Lipstick Jungle

The agent looked at her and wrote “1” on her customs declaration card and circled it. Damn, damn, damn! She almost wanted to cry. That meant they were going to search her. Why did this always happen to women traveling alone? It was like the whole world wanted to punish you.

There was a female customs agent waiting at the exit for her. This was another bad sign. It meant that for some reason they had picked her out—her!—as a potential criminal (which she was, in a way, wasn’t she, for leaving her husband and children behind to pursue her glamorous and now probably totally meaningless career), and they needed a special female agent in case the situation required a full-body cavity search. No one believed her when she told people about this little routine that customs always pulled, but she’d traveled way too much not to know what this was about.

They really did suspect that she was a criminal. A drug carrier. Because the world still couldn’t imagine that a woman who traveled a lot on her own could possibly be anything else than a mule.

Instinctively, her eyes shifted from side to side, looking for an escape route (even though she hadn’t done anything wrong, or at least not illegal), and then before she could flee, the female customs agent (“Agent Cody” Wendy mentally named her), approached her and held out her hand.

“Can I see your customs declaration card, please.” It was a command, not a question.

“Sure,” Wendy said, nervously shifting the valise from one hand to the other.

Agent Cody examined the card. “Come with me, please.”

Wendy followed her to a long table, already feeling exposed, like she was being marched naked in front of a crowd of strangers. “What was the nature of your trip?” Agent Cody asked.

“Business,” Wendy said firmly, her mouth getting dry.

“And what is the nature of your business?” Agent Cody lifted her valise onto the table and began pawing through it.

“I’m a movie producer . . . I’m actually the president of a movie company. I’ve just been on location—”

“What was the movie?”

“It’s called Ragged Pilgrims—”

“Ragged Pilgrims? Have I seen it?”

“No. We’re in the middle of making it now . . . it comes out next Christmas,” she said apologetically.

Another agent approached. A man, mid-forties, five foot ten. Lips like two strings. Now they had her surrounded, Wendy thought. She was beginning to sweat.

“You ever hear of a movie called Ragged Pilgrims?” Agent Cody asked String Lips.

“Nope,” String Lips said.

“She says she’s a movie producer,” Agent Cody said, removing her cosmetics bag from the valise and sliding it over to String Lips. String Lips unzipped the top and looked inside, pulling out a toothbrush that was so worn, the bristles were splayed to the sides like limp fingers.

“Do you . . . uh . . . mind if I make a phone call?” Wendy asked. “I’ve got to call my children.”

“No,” Agent Cody said.

“What?”

“No. No phone calls in the customs area.”

“Can I see that?” String Lips asked.

Wendy surrendered her phone. String Lips held up the phone and shook it.

“It’s just a phone . . . really,” Wendy said, daring to show her impatience. How much longer were they going to torture her like this? In a couple of seconds, they’d probably be leading her away for a strip search . . .

“Can I see your passport, please?” String Lips paged through it. “You travel a lot,” he said sternly, as if this in itself were a suspicious activity that should be avoided. “You should know that customs has the right to search any passenger at any time for any reason.”

She bowed her head, contrite. “Yes sir. You’re right.”

And only then, having finally humiliated her, did they release her.