by L. E. Rico
I wipe my eyes again and lean in for a closer look. There, in a slightly faded, sepia-tinged photo are two small children holding hands at what appears to be a party. All around them are the taller bodies of adults, cut off by the photographer who was focusing on the little girl with the red hair and the little boy with the caramel-colored eyes.
“Oh my God…that’s me. And…”
“Scott,” Big Win huffs out hoarsely.
I close my eyes, and I nod, trying to recall the circumstances. The children, the games, the music, the cake…
“It was your christening, Bailey,” I murmur, looking at the picture once again and rubbing it gently with my index finger.
“Well, well! I remember that day clear as a bell,” Father Romance pipes up. “Margie Clarke held you, Bailey, so your parents could have a spin around the dance floor, as I recall. They were so very grateful for their girls. And so very much in love.”
In a split second I’m back there—but it doesn’t unfold in real time. The images come to me in a quick succession of flashes, one after another. The baby. My parents dancing. Win cheating at Twister—the mere thought of him makes my stomach convulse with the tension I felt for him as a child but somehow forgot as the years passed. And then there’s Scotty Clarke. He tells me about seeing the world. He asks me if I’ll navigate for him. He suggests we get married. I agree.
I gasp so loud and my eyes fly open so quickly that the people immediately surrounding me look terribly concerned all of a sudden.
“James?” Henny asks, putting an arm around my shoulders. “What is it?”
“The pie,” I whisper.
“What pie?”
“The butterfly pie. I need it. I need to take it with me.”
“What? What are you talking about? You’re not going anywhere,” Henny tells me firmly.
“No, no, you need to stay here and get your crap together,” Walker says.
I’m shaking my head no, but they’re not listening to me. Already I hear Henny asking someone to get me a little brandy while she makes up the bed in the apartment for me tonight.
“No…” It’s a whisper that they all ignore. “No,” I repeat louder.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Jameson. We’ll get you all sorted out,” Father Romance assures me with a smile.
“I. Said. No!”
Everything stops. Everyone stares. Except for Bailey. She races back to the bar and reaches under the counter to pull out the pie with my name written on the top corner on of the box and rushes it back to me.
“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me what you need.”
I nearly weep with gratitude. She hears me. She understands.
“I need to go to the airport,” I whisper.
She nods. “Which one?”
I look to Big Win. “Duluth,” he says slowly. “Eight th-thirty f-flight.”
I lean in and kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper in his ear. “Thank you.”
He nods and pats my arm.
“Don’t worry, Jameson, I’ll get him back to the hospital,” Bryan is saying from behind me.
“Come on, we’re running out of time,” Bailey says. “My car’s out back. I’ll take you.”
“Wait, what?” Walker demands. “Are you nuts? You can’t just show up at the airport.” She looks at her watch. “You’ll never make it…”
My soon-to-be eighteen-year-old sister, Princess Mary of Midwestern Dairy and the child who doesn’t want me for a mother, turns to her very calmly and says, “She needs to go, Walker. And that’s all I need to hear.”
“Thank you,” I say as she grabs the pie in one hand and my hand in the other, pulling us past our gobsmacked family and friends, down the back hallway, out the side door, and into her little sedan.
“You see,” she says, when we’re buckled in and turning out onto Main Street, “this isn’t something you do with your mom, James. This is something you do with your sister. I don’t need another mother. I had one that no one can replace. What I need is you.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Scott
I have a little time to kill, so I park myself at the coffee shop just outside the ticket counters, and I wait. And watch. Over the course of a cup of coffee, I see parents kiss children good-bye and send them on their way. I watch solitary businessmen and -women make their way through the maze of lines with confident efficiency. And then there are the romantics—the lovers who cannot stand to do a “drop and run” at the curb. They park their cars and escort their partner inside, standing beside them until they’re forced apart by the cruel machinations of the Transportation Security Administration. They wave to one another from opposite sides of the Plexiglas, tearing up, not wanting to be the first one to turn away.
I don’t have a problem traveling alone. I’ve made my way through more Customs counters than I can count. I travel lightly and efficiently, unencumbered by things…or people. So maybe this isn’t such a bad thing—my sudden departure. I came to do what I needed to do and had some really great moments in the process. Bonus. But I’m a wanderer by nature—everyone’s always said so. I’ve always said so. And relationships aren’t conducive to the nomadic lifestyle.
I sigh and swirl the Sumatran blend into a mini-vortex. Yeah. Except that this is a bad thing—my sudden departure. Win isn’t going to fess up to blackmailing me out of town. He’s going to let Jameson—and everyone else—think that I bolted…again. She’ll be hurt, and my brother will be there to pick up the pieces. Sure, my father heard it all, but Win’s a bully, and who knows what he’ll do to keep himself smelling like a rose.
A glance at my watch tells me that I’ve put it off as long as I possibly can. I have to get through security and to my gate before they start boarding. I stand up, sling the duffle over my shoulder, and take one last long look at the main entrance of the airport—not quite sure what—or who—I’m expecting to see there. But there’s nothing. There’s nobody. Nobody that I know, anyway. So I turn my back to the door and take one step. Then another. And another—putting more distance between myself and the woman I…care about?…am fond of?…Like? No. The only word that suffices here is love.
