As soon as we get off the plane in Atlanta to wait for our flight to Tampa, we’re greeted by three security guards. “Ladies, come with us,” a male in a TSA uniform says. This guy is an intimidating character. I’m not sure we have any other option other than to comply.
“Ali,” I say, trying to seem confused.
“Just go with it,” she says back to me.
One female and two male guards lead us down into a hallway deep within the guts of the airport. The female security guard that came down here with Ali and I asks us both to take a seat with the rest of the people in the overcrowded and claustrophobic room.
I would say that there are about ten of us sitting on the benches around the small chamber. The room couldn’t have been any bigger than a small public restroom. Every person in the area looks similar to the way we used to look. Their hair matches what could have been a description for ours in varying lengths and shapes. One girl sitting in the corner looks as if she could have been a dead ringer for Ali except for the makeup and freckles.
“This is just a precaution. You two resemble the description of two missing women from Michigan,” the lady in the uniform said as she started to shut the door behind us.
“We’re going to miss our flight to Tampa!” Ali cries out at the guard trying to play the part of a worried little girl. The act didn’t budge the guard at all.
“This won’t take long,” the guard says just before shutting the door completely. This situation has the smell of a power trip all over it like the stink that sticks around after a piece of fruit has gone bad.
Missing women? What did she mean by missing women? I wasn’t missing. I freaking ran away. Ali ran away. We ran away together. We left to save what was left of our lives. We weren’t abducted or missing. This is bullshit.
I wonder what Tom has put out to the media about this. Has it hit the media, yet? Did the media even know about the two of us? I had never been interviewed or photographed. Would more people be looking for us? Son of a bitch.
Scanning the room with my eyes, I see a small poster with two images of two young ladies on it. One is a picture of me in my wedding gown at the church. Most recent, of course. Ali’s is the picture from her ID badge for when she is on set.
I look at her and she doesn’t even come close to resembling the Ali she once was. Her hair is almost completely gone. Her makeup is completely different than the way she would ever have worn it before. The only thing that is still the same is the heart tattoo on her neck, but you can’t see it in the photograph and not many people ever even knew about it other than me and the tattoo artist that worked on her. “She’ll be fine,” I think to myself.
The picture of me is a polar opposite version, as well. In the picture I’m all dressed up. Makeup caked my face on that day. I remember it well. The ladies even worked the lipstick in order to make my lips look bigger than they actually are. “Thank you, bitches!” I think to myself excitedly. I might be out of danger, too. If anyone was to look at us next to the images they chose, they’d never be able to tell that it was us.
And just like that, my brain flips a switch. Despite all of the reassurance I was giving myself, I’m still freaking out. What the fuck is going on right now? I still didn’t know what exactly was going on. I feel like my chest is collapsing in on itself. All of the air has deflated from my lungs. I can’t seem to even choke out a breath. Ali waves her hands over my face. I can hear her talking to me in the background behind the noise of all the thoughts flowing through my brain.
“Val, just breathe. You have to breathe. Everything is going to be okay.” Ali starts shaking my leg with her arm. I feel like I’m going to fall dead to the floor at any second. She catches my attention after repeating “Breathe,” to me several times. I look around and see that I am not the only one in a panicky fit.
Hours seem to pass, but it’s only been minutes. Out of nowhere an intercom cracks and breaks the silence and stiffness in the room.
“Alright, ladies, everyone stand and single file over to the wall over there. Stand shoulder to shoulder with your back against the wall with the red line. Please wait for further instructions,” an intercom directs us. This must be what it feels like to be marched towards the lineup of a shooting squad or the electric chair.
My heart slams against the insides of my rib cage. Is my body strong enough to contain its vigorous throbbing? My heart beat is more of a hum, like the engine of a jet, than a steady thumping sound. I can feel my pulse racing in my thumbs and pulsating against the sides of my throat. This can’t be how it ends. Can it?
We all fall in place against the wall with the blood red line. How fitting, right? I feel like it’s my blood staining that wall in a perfectly painted horizontal line. We stand shoulder to shoulder as instructed, our bodies too close to the next for comfort. Ali is standing next to me. That’s the only hope and support I have right now.
Many of the girls standing in this line are tearing up. Very few are holding their heads as strong and as high as Ali is. These poor women are suffering because of my actions. My personal choices have become a punishment for everyone around me. I can’t believe I’ve let things get this far.
Ali and I have changed enough. We could get away from this. Deep down inside, I know we could escape. I wasn’t wearing any makeup, unlike how the portrait portrays me. Ali was wearing much more than she normally would have despite how her picture painted her. We were completely indistinguishable. I could hardly recognize myself. I don’t think Tom ever paid that much attention to what I looked like, anyway. These guards haven’t been able to tell yet, either.
