Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 4

by Chautona Havig

  Willow apparently did not appreciate being shushed. “You are telling me that in the United States of America, our citizens are hauled off and physically manhandled under the guise of safety! What are we being protected from I’d like to know!”

  “What planet is she from,” the man behind them muttered, annoyed.

  “It’s because of 9/11, now shhh.”

  “Why shhh?” Willow’s voice scaled higher and then froze mid-sentence as she saw Chad unlace his shoes and dump them in a bin. He emptied his pockets, removed his belt, and dumped it all in a basket before sending it through the conveyor belt. From the front of his suitcase, he pulled a zip-lock bag and laid it on top before it went through the scanner.

  To her horror, an alarm screamed as he stepped through a door-less doorway. Chad looked confused for a moment, patted himself down slightly and then groaned. “Oh man, I meant to drop this off at the station.” He sheepishly pulled his badge from his front shirt pocket and dumped it in the basket. He shrugged at the TSA officer and shrugged. “Too excited to get going, I guess.”

  A second pass with wands showed him clear, but the woman receiving his bag shook her head in disgust as she pulled a large tube of toothpaste, shampoo-conditioner mixed bottle, and the brand new bottle of after-shave he’d brought home but not packed. Chad’s eyes widened. “That’s not my stuff.”

  “It was on your case, mister.”

  “It’s yours Chad.”

  “But that’s not what I packed!”

  “I repacked it. Those tiny things you had in there wouldn’t last you two weeks!” Her eyes grew wide as the officer removed the items from the bag and tossed them in a bin at her feet. “What are you doing? You can’t just take people’s property!”

  “Um, yes I can. And shoes off.”

  The stubborn look on her face made Chad nearly crazy with frustration. “Just do it, Willow.” Her eyes told him no before her mouth could follow, but she stopped short when he added, “Trust me.” He turned to the officer who waited and said, “She’s never flown before, and I didn’t think to prepare her.”

  “Do I have to pull out my toiletries too?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Impatiently, Willow unzipped her suitcase, pulled out her glass jelly jars of tooth powder, deodorant powder, shampoo, and conditioner. A bar of soap came next followed by a cosmetic bag. “Do I leave the stuff in the bag or dump it in the basket?”

  The woman stared slack-jawed for a moment and then tossed all of the jars, approved the soap, but removed face cleanser, toner, and moisturizer from the cosmetic basket and dumped those in the bin at her feet as well. As she stepped through the scanner, Willow found perverse pleasure in seeing that the overhead scanner didn’t make a peep, but her triumph was short-lived.

  “Step over there please.”

  Chad groaned. With all of her protests, he hadn’t been surprised but he’d hoped. Willow’s immediate retort sent new waves of nervousness through him. “Do I have the right to refuse?”

  “No.”

  “Am I under arrest for anything?”

  The woman gave her a scathing look. “Should you be?”

  “I don’t know, my grandmother is on trial for murder here in this town, maybe I’m guilty by association? Why do you want me to step aside?”

  With an expression that Chad found unreadable, the woman said, “Because it’s my job to ensure that no one else gets on a plane and flies it into a building anywhere.”

  “Like that could ever happen.”

  The woman looked at Chad, her expression priceless. “Is she for real?”

  “She’s for real. Just think of her as an Amish woman flying for the first time. She’s clueless, and I wasn’t thinking.” Chad pleaded with Willow, “You need to go over there and let them do their jobs.” His tone became stern—the same one he used with Aiden Cox half a dozen times a week.

  Willow’s mortification over being physically patted down, twice, made Chad wince inwardly. She wasn’t going to be happy about that. As if on cue, the moment they stepped away from security and started toward their gate, Willow’s questions flew. “What just happened back there?”

  “They checked to make sure that we brought nothing on the plane that could be used as a weapon.”

  “What about my knitting needles,” she protested. “Aren’t those a weapon?”

  “I’ve never understood that. Maybe because they’re wooden and in your bag.”

