Before the Storm (15 page)

to the metal detector as I handed him my driver’s license and

boarding pass.

“Hold your boarding pass so the security guard can see it,”

I told Andy.

I walked through the metal detector first, relieved I didn’t

set off the alarm.

“My turn?” Andy asked me.

“Hurry up, sweetie,” I glanced at my watch. “We’re running

late.”

Andy stretched his arms out to his sides as if for balance and

walked toward the metal detector, a look of concentration on

his face. I was afraid he was going to crash into the metal

detector with his arms, but he dropped them to his sides just

before stepping through.

The alarm pinged.

“Oh, great,” I said, blowing out my breath and walking

toward Andy.“It’s his belt buckle,” I said to the guard.“I should

have thought of it.”

“Step back, ma’am,” the guard said to me. “You have a belt

on?” he asked Andy.

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Andy lifted his jersey to display his metal belt buckle. “It’s

not liquid or anything,” he said.

“Are you trying to joke with me, boy?” the guard asked.

“Take off your belt.”

“He’s not trying to joke,” I said as Andy pulled off his belt.

“He really thinks you’re—”

“Ma’am, just let me do my job.” The guard coiled the belt

into a plastic bowl. “Walk through again,” he said to Andy.

Andy stepped through the metal detector again.

Ping!

I was lost. What could he possibly be wearing that would

set it off?

“I don’t understand,” I said. “He’s not wearing a watch or—”

“Step over here.” The guard motioned Andy to walk over

to the other side of the conveyor belt, where a stocky, uniformed woman stood. She wielded a baton-shaped metal

detector like a billy club.

“Hold your hands out to your sides,” she instructed.

Andy looked at me as if for permission.

“Go ahead, Andy,” I said. “It’s all right. The guard just

needs to figure out why you set the alarm off.” I pulled our

carry-on bag from the conveyor belt, then gathered our

shoes, jackets and my pocketbook from the bins. My arms

were shaking.

“We’re very late for our flight,” I said to the guard as she

ran the wand over Andy’s chest.

“Is that a microphone?” Andy asked. “We’re going to be on

TV and talk into microphones.”

“We are.” I hoped I could soften the woman up a little.

“We’re actually heading to New York to be on the—”

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127

Dih-dih-dih-dih.
The wand let out a staticky sound as it

passed over Andy’s left sock.

“Take off your sock,” the woman commanded.

“His sock?” I was completely perplexed.

The guard ignored me.

“Go ahead, Andy,” I said.

Andy pulled off his sock and something small and silver

plinked
to the floor.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“My lighter,” Andy said.

I leaned closer. “Your
lighter?
”

“Stand back, ma’am.” The guard carefully picked up the

object with her gloved fingers.

“Andy!” I was astonished. “Why do you have a cigarette

lighter?”

Andy shrugged, splotches of red on his cheeks. He was in

trouble with me and he knew it.

“Put your shoes on,” the woman said, “and then I’ll have to

ask the two of you to come with me.”

“Come with you?” I dropped one of the shoes from my

overladen arms, and dropped two more when I bent over to

pick it up. “Where?” I scrabbled around on the floor trying to

fit everything into my arms again.

“You can sit here to put your shoes on.” The guard motioned

to a row of chairs.

Giving in, I sat down and motioned to Andy to do the same.

We put on our shoes, the guard watching our every move.

“Where do you want us to go?” I asked, getting to my feet.

Our jackets and my pocketbook were over my arm and my free

hand wheeled the carry-on.

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“To the Public Safety Department for questioning,” she said,

turning on her heel. “Follow me.”

Andy started to follow her. “Wait!” I said. “Our plane leaves

in fifteen minutes. Can’t you just confiscate the lighter and let

us go?”

“No, ma’am.” She rambled on in a monotone about federal

regulations, all the while leading us down a corridor from

which I feared we’d never escape.

She led us into a small office where a uniformed officer, his

bald head gleaming in the overhead light, sat behind a desk.

He looked up at our entry.

“Sir,” the guard said, “this boy tried to get through security

with a lighter concealed in his sock.”

“I’m his mother, Officer,” I said. The man had kind eyes

beneath high, expressive eyebrows. “I’m so sorry this

happened, but we’re going to miss our plane if—”

“Sit down.”He motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk.

“We have to go to New York to be on the
Today
show,” Andy

said as he sat down.

I remained standing. “Is there a chance you can have them

hold the plane for us?” I asked.

He looked at me. “If you don’t take this seriously, ma’am,

how do you expect your son to respect the law?” So much for

the kind eyes.

I sank into the chair next to Andy, wondering how long it

was until the next plane to New York.

The man folded his arms on his desk and leaned forward.

“How old are you, son?” he asked Andy.

“Fifteen.”

“You’re fifteen?” He looked like he didn’t believe him.

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129

“He is,” I said.

“I’m small for my age,” Andy said.

“Why did you have a lighter in your sock?” the officer asked.

“Because of the sign.”

“And what sign is that?”

“The one that said don’t carry guns and knives onboard. It

said don’t carry lighters, too.”

“Oh, no,” I said under my breath.“He took it literally,” I said

to the officer.

“Ma’am, I have to ask you to be quiet.” Then to Andy, “If

you knew the sign said not to bring lighters onboard, why did

you have a lighter in your sock?”

I saw tears in Andy’s eyes. “I put it in my sock so I wouldn’t

be carrying it,” he said.

