She raced through the terminal on agile legs dodging other passengers to gate 23. Looking back once, afraid that she had lost her partner in the crowd, Bette spotted Tina a few feet behind. She continued and then stopped slowly.

“Babe, you see her?” Tina asked coming to a stop behind her.

Bette stared at the large group of people noticing that none of them appeared to have disembarked from a plane.

“Something’s wrong.”

“What, babe?”

“Something’s wrong,” Bette repeated groping for Tina’s hand.

Her fingers flexed coming into contact with Tina’s smooth knuckles. She interlaced her digits with her love’s. A man dressed in the airline uniform stood nervously apart from the crowd, which now included a local news camera crew.

“Hey, babe, isn’t that-?” Tina began.

“Family and friends waiting for the arrival of Flight 732 please form a line between the baracades being set up,” the orange haired man in the Sterling Continental uniform.

Tina squeezed Bette’s hand and pulled her over to the line. Once everyone formed the line, two security guards closed in.

“Everyone, please follow this gentlemen here. Thank you.”

There were over forty of them filing onto a VIP conference room. The eight rows of metal folding chairs quickly filled leaving Bette and Tina standing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Nale Hasselback and I am the director of consumer affairs of Sterling Continental in LAX. I don’t want to alarm anyone, which is a huge understatement,” he muttered under his breath, “But as of right now, traffic control had lost contact with Flight 732.”

A huge gasp of shock rumbled through the people.

“Please, calm down. Let me continue,” Nale took a breath, ” There can be any number of reasons why their radio isn’t picking up the frequency. But in any event, they are still trying to gain their location.”

“How?’ a frazzled woman asked.

“By asking other planes in the air if they see the liner and asking other pilots to raise them on other frequencies, if possible.”

“That’s not enough!” screamed a balding middle aged man.

The rest of the group began yelling, demanding more be done.

“This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening,” Bette whispered as a mantra.

Tina felt Bette’s hand began to tremble. And before she could do anything… Tina saw Bette crumble.

“Ohmigod!”

*****