I stop and take a long, slow breath before resuming the trek toward the security checkpoint—which has a considerably longer line now than it did when I arrived at the airport. I get at the end and watch the minutes tick by as I progress, inch by inch toward the life I’m about to resume. A better life, even, with this great new opportunity. This is everything I wanted. Isn’t it?
I remember something my mother used to say—a surprise is something you didn’t even know you wanted…until you got it. Yes, Jameson came as a total surprise—giving me a glimpse of a life I didn’t even know I wanted. Funny, that. If I’ve only wanted it for this incredibly brief period of time, how can it feel like such a loss to me now? There’s a heaviness weighing me down at every twist and turn. My heart is heavy. And my head. It’s a chore to lift my feet.
By the time I reach the front of the line, passport in hand, I feel worse than I did the day I took this trip ten years ago. That was fury and frustration and the petulant pride of youth. But not this. This is something so much worse because not only have I lost my father—again—I’ve lost any hope of a relationship with my brother. And any hope of happiness with a woman. There won’t be another opportunity. I won’t allow it. Not ever again.
“ID please.” My fatalistic thoughts are interrupted by an irritated female voice. It belongs to a TSA agent by the name of Brenda, if her nametag is to be believed.
I hand Brenda my passport, and she scowls at it, flipping page after page.
“Something wrong?” I ask, just now realizing how much time I’ve spent in this line and how little time I have to get to my plane on the other side of the terminal.
Brenda doesn’t answer me, just flips back and forth between the pages, periodically looking up at my face and squinting. “Full name, please,” she requests.
“Scott W
inston Clarke. And that’s Clarke with an E on the end.” I’m not sure why I add that. Especially as it seems to irritate the already irritable Brenda.
“I can see that,” she informs me.
“Okay then…” I mutter under my breath and watch as she runs some kind of a funky light over the passport looking for I don’t know what.
“Mr. Clarke, would you mind standing over here to the side of me please?”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“And why have you asked me to?” I press. “I have a flight that’s already boarding, and I still have to get my bag through the rest of the line here.”
“Yes, well, that’s why we recommend people arrive at the airport two hours early.” Before I can respond, she picks up a walky talky that’s sitting on her dais and pushes a button. “Yes, I need a supervisor at Checkpoint D. That’s a supervisor to Checkpoint Delta, please.”
“How very ‘Foxtrot Tango’ of you,” I comment.
She just glares and resumes checking IDs while I wait for the supervisor. When he finally arrives, the tall, balding man takes one look at my passport and tosses it back to her.
“Yeah, this is fine. What’s the problem, Bren?”
“Well, there are a lot of stamps in there—over a short period of time. Most of them in between ‘high-risk’ countries, if you know what I mean.”
“She thinks I might be a drug mule,” I offer flatly, causing both of them to look at me.
“And are you?” the guy asks.
“Like I’d admit it if I were?” I snicker and then realize this might not be my best course of action. “No, I’m not a drug mule. I’m a hydro-specialist for Project Peace in the South and Central American regions.” I dig around in my bag and produce an old ID for the organization. “There’s a number on the back that you can call, but please do it now if you’re going to, because I’m going to miss my flight if I stand here much longer.”
“As I said, Mr. Clarke—with an E—if you’d been here on time, this would only be a minor inconvenience rather than an emergency.”
Oh, I do not like this lady. Not one bit. And clearly supervisor guy is a little irritated by his colleague’s attitude, too.
“Brenda, that’s enough. Mr. Clarke, I don’t see anything wrong with your paperwork. You’re free to proceed to screening. Just make sure all items are out of your pockets before you step into the full-body scanner.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking back my documents and pushing past Brenda before she can give me one more reason to stay.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jameson
It’s nearly ten minutes after eight when we screech up to the terminal.
“Okay, just drop me off at the curb then go back around to the cell phone lot and wait for me to call you.”
“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” Bailey asks.
“Nope. I’m good,” I assure her. “I can’t explain it, but now that I’m here, I know this is where I’m supposed to be.”
“All right then,” she says with a nod. “I’ll be waiting for you as long as it takes. If you need me, just call or text, and I can be there in a jiff. ’kay?”
“’kay,” I agree as I get out of the car. I’m about to slam the door shut when I think of something. I lean back inside the vehicle, open her glove box, and root around through the spare lipstick and nail files and insurance documents until I find what I’m looking for.
“Hey, wait…” I hear Bailey protesting, but I’m already out the door and halfway to the door by then.
Not quite sure of what I’m doing, I opt to bypass the ticket counters and instead walk straight to the arrivals and departures board. It would seem there’s one flight left to go out tonight—leaving for the Twin Cities in about twenty-five minutes. The status on the digital screen reads “Delayed.”
I close my eyes and say a silent prayer that this is what I’m looking for before turning to walk toward the TSA checkpoint. It’s getting late, and I know that this airport will send out its last flight shortly so I’m not surprised to find just a few agents remaining at their stations. I approach the only woman, a stout brunette whose face appears to be set in a perpetual frown. She glares suspiciously as I draw closer.
