The two guys nodded to him and then to me. Both men had backpacks over their suits and acted like they’d done all this before. My legs were shaking, and I didn’t have a passport. I tried to tell Timothy that, but he was walking too fast. I tugged on his arm.
“I don’t have a passport,” I said, trying to stop his forward propulsion.
Timothy smiled. “Yes, you do, darling. I ordered one for you the moment I met you. It’s always wise to stay ahead of necessity.”
That was impossible. Peggy, one of the secretaries at the office, had been filling out forms, getting her pictures, and setting up an appointment to get her passport for her upcoming vacation in Paris. She’d complained daily about how difficult and time consuming the process was.
I started to say something, but Timothy pulled out a passport from his breast pocket and handed it to me. “Here, you go. This one will work until we change your name to mine, which I hope happens soon.”
I halted completely to give myself time to study the passport. It had a picture of me and all the right information. How could that be?
“I don’t have a driver’s license either,” I added, regretting the fact as I always did.
Timothy pulled an envelope out of the same pocket. “Here. You’re a lot of work, my darling girl, but you’re worth it.”
We boarded at the end of a big mob. Timothy showed his phone, which seemed to hold all four of our tickets, then, holding my elbow, he guided me forward after I’d flashed my two very new and very fake ID’s. (Yes, I was half expecting the alarms to go off, or for a stewardess to say, “Definitely not. These are counterfeits.”)
It was only later that I realized how many laws I’d broken. How many years in jail would they sentence me to? Would Timothy hire an attorney for me? Would Mr. Sanders rue the day he hired me?
We were walking through a long tunnel while I was doing all my worrying about what could have happened if . . . so I hardly noticed our approach to the big plane we were about to fly on, not that I could have seen it, actually, since the airline seemed very secretive, keeping the jet veiled from us. Our passage along the path was very noisy and kind of creepy. I kept wondering what the airline was hiding, and why we couldn’t just walk out on the runway and climb up into the plane.
When we finally reached the plane, with the metal monster’s gaping open door, two stewardesses greeted us, rechecked Timothy’s phone for a peek at our tickets, then waved us inside. A young male flight attendant escorted us to our seats. We walked down another passageway, except this time, there were people sitting in seats on each side, some of them staring at us as if already bored with their surroundings.