Page 82 of Heartland

“We’re holding a student tonight for an open-container violation. She failed a breathalyzer and her friend is faring worse. They’re going to spend the night here unless someone signs them out.”

“Who’s the student?” I ask. All my frequently drunk friends are already present and accounted for.

“Chastity Campbell.”

“What?Really?” All my friends swivel to look at me.

“That’s right, sir. She’s not under arrest, but she won’t leave her underage friend, who’s pretty drunk. And you’re listed as her emergency contact. Could you pick them both up?”

“Of course! Where are you, exactly?”

I end the call a minute later, and everyone is staring at me. “Problem?” my sister asks.

“Is it Chastity?” Rickie guesses.

“Yeah, I…” My gut says that Chastity would not want me to tell everyone in this room her predicament. “I gotta run out for a few minutes.”

“Now?” Keith yelps. “Kind of bad timing, no? When will the second batch need pouring out?”

“Um…” He’s right. I dragged everyone to this kitchen to help me tonight, and now I’m going to walk away from eighty pounds of ingredients?

“Go,” my sister says with a wave of her hand. “I can watch a thermometer until it reads two hundred and forty-eight.”

“Well...” I’m so torn. Because Chastity wouldn’t want me to fuck this up. “The temperature has to spike to two-fifty, and you stir it down a couple times.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Rickie agrees. “Just go and come back, okay? We won’t scorch your liquid gold.”

“Are you sure?” I hedge. But I’m already removing my hairnet.

“No problemo,” Rickie says. “I do wonder what a little weed would be like in caramels, though. Do you think it would wreck the texture?”

“Rick!” I threaten. “Don’t even think about—”

Keith cracks up. “You’re so gullible, Dyllie Bean. Go help your girl. Is she sick?”

I shake my head, because I’m not willing to say,No, she’s temporarily incarcerated.And she’s not my girl.

I grab my jacket and go.

Twenty-Five

Chastity

Of all thecrimes that might have landed me in a jail cell, I never thought it would happen like this.

I was a teenage runaway. I hitchhiked across the country, which is supposedly illegal. Once, in New York State without a clue how I was going to make it to Vermont, I stole food out of a guy’s car in the grocery store parking lot. He was returning his cart to the store when I snatched something out of his hatchback.

I often wonder what he thinks happened to that package of hot dog buns. I’d scared myself by taking it. I’d cowered between two cars with my stolen goods, sure that the police were seconds away from collaring me.

But how do I finally end up in the slammer—sitting on a holding-cell bench with my back to a concrete wall?

By giving cider to a minor.

In fairness, the bench is padded, and I'm not even sure the door is locked. The policemen who found us under the statue checked our records for priors. And when nothing came up, they turned us over to campus security instead of taking us to the police station.

"I haven’t led a life of crime!" Ellie had hollered, which didn’t help her case. She kept giggling like a lunatic, too.

The campus security officer has already grilled us about our “disappointing behavior” tonight. There were lots of questions about how Ellie—a teenager—came to possess the cider.