AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He didn’t respond.
She tried to act sultry, but after a full day bouncing through the desert in the back of a van and a full night in the detention cells, Alice’s alluring looks had melted with her makeup. Her mascara streaked down her face. Her foundation had wiped off in places, leaving her looking like a mime instead of a dancing star. And her hair, always smooth and polished, was snarled into a rat’s nest with pieces of foliage from the bushes we’d used for cover. There was nothing sexy or sultry about the woman batting her clumped eyelashes at him.
“Sir!” she demanded.
He looked at her. “What?”
“Ihaveto go to the bathroom. It’s an emergency.”
He pointed to the bucket Marge just vacated. “There’s your bathroom.”
“I’mnotgoing in a bucket!”
“There are about a hundred people in line in front of you waiting to use the real bathroom. Sorry. That’s just how it is. You either hold it until it’s your turn, or you piss in the bucket.”
“I’m a millionaire! Amulti-millionaire! Thestarof my own show!” She stomped her foot. “I’m alady,dammit! Ladies don’t piss in buckets!”
“You do now.” He lifted his chin, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“Ahhhh!” Alice screamed, grabbing her hair and spinning around to face us. When she let it go, it stuck up in all directions, making her look even more crazed. “I’m going to kill you, Marge! ‘Worst case scenario, we go back to our resort.’ That’s what you said.Thisis not our resort! And now? Now I have to piss myself or piss in a bucket. I’m going to strangle you!”
She started toward Marge, eyes wild and wide. I jumped up and stepped between them. “Okay, okay. No one is strangling anyone. I’ll tell you what. We have that tinfoil blanket. How about I hold it up for you and give you some privacy on the bucket, and then you hold it up for me and give me some privacy on the bucket. That way we’re not just peeing out in the open.”
She twisted her lips.
I grabbed her hand. “I’ve got to go. Badly. What do you say?”
She let out a sigh. “Fine. But after today, weneverspeak of this again. Understood?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
Marge and Doris nodded as well.
With a sigh, she pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Oh, my God. Fine. Get the tinfoil.”
“Good. Okay. I’ll get the blanket.” I hurried over to the cot and got the thin, foil blanket we’d been given. I marched over to the bucket, held up the blanket like a curtain, and gestured for Alice to go. She grumbled the whole time, but finally, I heard her steady stream and a lengthy relieved sigh. After she finished, it was my turn, and I was so ready to go I didn’t even know if I could get my pants off in time. But I made it, and as horrified as I was to pee in a bucket, it was the best damn pee I’d ever had in my life.
After pulling up my pants and stepping out, we did the same for Doris, who sobbed the whole time. When she finished, we all slumped together into a pile of defeated ladies sitting on the cot.
“There. We’ve all gotten the worst over with. Any minute now, we’re gonna get told we’re free to go.” I stroked Doris’s back. “They interviewed us all. They are checking with the DMVs and the resorts to prove we were where we said we were and stayed under the names we said we did. The ones that will match our faces and IDs when they pull them up on the computers. It can’t be much longer.”
“They said it could take days,” Doris said, lip trembling. “The person who interviewed me said they are so backed up it could bedaysin here!”
“We each got a phone call. I called Tom. Marge called her daughter. Tom said he would pull every favor he had in the military to get us released quickly. Marge’s daughter is a well-respected cop with the LAPD, and she’s doing the same. We have to trust that they are out there doing everything they can to get us home.”
Doris sniffled. “I sure hope so. I miss Axel. He wasn’t home when I called, so I just left a message. He must be worried sick.”
“We’ll get you to him soon.” I slung an arm around her and squeezed. “I promise.”
The sound of high heels clicking on concrete pulled our attention, and when they stopped, we spun to see a beautiful woman in a nice pantsuit standing in front of our cell with her arms crossed tight.
“Hi, Mom,” she said with a smile. “How’s it going?”
“Martha!” Marge shouted and raced to the bars. “I can’t believe you came!”
She chuckled, shaking her head as she took Marge’s hands in hers through the bars. “And miss seeing you locked up in a US Customs and Border Patrol detainment center? Not on your life.”
Marge started to laugh, and though Martha looking nothing like her and was far more refined looking than you’d ever expect of a daughter of Marge, when she started laughing with her mother, it sounded like surround sound.
