we go to the Bahamas, we'll swim in the sea. I know you said it's cold, but-"
"I'm sure it'll be hotter with you in it," Nicky chuckled. "And when we go to the Bahamas? Have you got your future planned out, then?"
"Our future," Lorna corrected. "And yes, I do."
"Are those words in your plans?" Nicky whispered, not daring to look her in the eye. One day it was Christopher this, Christopher that, then the next it was "us" and "we" and "our future". It made Nicky's head spin. "Our plans," she corrected herself.
Lorna blushed, though Nicky didn't see the pink that swept her cheeks. She only saw the silence and felt the way her hands hovered mid-braid. Lorna sucked in a long breath. "I...I hope that they are, one day. What about you? Do you...do you hope that they are?"
"I do," Nicky replied.
"Okay," the interviewer said. "One last question, if you would, Miss Morello. Prison is supposed to be for reformation and rehabilitation, though these qualities have been queried as to whether they have any real effect on the prison population. There is a high rate of recidivism."
Lorna nodded, though a lot of the words were going over her head. She concentrated hard on the question.
"Do you think prison has made you a better person? Do you believe that when you walk through those doors on your release day, that you're better than when you walked in?"
Lorna hesitated. Had prison made her a better person? No. It hadn't. It had made her wary of men in power. It had made her realize how uncomfortable it made her to get undressed in front of strangers. It had made her realize how disgusting some people could truly be. But did she believe she was going to walk out a better person? One hundred percent, yes.
"Prison?" Lorna said, drawing invisible patterns on the well-worn table top. She wondered how many people had leaned over this table to kiss their loved ones. How many toddlers had been placed on it, ready to hug mommy goodbye. "No. Prison hasn't made me a better person."
Her gaze fell to the visitation window, where Nicky still stood, enthralled. Lorna beamed at her, and then pointed her out for the interviewer.
"But these women, the women I've shared a home with for these past years? They've made me better. She's made me better."
Nicky, she says inside of her head. Nicky has made me better. And for that, she would forever be grateful. Wherever life took them - be it Bora Bora Bora, the Bahamas, or a shabby apartment someplace downtown (because Lorna would follow her anywhere), they'd be together. And Lorna knew that together, they were better.
A/N:
Hiya lovelies!
How did you find the new season? Honestly...Lorna disappointed me so much. Nicky was amazing, but Lorna...well. There were some cute moments though.
Tell me what you thought. And please tell me what you thought of this in a review.
Have a great day!
- Star xo