Page 10 of Walk on the Wilder Side

It wasn’t in me to concede quickly, but I looked to Sylvie and remembered the promise I’d made to make sure she didn’t get arrested and miss the birth of her first grandchild. Starting a rumble with a security guard may get us all tossed in the slammer.

With a grumble, I answered, “Fine. But I’m Sergeant Margherita Morretti, United States Army. I know my rights.”

Giving me an unimpressed eye roll, he gestured for us to follow. “Yeah, yeah. Just step through one at a time.”

We did as he asked and followed him to the chairs lined against the wall outside the interrogation room. A large German Shephard was brought in and sniffed over all our bags, and then they took the large dog into the room with Doris. For over a half hour, we sat outside waiting for them to realize Doris was as far from a terrorist as humanly possible, but each minute continued ticking by, and still, she wasn’t released. Every now and again, I could hear her loud wails.

“What the hell are they doing to her in there?” Sylvie whispered.

“Probably pulling out her fingernails,” I answered.

Alice and Sylvie spun to look at me.

“Kidding. I’m kidding. It’s Doris. She cries at the drop of a damn hat. They’re likely just trying to suss out if she’s a threat to national security, and she’s a wreck because she thinks she’s going to Alcatraz. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’ll be okay. But cripes, this is taking a long time.”

“I hope they get done soon. She must be terrified. Poor Doris,” Sylvie said.

Alice slumped back in the orange vinyl chair. “And poor me. I can literally smell the vodka from here. There is a bar right around this corner. I know it.”

“Oh, can it, Alice. You’re not a vodka-sniffing bloodhound, you lush. They told us not to move. And we told Sylvie we weren’t going to jail on this trip. So, we stay put, and we wait for Doris. And hell, your liver is probably thrilled for this reprieve.”

Alice scratched the side of her face with her middle finger.

A voice came over the loudspeaker announcing our flight was boarding.

“Oh, cripes,” I grumbled. “We’re going to miss our flight!”

“They have to be done soon, right?” Sylvie asked. “I mean, it’s Doris! How can they not have figured out she’s not a threat by now? This is ridiculous!”

“For crying out loud. I need a drink, and we need to get the hell out of here,” Alice snapped her fingers at the nearby guard. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

The woman gave her a look of disdain and then walked over. “What?”

“Our flight is boarding. How much longer will it take to realize that the woman behind those doors is basically the least dangerous woman on the planet? Literally.”

“We’re only doing our due diligence and investigating all the potential threats.”

“She said the B-word. We know. That’s bad,” Sylvie reasoned. “But she didn’t know any better. Surely, this must be sorted out by now.”

“It wasn’t just her strange behavior and use of the forbidden word. We had to take extra precautions because of the suspicious material in her bag. We don’t take any chances.”

“Suspicious material? What are you talking about?” Alice asked.

The guard stood up. “We saw something in the X-ray machine that looked potentially dangerous.”

“In Doris’s bag? What? A rolling pin? She likes to bring her own, that ninny,” I grumbled. “Is this over her rolling pin?”

The guard shifted her feet and then scratched behind her ear. “It, uh, it looked like possible C4 in her bag, but it turned out it was only some bars of fudge.”

“Fudge?” The three of us asked in unison.

“Yes, fudge,” the guard said.

A small laugh started in my throat, choking its way up until it burst out my nose. “Fudge? You thought her fudge was a bo—B-word?” The laughter exploded out of me, and my whole body shook as I squeezed my eyes tight against the tears forming behind them.

The guard didn’t join in my hysterics, instead furrowing her brow. “You’d be surprised how similar C4 and fudge look on an X-ray. But we’ve inspected it, and it’s just homemade fudge.”

The guard kept a straight, stern face as I rolled with laughter, Alice and Sylvie soon joining me.

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