  “They took my scissors!”

  “They were the size of Rhode Island!”

  Her frustration boiled over. “So are those knitting needles if you compare sizes!”

  As they waited to board their plane, Chad explained the two planes that had flown in to New York’s World Trade Center, flattening the towers in the process. His voice choked as he described the plane downed at the Pentagon. “I just wanted to get there and help—but so did half the country. He told of United flight 93 and the courageous men who determined to avoid another major loss of life. “We don’t know for sure if they made it and prevented it or if they just convinced the men to take it down before they got there, but most of us like to think they got those—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Americans have been willing to give up a little of their rights and freedoms since then in order to prevent another chance of that happening. When someone fights it, it makes them look guilty.”

  “I thought we were innocent until proven guilty in this country.”

  Feeling weary, Chad nodded. “In regards to a crime, you are. If you’re accused of a specific crime, you’re innocent until proven guilty. However,” he continued as a look of triumph entered her eyes, “that doesn’t mean that when a man wants to bring something onto a plane that could be used to control the pilot, we have to let it happen. Especially if that man, or woman, happens to be protesting a bit too much. I’m pretty sure your beloved Shakespeare commented along those lines.”

  “But it’s a violation of my rights to tell me what I can and cannot take on a plane. How can they get away with that, constitutionally speaking? I’d call what just happened back there ‘unlawful search and seizure.’“

  “It’s not a right to ride on the plane, though. That right isn’t guaranteed by the Constitution. These are private planes owned by private companies, and they can make any rules they want about who can and cannot fly on them and what they can bring.”

  “Oh! I misunderstood. I thought this was some kind of law. If you chose to fly on a plane with these rules, then no, we can’t complain.”

  Oh how he wanted to let her think it. The temptation to drop the subject there was so great that Chad nearly offered to bring her a coffee even if it would make her jittery. However, his conscience wouldn’t let him. “It is Federal Law.”

  “Then it is still a violation of many people’s rights. The airline doesn’t have jurisdiction over their own property. They’re forced to follow these laws—”

  “And what about the rights of the people on the ground? Should they be endangered because an airline decides they’ll let anyone with five hundred dollars and an ID fly on their planes?” He sighed rubbing his temple. “We won’t agree on this, Willow. Not right now. How about we table it for some cold winter’s night—after I show you footage from the 9/11 attacks.”

  One disaster averted, Chad was relieved when their flight was called to board. Willow followed him onto the plane, down the aisle, and to their seats. He hefted their luggage over his head and into the stowaway bins above their heads “I got you the window,” he said smiling. “I thought you might like to see the clouds up close and personal.”

  “You can see the clouds?” She frowned. “I thought that was just poetic license in books.”

  A derisive snort from behind them sent Chad’s blood pressure up a notch but he chose to ignore it. “Yep. My favorite is when we are just going up. You can see all the farms and roads down there. It really does look like a patchwork quilt of fields.”

  She waited expect
antly. After what seemed like hours, the flight attendants rose and began their normal spiel regarding smoking, oxygen masks, and exit routes. Willow sat quietly, hanging on every word as though it meant life or death.

  As the plane taxied down the runway, her hand grabbed his in a vice-like grip. He knew the exact moment her stomach lurched by the way she reached for the complimentary vomit bag in the back of the seat ahead of her. A glance at her told him she was missing the best part of the take-off.

  “Look down there.”

  With obvious hesitation, Willow opened one eye and glanced out the window. Chad need not have worried. One glance at the ground, the skies, and the sun glistening on the wing behind them was all she needed to overcome the momentary fear in her heart.

  “We’re really going!” she whispered awed. Remembering something Marianne had shared once, she turned back to him and smiled. “Are we there yet?”

  Chapter 12 1

  LAX bustled with activity, a homogeny of languages, cultures, and Willow found them all extremely fascinating. While Chad searched for their rental agency, Willow engaged in the age-old practice of people watching. The languages fascinated her most. Heavy accents made even English-speaking people sound exotic and from another world.

