Things Better Left Behind
I tapped the face of my Swatch. The little hand was on the seven, and the big hand was on the nine. Seven forty-five a.m., and daylight had emerged. Macy, Katie Lee, Bridget, and I stood curbside at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. We thanked Katie Lee’s sister for letting us spend the night before she drove away.
Macy didn’t speak in the morning. She never scheduled a class before noon. I didn’t let her grumpiness irritate me. Flying to a warm destination for a week of partying put me in a happy place, and I couldn’t wait to get there.
Passing through automatic doors, I was surprised at the hordes of people and luggage that littered the check-in counters. “Katie Lee, are you positive we can drink?”
“We can legally consume alcohol in Louisiana. The only dignified state as far as I’m concerned. I mean, really, we can drive a vehicle, vote, join the military, and fight for our country, but we can’t be trusted with a beer? I consider this a direct violation of my rights.”
“You just had to get her started,” Macy grumbled.
“What do ya mean, get me started?”
Bridget mimicked Katie Lee: “The drinking laws in this country are hypocritical.”
“Settle down,” I said, “we’re in your camp. I’m stoked for break. I want to lay by the pool during the day and lounge in jazz bars at night.”
We checked our bags, and I glanced at my wrist. “Eight fifteen. We’re making good time.”
“Stop with the time checks,” Macy said. “You’re disrupting my comatose state.”
After discarding a to-go sweet tea, Katie Lee motioned to visit the restroom, and we followed.
Bridget leaned on the wall outside the entrance. “I’m okay. I’ll watch the bags.”
From inside my stall I told the girls, “It’s eight twenty-four. Did you see the security check line? It looks as if half the state is evacuating for spring break.”
In a zombie stance, Macy lathered her hands. “Our flight doesn’t board until nine forty. We have over an hour to go through that line and get to the gate.”
Slugging behind a maze of people to get to the x-ray machine, I checked my watch at every corner. Macy and Katie Lee chose lines to the left while Bridget and I went right. When my turn came, I hesitated. The man in front of me wiped gum from his shoe on the edge of the conveyer belt. I gave him a wide berth, and Bridget stepped in front of me.
Bridget tilted her head back. “It’s ten after nine.”
While security passed my bag through a second time, the girls waited for me under the flight monitors. “Miss,” one of the workers said, “you need to come with me.”
“Why?”
“Miss, come with me.”
I followed him to a door. Stenciled words read, Airport Security, Private.
Macy shouted, “Rach, what’s going on?”
A tall man wearing blue pants two inches too short, motioned his hand at a gray plastic chair. “Take a seat.”
Dumbfounded, I followed orders. “What’s this all about?”
Two others joined us in the room. Then a fourth gentleman, gray at his temples, entered. He wore an airport detective badge that said Grady. He pushed the door, but before it shut, Katie Lee shoved her sandaled foot in the crack.
“Can we help you, miss?” one of the security men asked Katie Lee.
“I’m traveling with her,” I said.
She let herself in, followed by Macy and Bridget. Katie Lee wedged her hands on her hips. “What’s going on, y’all?”
In a voice that vibrated the flimsy drywall, Airport Detective Grady asked, “Where you ladies headed?”
“New Orleans, sir.” Katie Lee looked at her naked wrist. “Our flight departs in—”
“Thirty minutes,” I said.
The security employee who had handled my bags gave my leather travel case to the detective. Unzipping it, he asked, “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
I thought this was some kind of joke, but no one laughed. “Can you be more specific?” I asked, darting my eyes from him to the girls.
The detective began placing items on the table: lipstick, concealer, eye pencil, cigarettes. Pushing the items to the side, he made room for a small wood pipe and two tiny plastic cylinder containers the size of my pinky fingernail. “Do you call these nothing?” he asked.
Rattled, I squeaked, “A pipe?”
“Miss O’Brien, this is drug paraphernalia. Illegal in the state of North Carolina.”
My inside voice shouted, You aren’t going on spring break.
“They’re not mine,” I blurted.
Grimacing, Detective Grady managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. He didn’t have to ask questions to scare me. His presence ignited my nerve endings into a series of pulsating shocks. I started to hiccup, and as an added bonus I thought I’d hurl.
Katie Lee went on the defensive. “She’s not in possession of drugs.”
Hearing her words plunged me into an out-of-body experience. That was my toiletry case with my makeup, but the drug stuff I’d never seen before. I hadn’t packed them. They weren’t in there this morning, or maybe they were. We awoke so early. I had dressed and left.
How in the hell would I get out of this? Would Macy, Katie Lee, and Bridget hop on the flight, leaving me to be booked on drug charges? That’s what Bridget wanted. She was sabotaging me. The conversation in the room garbled around my eardrums, and my vision went out of focus. I could only form grunts and one-word answers to the questions being asked as my mind wrapped around the ramifications of wearing an orange jumpsuit in the women’s penitentiary.
