Private (Private 1)

from the dog for more than two hours at a time. He was always going Smirked . . . all . . . the . . . time.

out there and feeding him treats, cooing to the animal like it was a

“It’s not fair, me being here for twenty years,” Ariana said slowly, newborn baby and the apple of its father’s eye. Revolting. Someone stating the obvious. Stating the point she’d made four thousand times should have been analyzing him.

before.

“What’s not fair?” he asked.

“Twenty years to life,” he corrected, his blue eyes taunting.

Ariana flicked a glance at Dr. Victor Meloni, sitting there in front

“I don’t think about that,” Ariana said, averting her gaze again.

of his elaborately framed diplomas from Johns Hopkins and Stanford.

Outside the window, the lake glinted in the summer sun. A lone sail-Thick, leather-bound books sat on the shelves to his right, most of boat sliced across the window frame and disappeared.

which she was sure he hadn’t even opened, let alone read. Her lip

“About what?” he asked. “The life part?”

curled at the sight of his fake tan. His overly gelled salt-and-pepper He sat forward now. Interested.

hair. His heavily starched blue shirt. His capped teeth.

“Yes,” Ariana said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Two hundred dollars a tooth, but can’t spring for a pair of shoes That was when Dr. Meloni laughed. Not just his usual amused

with leather soles. Ariana could ascertain everything she needed to chuckle, but a big, hearty, guttural laugh. Ariana tried not to cringe.

know about a person through his or her footwear. In the sixteen She reached up and casually ran both hands through her soft, chin-months she had been in residence at Brenda T. Trumbull just out-length blond hair, securing it to the nape of her neck with an alligator side Washington, D.C., she had only seen Dr. Meloni wear two barrette. She waited patiently for him to stop, curling her toes inside different pairs of shoes. The same exact style, one pair in black, one her state-issue white sneakers. It used to be that she would grab her in brown. Clearly, the man thought that everyone he m

et would be own arm when she was tense, letting her fingernails cut into the flesh.

so dazzled by the veneer of his face, they wouldn’t take the time to Then one day last year Dr. Meloni had noticed this habit and pointed notice his shoes.

it out to her like he was oh so insightful. She hadn’t done it in his But Ariana did. And they screamed white-trash-turned-scholarship-presence since.

student-turned-poseur. He’d probably taken this job because it meant

“Unacceptable,” he repeated.

6

K a t e B r i a n

p r i v i l e g e

7

She looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering. “Yes.”

If only he’d stopped when she’d asked him to.

“You do realize you killed someone,” Dr. Meloni said, in the tone