  “Come on, let’s go. I got us a cool Mitsubishi Spyder! We’ll tour the coast and let the wind whip through our—” he pause grinning. “Well, your hair anyway.”

  In the car, Willow handed him an envelope with the dozens of printouts that he’d brought home from work. The envelope made him laugh. Palm trees, Route 66 signs, cacti, mountains, and surfboards covered the outside of it. When had she had time to decorate an envelope for his MapQuest printouts? “You’re amazing.”

  “What?”

  “It’s pretty. You even made an envelope for directions pretty. Who does that?”

  Willow shrugged and accepted the envelope back sans directions to the hotel. “I do. Who wants a boring gold envelope for everything?”

  The sheer volume of cars that spilled from the airport in constant streams overwhelmed Willow immediately. “I thought Rockland was busy, but—”

  “Well, this is the airport and we came straight to it from Fairbury so we missed the traffic, but yeah, LA has amazing traffic.”

  “Ok, after I merge onto CA-1N, what do I do?”

  Willow read the directions carefully. “Turn left on Pico Boulevard and then—”

  “That’s enough. I just needed to know if I needed the right or left lane when I got to the 1 north.”

  As they pulled up to the hotel, Willow gave him an odd look. “Seriously, Hotel California? You’re joking right?”

  “Cool isn’t it?”

  “Unoriginal is more like it.”

  “Come on, Willow—the Eagles song? It’s cool!”

  She shrugged and grabbed her tote. “Are we going in, or are we going to sit out here and contemplate the beauty of the décor?”

  Once they stepped into their room, Willow became entranced. She stood, suitcase handle in one hand, tote bag in the other, and stared out the window at the rolling surf. “It’s so—big! Look—it goes forever and it’s loud! I can hear it all the way up here.”

  Chad grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on, let’s go see.”

  Willow found herself following him down steps, onto the sand, and stumbling as they raced through it to the water’s edge. Swiftly, she kicked off her sandals, stepped onto the cool, wet sand, and waited for the waves to crash over her feet. “Oooh. It’s cold!”

  Her feet danced backwards. Chad, still rolling his pant legs up mocked her for being a wimp. “Come on, just a little cold water and you run!”

  “I didn’t expect it to be so cold. It’s beautiful out here, but that water is cold.”

  “Want to learn how to find a sand crab?”

  His excitement was infectious. Chad waited for the next wave, dug near the edge of the water, and pulled the tiny crab from the hole where it tried to burrow deeper into the sand. Immediately, Willow began digging as a new wave crashed over her feet. “I got one! Oh, it’s so tiny and cute. Do they get any bigger?”

  “I’ve only seen them about this size, but the males are a little smaller I think.”

  “I can’t believe how you can actually smell the salt in the air. I always thought that was just an example of literary imagery. I never dreamed it was salty enough to smell.”

  “Check out the pier.” Chad pointed to the famous Santa Monica pier with its Ferris wheel towering over the nearby shops and restaurants. “That Ferris wheel is even taller than the roller coaster.”

  “I’ve always wanted to ride a Ferris wheel.”

  This was surprising. Of all the things Willow might have ever wanted to do, something involving heights was the last thing he’d imagined. “I can’t believe you want to be up that high. I distinctly remember you hating the heights of the buildings in Rockland.”

  “I’ve gotten used to them,” she protested. “I don’t think I ever realized how tall a Ferris wheel would have to be, but I still think I want to try it.”

  “Really?” If she was willing to try the Ferris wheel, maybe the roller coaster wasn’t such a pipe dream after all.

  “But don’t expect me to get on that other thing. It looks fast!”

  “Well, it probably is, but it’s just a ride. Hundreds of people probably ride that thing every day. Maybe thousands.”

  “And the first time I saw a movie,” she reminded him ruefully, “I lost my dinner because the screen spun too much. How do you think I’d do if something was actually spinning?”