The tragic sense of guilt overcomes me as Tom makes his way into the room through the door that we were lead from. This was not what I expected, at all. Four security guards follow hot on his tail. His tie sways back and forth as he walks up and down the aisle of my victims against the wall. He stops at Ali and looks into her eyes. Thankfully, he’d never been around Ali for any serious length of time. There’s no way he’s know how to tell who she was just by the color of her eyes.
His gaze comes to a halt on me. He looks me over and touches my hair. I flinch and draw back from his touch. “Who do you think you are, mister?” I ask loudly, pissed off at the fact that he had the audacity to touch a person he seemingly didn’t know. “Don’t ever touch me. Don’t touch any of these girls.”
“I had a feeling it was you, Valerie,” Tom says as she waves the security guards to move in our direction. What in the world have I just sentenced myself to?
The security guards dismiss the rest of the women. They all single file out through the red doorway that had held us captive. One touches my shoulder on her way out. Her pink lips look like they silently mimic the words, “Good luck.”
“I won’t let her stay in here alone,” Ali stands up, boldly pushing out her chin and inflating her chest. She’s always ready for a fight. I love this woman. I know she is very protective of me. She has always been my noble defender. She’s always so vigilant.
“Ali: my sweet heroine,” I think to myself.
Tom breaks my tender thoughts. “What were you thinking? Running out on me? Nobody runs out on Tomas Espinoza!” Tom screams and yells. At some point he got in my face and that’s where I lost it.
“Fuck off!” I yelled, pushing him away from me. “I never loved you. I never wanted you. You and my parents were too busy with your own agendas to see, hear or even comprehend what I wanted with my life. I don’t love you, Tom. I won’t be with you. I won’t marry you. No amount of fame or money could ever change that.”
Tom backs further away from me. He cowers like a puppy that’s just been admonished for having an accident on the carpet. His eyes grow wide and fill with tears. Tom buries his face in his palms. For the first time ever, Tom is crying. Actually, I wouldn’t call it crying. He’s blubbering like a little baby. How does this man go from forcing himself into my life, to forcing me to marry him, to wanting my girlfriend and me dead to this? Was it really that e
asy to get him to break down? I should have done this a long time ago. Nothing makes sense anymore.
“Tom, you have to understand. It’s not you. It’s your gender… Does that make sense? We could have been friends, kind of. Well, maybe not, but do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
I could keep going on and on if I had to. Tom is making this all very awkward for me. I’m honestly not sure what to do with this guy right now. What else could I possibly say?
Ali takes my hand and Tom sees at the gesture, obviously disturbed. Dismay crosses his face all at once. Maybe I’m the bad guy for not letting him know sooner? Maybe my parents are the ones to blame? No. I am the only one that can take the heat for this. Should I have been more vocal from the beginning instead of just showing disinterest? I feel the weight of a thousand mistakes folding in on my mind.
“We’re gay, Tom,” Ali says matter-of-factly. She’s never cared for him. Hell, neither have I but at least I’m willing to be civil and sensitive about these things, in the face of the fact that he’s tried to have us murdered. Maybe there’s a chance we’ll make it out alive. One can only hope, right?
Tom waves the security guards away. As soon as they exit and lock the door behind them, he withdraws a pistol from the back of his pants, hanging his arms at his sides. Looking defeated, he stands up and places the barrel of the pistol right between my eyes. “Oh, shit. I’m toast,” I think to myself.
I brace myself for the gun blast. I’ll probably never even hear the gunshot that kills me. The bang that will end my life and never be heard of by anyone. If he thought he could cover up my death in car accident, I’m sure he things the same thing about this.
I bolster all of the courage I have in my being. I’m ready to die for Ali. “Oh, no,” I think. “Poor Ali is going to have to watch this whole event take place.”
I move my eyes to Ali. She’s dropped to the ground and started shaking. “Please, don’t, Tom. She never meant to hurt you,” she says as she backs herself into the closest corner of the room.
“Shut up you dyke bitch. This is between me and Valerie.” Where the hell were the fucking security guards? I bet he paid them off just like he did everything and everyone else.
“So much for being nice, Val,” I think. I should have taken his vulnerability and used it to my advantage. There’s no sense in thinking about the past now, though.
“Don’t talk to her that way, Tom,” I say, staring into his eyes with all the hate I can muster. “If you want me dead, pull the trigger.”
“Val, no!” Ali screams. She wails relentlessly.
Just as Tom begins to speak to me, another man comes rushing into the room with his weapon drawn. He steps in and places the barrel of the gun right on the back of Tom’s forehead. Tom turned swiftly to meet the gaze of the man that was on his heels. During the process, he forced me into a headlock.