I reached over and rested my hand on his knee. “I can

explain—”

“Ma’am.” The officer gave me a warning look. Then he sat

back in his chair, tapping a pen on his desk. “We have these

regulations in place for your protection, son,” he said, looking

at Andy. “We don’t take joking about them lightly.”

“Please, Officer,” I said. “He has a disability.”

The man ignored me. “What were you planning to use the

lighter for?” he asked.

Andy darted his gleaming eyes at me. “In case I wanted a

cigarette.”

“Do you know you can’t smoke on the plane?”

“I wouldn’t smoke on the plane.”

“And where are your cigarettes?”

“I don’t have any.”

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“But you had a lighter that was so important to you that you

carried it on your person.”

Andy had had it.“Mom?” He looked at me for help, one tear

slipping over his lower lashes.

“Sir, Andy has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder,” I spoke

quickly. I wouldn’t let the man stop me again. “He doesn’t

understand the fine point of what you’re saying. If he sees a

sign that says ‘don’t carry something,’ he takes that literally to

mean he shouldn’t
carry
something.You carry things in your

hands. I didn’t know he had a lighter. I didn’t even know he

smoked.” I darted my eyes at Andy with a look that said we

would talk about
that
later. “But I can assure you, he had no

idea he was doing anything wrong. We’re flying to New York

to be on the
Today
show tomorrow morning, because Andy

saved some lives in a fire in Surf City.”

The man’s eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead. “You’re

that
boy?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Andy said in a small voice. “People followed me

out the window.”

The man pursed his lips. He picked up the lighter from the

desk in front of him, flipped open the top and thumbed the

wheel to produce a long slender f lame. “Well,” he said,

snapping the lid closed.“Needless to say, we’re confiscating this

lighter. We have some paperwork to attend to. And—” he

looked at the computer monitor on his desk, clicked a few keys

on his keyboard “—there’s another f light to LaGuardia at

ten-ten.”

“Three
hours
from now?” I was nearly whining. “That’s the

next one?”

“Yes, ma’am. There’s room on it, though, so you’re lucky.”

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* * *

main part of the terminal. “Let’s get something to eat,” I said.

“That’ll kill some time.”

We each got a muffin and a bottle of water, then found seats

at the gate.

“Okay, Andy,” I said, once we’d arranged our belongings on

the seats around us. We were the only two people at the gate.

“We need to have a talk.You promised me you’d never smoke.”

Andy studied the toe of his well-examined sneaker as he

chewed a mouthful of blueberry muffin.

“Andy?”

He swallowed. “I sometimes do,” he said, “but I don’t suck

the smoke into my chest. Just my mouth.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s cool.”

“Which of your friends smoke?” I asked.

He hesitated again. “Do I have to tell you?”

I thought about it. What difference did it make?

“No,” I said, sighing. “You don’t. But you
do
have to tell me

where you got that lighter.” It hadn’t been a cheap little Zippo.

“I traded for it.”

“What did you trade for it?”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it!”

“You have to, Andy.”

“I traded my pocketknife.”

“
What
pocketknife?” I hadn’t known he had one.

He rolled his eyes. “The one I’ve always had.”

I sighed.“I know you want to fit in,” I said.“I know you want

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turbed as I was about the lighter, I was more upset to realize

there were parts of my son I didn’t know. If he’d lied to me

about not smoking, what else was he lying to me about?

“What about drugs? You also promised me you wouldn’t do

drugs. How do I know you’re not doing them, too?”

“I would
never
do drugs,” he said with such vehemence I

believed him. At least, I believed that he meant it at that moment

in time.

“I’m tired,” he said, slumping low in the seat.

“Me, too.” I thought we’d had enough heavy discussion for one

morning. I reached into my pocketbook for the novel I’d brought

with me. “Why don’t you close your eyes and take a nap?”

He leaned his head against my shoulder, my angelic little boy

again. I let the book rest in my lap and shut my eyes.

How were we going to survive the rest of his adolescence?

I wondered. I didn’t like to think about what next year would

be like without Maggie at home. She was a second set of eyes

watching over him. Her own commitment to education—to

excellence in everything she did—influenced him. She would

be as surprised as I was to learn about the lighter.

We were both bleary-eyed by the time we filed into the

small jet.

“Do you want to sit next to the window?” I asked, pointing

to the two seats reserved for us.

“Yeah!” he said, sliding into the seat.

“Buckle your seat belt,” I said as I buckled my own. He

popped the buckle together and then I pulled it tight.

The flight attendant, an Asian woman with sad eyes and a

bright smile, stood up and began going through her motions.

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133

“Who is that lady?” Andy asked loudly.

“She’s the f light attendant. She’s explaining some things

about the plane. Let’s listen.”

The attendant showed how to undo the seat belt and Andy

obediently undid his.

“She’s showing how for later,” I said. “So buckle it back up

now.”

She demonstrated the use of the oxygen mask and Andy

leaned forward, tongue pursed between his lips as he concentrated on her instructions.

He turned to me when the attendant had finished.

“Why did she say adults traveling with children should put

their mask on first?” he asked.

“Because the adult can’t take good care of the child unless

she takes care of herself first,” I said.

For some reason, that made him laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’d put mine on before yours,” he said with certainty.

“You always take care of me before anybody else.”

LIGHTS WERE ON IN SOME OF THE HOUSES as I drove to

The Sea Tender. It was the first week in April, and people were

starting to take vacations. In a couple of months, the island

would be totally different. The everybody-knows-everybodyelse feeling would morph into wall-to-wall strangers with

new faces every week as they moved in and out of the rental

houses and mobile homes. I dreaded it. There’d be people in