  “You have a point. Maybe on an empty stomach and with your eyes closed?”

  Scrutiny was an understatement compared to the examination Willow gave Chad. Did he really want her to try something so crazy? “Are you going on it?”

  “Oh, without a doubt.”

  “Hmmph. We’ll see. I might feel more daring tomorrow. I’m hungry.”

  The switch in topics took Chad several seconds to process. “Well, there are places on the pier I’m sure…”

  “You ready?”

  Willow nodded nervously and stepped into the car. Chad helped her fasten herself in securely and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Remember, if you feel sick, don’t look, or just stare at the seat ahead of us or something.”

  “Ok.” Her voice sounded small, even to her own ears.

  The coaster made the slow ascent making Willow wonder why she’d ever thought it’d be frightening. “This is as slow as the Ferris wheel.”

  “Not for long!”

  The ride whipped them into a spiral, before dashing in a curve that looked like it’d send them straight into the ocean. Several more dips and climbs followed before they zipped into the boarding area much more quickly than she’d ever imagined and with her stomach intact. She climbed from the car feeling weak-kneed but fine.

  “Well?”

  “It was exhilarating!”

  “Want to go again?” Chad wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that pass.

  “Not yet.” Willow paused, waiting to see if she fell apart. “I want to make sure it doesn’t have some kind of delayed reaction. I’d hate to get sick and have it all blow back into my face. I didn’t think of that.”

  “I did. I haven’t prayed so hard about anything so frivolous in years.”

  She stared at him, stunned. “And you went anyway?”

  “Yep.”

  “What,” she began curiously, “Did you pray about last time you prayed so hard for something so frivolous?”

  “Lass, there’s no way I’m tellin’. Let’s play some arcade games.”

  “What games?”

  “Skeeball. It’s my favorite. C’mon!” Chad pulled her to the arcade place he’d spotted the previous evening. “You’ll love it.”

  Waves crashed against the shore, cool breezes whipped her sweater collar against her cheek, but Willow sat calmly and marveled at the beauty of the moon across the water. Footsteps
behind her brought a smile to her face. How differently footsteps sounded when heard in the sand instead of on a floor or over grass or dirt. It sounded closer to snow than she would have ever imagined.

  “Willow?”

  “I’m fine, Chad. Just listening to the waves.”

  His arms wrapped around her waist as he knelt behind her. His head rested on her shoulder and he whispered, “This isn’t Fairbury, lass. It might not be safe out here.”

  “I’m fine; you’re fine; we’re fine.”

  “He, she, it is fine.” He kissed her cheek laughing. “See, I can conjugate too.”

  Willow’s arm stretched in front of her pointing at something she didn’t think he saw. “Look at the moonlight. You know how books talk about it being a bridge across water? It really does look like that, doesn’t it?”

  “What books?”

  Chad probably thought she was crazy. “The Harvester for one. Ruth appears to walk across the whole lake in a bridge like that.”

  “Never read it.”

  Willow struggled to her feet using his shoulders as a balance. “This winter. I’ll put it on the coffee table for you.”

  Her mind wrote the journal entry as she lived it. Moonlight on the ocean, salt air in the breeze, sand between your toes—I’ve never experienced anything more romantic and stirring than kissing Chad on California’s beaches. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want it to end. Ever.

  “Lass?”

  “Hmm?” Willow hardly noticed the tone that she’d soon learn meant Chad was in one of his thoughtful moods.

  “Do you have any idea how utterly happy I am?”

  Chapter 12 2

  They drove from Santa Monica to San Diego after three days at the beach. Hungry, they decided to try to find a restaurant. When two exits produced nothing of interest, Willow insisted he stop at a shopping center. While Chad waited in the car, she strolled into the first business, returning minutes later and waving a sheet of paper with directions to the ‘best fish taco in the San Diego area.’ “She said we wouldn’t regret it.”