Bridget batted her lashes. “Can’t you let her go with a warning?”
She’d already helped me enough.
My roommate’s eyes sparked with electricity. Katie Lee lived for these moments. Standing tall, she interjected some of her best bullshit scare tactic commentary. “Y’all can’t charge her. You never read the Miranda Rights. Rachael, don’t say anything until you have counsel.” Slamming her hand on the table, she said, “Y’all are harassing her, and that is a state violation.”
I believed in mind over matter and chanted, this can’t be happening. Surely the earth had stopped rotating and I’d been flung into someone else’s problem.
Katie Lee tapped a foot. “Y’all don’t have anything on her, and our flight leaves in under twenty minutes. If we miss our plane, we expect reimbursement on the ticket and hotel accommodations—and being inconvenienced.”
She dug my hole deep and wide.
The detective knitted his eyebrows together and glowered. “This is a serious offense. Possession of a drug apparatus is prosecutable in the state of North Carolina.”
I stroked the face of my Swatch with my thumb, hyperaware of my saturated armpits and the ticking secondhand. We had fifteen minutes to get to our gate. I’m risk averse. Not the kind of lunatic who craves the adrenaline rush that goes with carrying a pipe and drug vials through airport security. I needed to set everyone straight. It was a setup, but how could I prove it? “This is a misunderstanding.”
The detective opened the door and motioned to Macy, Katie Lee, and Bridget. “Step outside for a moment. I need a word with Ms. O’Brien.”
From outside the door, Katie Lee raged, “They can’t do this to her. We need to find a pay phone. My daddy can call in a favor from Judge Husk Driskell.”
“There’s no way we’ll make our flight,” Bridget said.
When the door closed, I told Detective Grady, “I didn’t pack those. I’ve never seen them before.”
“Who put them there?” he asked.
I struggled to fathom the logistics of the pipe and containers ending up in my cosmetic case. All I could think about was my dad and that he was going to murder me after he posted bail. Teary-eyed, I sniffled. “I don’t know. Maybe someone in my dorm thought this would be funny.”
The detective filled in some paperwork that rested on a clipboard. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. “Since you are not in possession of any drug substances, I’m going to confiscate the pipe and vials. This time I’m sending you on your way with a warning.”
I swallowed hard to suppress a hiccup, but my mouth wasn’t producing saliva.
He set his pen aside and met my eyes. “I want to make it clear. These items are illegal and will not be tolerated. You’re a very lucky girl. If there was even a speck of drugs in those vials, I’d have no choice but to arrest you.”
My body slumped like a balloon with a leak. Detective Grady handed me my carry-on. “Ms. O’Brien, make sure you pack your own bags.”
I acknowledged his advice with a nod. Before he changed his mind, I stood and waited for him to open the door.
Outside the door, I saw the agitated faces of my girlfriends and willed Katie Lee not to make any additional commentary. Not bothering to check the time, the four of us turned on our heels and bolted for the B gates.
“Rachael,” Katie Lee said. “Why did you pack those?”
“I didn’t.”
“We’re going to miss our flight,” Bridget said.
“I can see the gate,” I said. “The door’s still open.”
The sign above gate B24 flashed New Orleans, delayed twenty minutes. The woman behind the counter picked up the handset and announced, “Flight 1326 to New Orleans is now boarding first class.”
Sitting down in a chair in the boarding area, I dropped my bag and let my head sink between my legs. Sweat dripped down my neck.
Out of breath, Macy’s eyes welled with tears, and she wiped them with her polished fingers. “The pipe and containers are mine.”
I popped my head up and spewed words like dragon flames. “Jesus, Macy, why the hell did you put them in my luggage?”
“I’m lost,” Bridget said.
“I keep them in a wooden box in my underwear drawer. I didn’t pack them.”
Tongue-tied, I had trouble constructing sentences, but managed to ask, “How did they get into my cosmetic case?”
“I’ve been racking my brain. I don’t fuckin’ know.”
“What were those tiny containers?” I asked.
Macy darted her eyes. “Old coke vials.”
“You do coke?” Katie Lee asked.
“No. I mean once. Over New Year’s Eve. In Little Jamaica.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You sent me a holiday postcard. You were in Times Square, not the Caribbean.”
Macy rubbed her forehead. “It’s a neighborhood in New York City. You drive through and pick up what you want.”
Bridget put a new roll of film in her camera and wound it into place. Securing the lens cap, she looked up to scold Macy. “So Rachael just wangled out of a drug bust with your pipe?”
“Rach, I hope you believe me. I get buzzed, but not enough to forget putting my pipe and vials in your bag.”
Katie Lee moved toward the line of people waiting to board. “Let’s just try and get to Louisiana before the cops change their minds.”
NOTE TO SELF
Someone in the airport almost got me arrested. I think she’s blonde and slept with my roommate’s boyfriend. Evil Bitch.