Torch by Roxie Noir

Author:Roxie Noir [Noir, Roxie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-10-03T18:30:00+00:00

La Guardia at four in the morning isn’t any more pleasant than La Guardia any other time of day, though it’s at least a little quieter, since everyone is half asleep and too tired to kick up much of a fuss.

I check in, my heart lurching as the lady behind the desk heaves my camera equipment onto a conveyor belt. The huge, orange FRAGILE tag doesn’t do a lot to ease my mind, but it’s out of my hands.

You can’t control everything, Mae, I remind myself.

The security line is short, and I hand my ID and boarding pass over to the officer at the podium.

He looks at my ID. He looks at my boarding pass.

He looks at my ID again. He looks at me, his brow knitting, just a little.

My stomach sinks, because I suddenly know exactly what happened.

“Can you step over here?” the officer asks, nodding his head to one side.

Crap.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Just wait right there,” he says.

I haven’t slept. I’m hungry. I haven’t even had coffee yet, because I’m at this stupid airport at an ungodly hour.

I feel like a toddler on Santa’s lap, and I wish I could just scream.

Instead, I wait politely, because momma didn’t raise a fool.

After a while, another guy comes over and confers quietly with the first officer for a few moments, then looks at me.

“Your ID and boarding pass don’t match, Miss Guthrie,” he says.

“It was an oversight,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I go by Mae Guthrie professionally, and the ticket was booked by a client who wasn’t aware of my full legal name.”

“What kind of client?” he asks.

“I’m heading to a job shooting for Sports Weekly,” I say.

Did you seriously just say ‘shooting’ at a TSA checkpoint?

“Shooting photographs,” I say quickly, the words practically tripping over themselves. “I’m a photographer, and I’m going to an assignment for some rodeo in Oklahoma. The whole thing was really last minute, I didn’t sleep last night, and I just plain forgot to tell them to book me as Lula-Mae, not just Mae.”

He’s still just looking at me.

“I’ll ask them to change it for the ticket back, but please let me get on this plane,” I say.

I can feel myself starting to unravel, and for a moment, I’m afraid that I’m going to cry in this stupid security line, in front of all these people, all because my parents couldn’t give me a normal name.

“You’re fine,” he finally says. “We just gotta double check all this stuff. Go ahead.”

My face flushes with relief.

“Thanks,” I say.

I get through the rest of security without a problem. By some miracle, the person checking the X-Ray machine has seen a camera before, so they don’t have to dismantle my whole carefully packed case to make sure it’s not a bomb.

Even though I get coffee, I’m asleep before the plane even takes off.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.