Wednesday, November 12, 1997
L.A.X – 9:43 A.M

Tina ran her hands under the cold water gushing from one of the airport’s steel washroom sinks before looking at herself in the mirror, deep in thought. All of a sudden she felt an arm wrap around her, its grip loving yet powerful… there was no mistaking it was Bette. Tina looked at their reflections together just in time to find that the stunning olive toned beauty was kissing her from behind, hastily trying to undo the buttons of her blouse and gently nibbling on one of her earlobes. Tina looked around the room and noticed that they were the only ones there, all alone with no one to interrupt

“Bette”she blurted out before turning around and letting Bette’s lips touch hers. The moment was slow, intense, and passionate…The air was getting thick round them and with Bette’s help Tina managed to sit herself up against the marble surface of the washroom counter. Bette’s hands freely touched against the bare skin on Tina’s back as she in turn wrapped her legs around Bette’s hips, pulling the tall brunette closer towards her and kissing her torridly. Playfully Bette grazed her tongue against the surface of Tina’s lower lip, eliciting a sharp gasp as she nimbly worked her fingers to undo the clasps of Tina’s lacey black bra. In the heat of the moment it was almost impossible to stop, but something managed to pull Tina out of her current state of mind. “Bette we can’t do this” she said a little out of breath, gently separating herself away from a very confused looking Bette Porter before adding, “It’s not you it’s just that this is too hard for me to be doing this right now.”

Bette breathed deeply as if to mark her defeat. She wanted to disprove Tina in every single way but instead of doing so she just stepped aside and re-adjusted her clothes, looking more than a little crest-fallen in the process. Tina stood up wordlessly and did the same, smoothing out the remaining wrinkles on her shirt as she occasionally looked over at Bette, feeling a touch of guilt wash over her with every second they stood apart. In a matter of seconds both women re-emerged into the busy airport surroundings.

To the far left corner Bette saw different colored dots forming letters across the huge electronic board over-head… Pointing out all sorts of destinations, and blinking above to signal a countless myriad of flight schedules… she was sure that one of them was beckoning for Tina. Bette couldn’t believe this was happening to her today… or that she was actually stupid enough to go through with this in the first place. For the past few days she had been trying to convince Tina that this was a bad idea to go through with what she was doing… but to no avail Tina just remained stubborn and wouldn’t even hear her out… so instead Bette went out of her way to prove a point, canceling all sorts of business appointments in the gallery in a desperate attempt to talk some sense into Tina. In fact she had so many things planned considering she wasn’t the type of person who got caught up in these sort of things, the initial idea of course was to persuade Tina not to go… but her last attempt in the washroom didn’t seem to pan out, and now here she was accompanying her through the airport as if she were meaning to give Tina away.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes…” Tina said calmly.

“You’re really leaving me?”

“Bette… Please try to understand… It’s not working anymore”” Tina said in a series of word fragments as she was too busy fussing over the luggage.

“But you said it was fine two weeks ago… I don’t see why you have to fly all the way to New York for.”

“It’s something I have to do Bette.”

“Why can’t you just stay and fix things here?”

“Because we both know I’ve tried that already…”

Tina sighed and looked up only to see that Bette’s doe-eyes were looking back at her with such sadness that it pained her to know that she had to leave.

“Bette we’ve been through this before. The people upstairs said that the script I was developing wasn’t doing it for them anymore, so I need to go up there and meet up with them to clear things out.”

“I can go with you.”

“No baby you know you can’t…”

“Oh yes I can! I’ll just call the gallery and get someone to take over.”

“But my flight’s about to board.”

“***** the flight Tina, I’m sure I can get you another one.” Bette said in a determined, stubborn, and half-pleading voice. This was the third time that Tina had to leave for work this month, given that and the fact that Bette also had to travel a lot to meet certain artists; she was desperate to keep Tina in L.A.

In the meanwhile Tina stood there giving her a disapproving look, silently waiting for Bette to come to her senses.

“Wait”that would be too much of an inconvenience for you…” Bette said trying to reorganize her thoughts, while all the while completely misinterpreting the message Tina was trying to convey.

“I’ll just take a later flight then we can meet there…” Bette continued earnestly. Tina leaned her back against a wall, and folded her arms. She was still not responding, instead she just stood there patiently hoping that any minute now Bette would get how silly she was truly behaving, but as time passed she knew it wasn’t happening… so in a frustrated voice she finally jumped in to say:

“Bette, it’s only going to be a couple of days.”

Now it was Bette’s turn to give her an uncompromising gaze. “But””

“Besides I won’t have enough time to spend with you, I’ll be working all day…”

“What am I supposed to do here without you?”

“Work…. remember? You’re having another art opening next week… if you come with me you’d be swamped by the time we get back.” Tina tried to rationalize.

Bette rested her forehead against Tina’s, “Right work…” She shifted her eyes toward the building’s well-polished floors before looking back to meet Tina’s strikingly expressive eyes.

“Did I ever tell you how much I hated airports?” she asked rather off-topic.

This question was enough to trigger a smile to grace Tina’s lips.

“No…actually I never thought you did…”

Bette waited a couple of beats, “Well now I do…” she finished with a weak smile, unaware that as she did so all the traces of the small disagreement she just had with Tina would slowly fade away.

The busy noises of the airport droned in the distance as one woman’s goodbye smoothly blended in with the other’s sigh. Bette brought Tina in for a hug, holding her, hoping her embrace would be enough to keep Tina from boarding.

“Two days… then I’ll be back…” she spoke softly into Bette’s ear.

This statement was enough to make Bette’s worries diminish even for just a short millisecond, “Then I guess… I’ll be waiting.” she responded weakly before finally letting Tina wriggle out of her grasp.
____________________________________________

Back in the gallery Bette was hard at work, trying as much as she could not to let her personal life interfere with managing her business A few hours passed and she was actually doing a great job until her assistant burst into her office announcing that Tina wanted to talk to her on the phone, before briskly disappearing out of the door.

“T…” Bette softly spoke into the receiver. “How did the flight go?”

“It was fine baby, I just called to say I got here safe and…” suddenly Tina’s voice broke down.

“Tina what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing… I just wanted to apologize for um… being so pre-occupied at the airport this morning.”

“T I understand, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time earlier.”

“No, I know that all the traveling and spending this time apart is taking its toll on both of us.” there was a short pause from the other line before Tina continued, “God sometimes I just wish we could get away together…”

Bette bit her lip as she flipped through her work. “T that sounds so good I mean listen to me you’ve been gone six hours and I make it sound like you’ve been gone a lifetime.”

Tina was about to drop another quarter into the payphone when a colleague of hers tapped a hand lightly against her shoulder, discreetly signaling to her that it was time for them to go. “Okay baby… Listen I’m really sorry but I have to go… the cab is waiting… I’ll talk to you later… bye.”

“Bye.” Bette smiled as she hung up the phone. Tina had no idea what she was planning to do next



To be continued…