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each other. Even the security people seemed easygoing. Not for the first time, Nina reflected on how the most desperate situation carried on long enough devolves into banality.
    On the TV in the day room, a blond character on a soap opera confessed tearfully to pregnancy and a married lover. From a scratchy tweed couch in the corner, two girls stared at the screen, entranced. High windows allowed a thin daylight inside. A scatter of bent aluminum chairs completed the dreary picture.
    Nicole came in from the hall, and Nina got up.
    “Hi, Nicole. You got my message?”
    “Hi. They gave it to me this morning.”
    The girl sat down, back straight, feet flat on the floor, chin out. She was very slender, very pale, tiny and young-looking for sixteen. She wore black jeans and a black T-shirt with a chaotic and unreadable logo on it. Wispy brown hair hung so that it covered a lot of her face. Nina saw a glimmer of Daria’s physical grace in the way Nikki languidly moved her hand, pushing hair behind one ear. She studied the girl to see what Bob found pretty about the angular little face, finally deciding it must be the heavily fringed, willful brown eyes, now focused intently on Nina, at the moment glowing almost gold with not-very-well-suppressed anger. “How are they treating you here?” she asked.
    “Okay.”
    “Has your mother been able to see you yet?”
    “She came this morning,” she said. “So you’re Bob’s mom. I would have known right away. He looks a lot like you, except his hair’s so much darker.”
    “Bob said to say hi.”
    “Uh huh. Say hi back.”
    Nina took a breath. The girl stared at the floor. She didn’t seem to have the insistent urge to talk that so often afflicts the newly incarcerated.
    “Would you like me to call you Nikki? Is that your nickname?”
    “Whatever.”
    “Well, Nikki, your mother wants to hire me to defend you. I’ll be talking to her further about that this afternoon. Meanwhile, I want to know from you what you said to the police when they came to your house.”
    “You’re younger than I thought you would be. You look like you could still be in school.” She examined Nina as a botany student might inspect an unknown specimen. “Did Bob make you come over here?”
    “Your mother asked me to come.”
    “No, she didn’t. Bob made you come. Daria can’t tell her ass from her earhole. She’d cry, then maybe have a beer or two, then call up her friends and everybody would get all worked up trying to figure out what to do about me being in jail. Then, later, after I’m convicted, years later, they’d figure out how I needed a lawyer.” She laughed.
    “Bob asked me to come, too. The first thing you need to know is, I’m not going to lie to you.”
    “Of course not! It’s a known fact lawyers never lie.”
    Nina had seen that coming. Something about this girl, her attitude, felt so familiar. She smiled.
    The tense edges of Nikki’s lips eased, returning the ghost of a smile.
    “Now tell me what happened last night.”
    “Well, first thing that happened was they knocked on the door. Bob and I were in the kitchen making out.” She squinted for a reaction. Looking a little disappointed at finding none, she continued. “Ha ha. Joke. Actually, we were eating a snack. Daria was in the living room doing the boob dance thing she does. Trying to make her boobs go in different directions. She does that when she can’t remember the steps she’s supposed to be learning . . .”
    “You call your mother Daria? Why?”
    “She’s not much of a mother,” said Nicole. “So, to continue what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted . . . these cops bang on the front door. Daria answers and uh oh, dumb move number thirteen hundred and six for that day, she invites them in! Or at least they do that cop thing of coming in before you have a chance to think, and they started looking around at the hovel. She should have known better, but when you get to know her you will