“Yes?” she demands.
“Uh, hi, I know this is going to sound strange, but I need to speak with someone who’s on that Minneapolis flight…”
“That plane’s been delayed,” she informs me.
“Yes, I know. I was hoping the passengers might still be in the boarding area. If I could just speak to him…”
“You gotta boarding pass?”
“No…”
“Then you can’t come through.”
“But it’s really important. If I could just speak with him for a moment. Maybe someone could escort me?”
“Ma’am, no boarding pass, no access. That’s the law. Now, you wanna step back or should I call security?”
I gulp at the threat initially, but then I take a closer look at the hardened woman in front of me. She’s not mean; she’s miserable. I know this because it’s exactly the way Win gets. Everything is personal. Everything is offensive. Get the hell out of his way or he’ll make you pay.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask her, putting aside my frantic quest for a few moments. I glance at her badge. “Are you okay…Brenda?”
She stares at me. “I’m just fine, not that it’s any of your business…”
“I’m sorry,” I agree quickly. “You’re absolutely right. You just seemed so…sad there for a second.”
It isn’t until she reaches out to grab my forearm that I catch sight of the tattoo on her wrist. It’s a stunning recreation of a monarch butterfly. And there it is. My sign from above in all its Technicolor glory.
“Ma’am, please come with me—”
“No, wait! Brenda, please wait, I have something for you,” I say, cutting her off and pulling my arm out of her grasp. She looks furious, but I hold up the bakery bag.
“All right, I’m done being polite,” she says, snatching the bag from my hand. “You and your…” She glances in the bag, stops short, and looks up at me. “Pie? This is a pie?”
“It is. Brenda, this is going to sound nuts—like everything else I’ve said in the last five minutes—but I think maybe I was meant to bring you that pie.”
“What makes you think that?” Her tone is suspicious but interested.
“Your tattoo.”
At the mention of it, the woman turns her wrist inward so she can take a good look at it. Something in her expression shifts—though I can’t tell if it’s better for me or worse.
“Why?”
I open the bag, pull out the box, and open the lid, displaying the butterfly-laced pie and sending a strong whiff of warm, fruity sweetness out into the air around us.
“I was told to bring this pie here. I mean, before I even knew I was coming here to find my…my friend. Someone I know—sort of a mystic, I suppose you might say—told me this pie needed to come here and that I’d know who to give it to when I arrived. And I do. Your tattoo, it’s a sign…”
Throughout my bizarre recitation, I’ve watched this woman’s face soften inch by inch, the facade of hardness cracking under the weight of her misery. I realize at this moment that she’s been keeping it together—barely. And I realize at this moment that I know exactly why.
“It’s from your mom,” I tell her in a whisper that only the two of us can hear, making note of her colleagues taking note of us. “I was told that it came from my mother…but now I’m thinking that message got a little muddled. You see, my mom died several years back, and she told my sisters and me to watch for the butterflies…”
“Because that’s where she’d be,” Brenda finishes. We stand there, watching one another silently for what feels like a long time.
“Everything okay over there, Bren?” a tall, thin gentleman asks as he approaches us.
“Yeah, yeah, fine,
” she replies, waving him away and surreptitiously wiping at the tears now rolling down her cheeks. She turns back to me. “My mom, too. She died a couple of months ago, and I can’t…I just can’t seem to get past it.”
This time it’s me who puts a hand on her arm. “You’re not supposed to get past it, Brenda. A mom leaves a hole in your heart that can’t ever be filled by anything or anyone else. But it does get a little easier with time, I promise. And, it seems to me, she’s letting you know that she’s okay. That you’re going to be okay.”
“What’s your name?” she asks me.
“Jameson Clarke.”
She nods and then stops, her brows knitting together in concentration. “Clarke with an ‘e’ at the end of it?”
“Yes, how’d you know?”
“I think maybe we’re both getting messages tonight,” she says with a cryptic smile.
Chapter Forty
Scott
When he reaches down and takes his socks off, I’ve had it. There aren’t enough little bottles of vodka on this plane to make me oblivious to that smell. The man on the other side of me, the window side, is already passed out, snoring so loud I can’t hear myself think.
“Always gotta get an aisle seat,” foot guy says to me as he wiggles his little piggies. “These puppies gotta breathe, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, well, so do we,” I mutter, but he either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care.
I sit back and close my eyes, hoping that the exhaustion will claim me and I can dream my way to Minneapolis. But when my lids drop, I don’t see blackness. I see Jameson. The way her beautiful green eyes sparkle. And how the skin around them crinkles when she smiles. And how the long fringe of her lashes is a perfect match to her auburn hair. My eyes fly open again. It’s easier to deal with what’s right here in front of me on this plane than what’s back in the deep dark recesses of my tortured mind.
I pick up the iPhone and check for messages. There’s one from Bryan. He’s texted a picture of a female hand, presumably Hennessy’s, with a ridiculously big diamond ring adorning it. The text under it reads: “She said yes! Where are you, man? Drinks on me!”