“What a way to charm a girl,” I think.
What little is left of my hair is in my face. My bangs cover my eyes and touch the tip of my nose. I can barely see what is going on around me. I mostly just see shoes standing in place. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of a face. However, I can hear everything loud and clear.
“Put the gun down, Tom,” the mystery man says. He looks very familiar to me for some reason. I just can’t place where I know him from, though. “I’m only going to say it once.”
“Listen to him, Tom,” Ali screams from the corner of the room. Her body cowers as she curls up into a tight ball, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Tom lowers the gun to his side and pushes me to the ground. I hit my chest on one of the benches and crawl as quickly as I can to hold onto Ali.
“This is between me and Val, Greg. You were paid to keep an eye on them and finish the job. You have no further place in this. In fact, I think you should be killed for failing so miserably.”
Greg is a smaller man. His frame is about as thick as mine. His black suit fits securely to his body. His pants fall short of his shoes, making him look a little geeky. He looks like a guy in one of those scene kid bands. If I wasn’t a lesbian in love with Ali, he might be kind of cute.
Tom turns to me, gun still in hand. Greg keeps his weapon locked and loaded on Tom’s face. Tom turns to me and begins to speak.
“Listen, Val. I don’t understand. I never will.” He chokes on his thick tongue. He seems to have calmed down quite a bit since Greg made his appearance. “But I’m going to give you one chance, thanks to Greg. If you ever go public with anything—and I mean absolutely anything—I will kill you and I will kill your dyke friend. You got that?”
“I swear we won’t say anything, Tom. We just want to be left alone. We don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“Make this quicker, buddy. You’re running out of time,” Greg says persuasively.
“You’ll disappear. If I ever see you or hear about you, I will find you,” Tom says as he holsters the pistol back in place behind his back. “This, Val, is my only warning. Greg, it goes for you, too.”
“Are you okay, Ali?” I whisper. She doesn’t respond. Ali stares at me with pitiful and terrified eyes. Her pupils have dilated so much that her blue irises have all but completely disappeared. “Everything is going to be okay. Listen to me. We’re fine.” I hug her close to my body.
The security guards come in and escort us to our gate shortly after Tom leaves the room, still in tears and cursing about gay people and lesbians. What a douche-bag he has turned out to be. In the beginning, I had always had the vibe that he was much more harmless than he appeared to be. Guess I was wrong, yet again.
Regardless of my current feelings towards Tom, I am extremely thankful that I didn’t lose my face just then. I feel like I owe Greg my life for sure. I couldn’t imagine what that would have done to Ali. Shit, I can’t imagine what Tom would have done to Ali.
Once we got to the gate, we were the last in line to board the plane. Greg finds his way to the aisle seat beside us. “We actually made it,” I think to myself.
How long were we down in that room? It couldn’t have been that long. We only had about a two hour layover in Atlanta. It seemed like time stood still for days down there, though.
“Are you ladies, okay?” Greg asks, once the plane begins its departure down the runway.
“Do we look like we’re okay?” Ali questions him nervously. “Who are you, anyway? What did he mean by ‘you were paid to finish the job,’ Greg?”
“Val’s mother found out shortly after you ran away that I was once Tom’s partner,” he says looking at me with grief in his eyes.
“Partner?” I ask. This is a little confusing to me. Were they both thugs in some underground celebrity gang? Was he his stunt double? They didn’t look anything alike.
“Tom and I were once lovers. He became rich and famous and threw me out with yesterday’s trash. He couldn’t stand the thought of being ridiculed for his sexuality.” Greg twiddles his thumbs in his lap. “He is ashamed of who he is.” This is obviously a touchy subject for him. I try not to push the topic any further.
“Let’s swear to let the past go and pretend none of this ever happened,” Ali gasps, still trying to catch her breath and calm her nerves. “Nobody will be looking for us now. We don’t have to worry about someone trying to kill us. Let’s just let it go and move on.”
“I’m sorry this happened, Ali.”
“Let it go, Val. Nothing happened. We’re two perfectly normal women starting a life in Tampa. Nothing happened,” she says intensely.
“We’ll never discuss it, again.”
“Damn, I need a cigarette,” she says.
“You don’t smoke, Ali,” I say.
“I do now.”
“What the hell, me too,” I say. There goes my running habit.
Ali, Greg and I all decide to agree on this compromise. Greg laughs at us and puts a set of blue ear buds in his ears to listen to music. We all have new lives to look forward to in Tampa. The plane takes
off and we sit in silence for the entire hour of flight time.
CHAPTER 18
The Curious Concept of Coming Home
An Epilogue of Sorts