One: Distraught

The ringing wouldn’t stop. Jon cracked an eye and looked at the phone on the bedside table. Nobody used his land line anymore. What the hell? Tiffany roughly elbowed him. “Make it stop,” she mumbled.

By the third ring, he was sitting up in bed, blankets gathered at his waist, and he squinting at the clock. The red numbers glared 6:22. He sighed and picked up the handset. “This had better be good,” Jon said, yawning, and scratching at his bare chest. He and Tiffany had had a late night, and Jon had been looking forward to sleeping in.

“Jon?” A soft, terrified voice croaked over the phone line. Jon had to shake his head and blink a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Rich? That you, brother? What’s wrong?” The tone in Jon’s voice had Tiffany instantly all the way awake and sitting upright.

“Damn, Jon, fuck, man, I need you,” Richie’s voice wasn’t right. Jon listened hard; it sounded like his best friend was crying. Richie’s next words came out all in a tumble. “It’s Jen. Her plane...Stephanie called me...there’s been an accident...Jen may be in the hospital somewhere...Or she could be dead...they won’t tell us anything.”

“Rich, RICH!” Jon leapt out of bed and began pacing the room, heedless of the fact he was naked. “Slow down, man, what the hell are you saying? What about Jen’s plane?”

Tiffany groaned, “Oh God,” and got up too, wrapping her robe around her.

Jon heard Richie take a deep breath. “Jen’s plane crashed.”

“WHAT!?” Jon sprinted from the room, with Richie’s rough breathing in his ear, and Tiffany close on his heels. He ran to his office and logged in to the computer. He searched for “plane crash, Boston” and there was very little information, save for a blurb on AP.

Delta Flight 1121 from Boston to Los Angeles crashed shortly after its scheduled 5:45am takeoff this morning. The plane had just cleared 1500 feet when the starboard engines caught fire and exploded from the wing. Eye witness accounts have the plane falling from the sky; the starboard wing catching on the grass before flipping the plane over. The aircraft slid several hundred feet, ultimately crashing into a bunker. The entire front end of the plane was crushed. No details about the passengers have been released, pending notification of next of kin. Sources do say there were survivors, but refuse to say how many or who they are.

“Oh no,” Tiffany said, reading over Jon’s shoulder. She started to sob, then ran back to their bedroom. She got dressed and began throwing clothes into a suitcase.

“Rich,” Jon said. “The news says there could be survivors. She could have made it.”

“Jon, I want to believe that. With all my soul I want to, but I feel a hole in my heart, man,” Richie said softly.

“You have to stay positive, until you know for sure.” Jon didn’t believe a word of what he was saying, but he knew that his friend would need all the strength Jon could offer him. “Where are you?” Jon asked, his own voice getting thick.

Richie took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m in a cab on the way to the airport. I’m going to buy tickets on every plane that’s heading east and hope for the best.” His voice got a little stronger, but Jon knew that Richie wouldn’t be able hold it together much longer. “Fuck it’ll be another six hours at least before I can get to the hospital where they’re taking anyone who – ” he couldn’t finish the sentence. He cleared his throat harshly. “That’s too long,” he muttered. “If she’s there, if she’s still alive, I have to know.”

Tiffany came back into the office with a suitcase, and Jon’s jeans, t-shirt, sneakers and socks. “We are on the way right now,” he said, mouthing ‘thank you’ to his wife. “We’ll get to Boston in a couple hours and call your cell. Gimme Stephanie’s number so she can keep us informed on the way. Give me Jen’s mother’s info too. I’ll call her and tell her you’re on the way.” Jon blinked rapidly to clear the tears that were starting to gather, and stepped into his jeans. “Who else do you want me to call?”

“Heather. Ava has to know, but I can’t do that right now.”

“Done,” Jon said. “You said Stephanie called?”

Richie let out a hollow chuckle. “Yeah, that’s the only reason I know anything. She was there, man.”

“Oh shit.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“You guys don’t have to come to the airport with me,” Jennifer said, watching the taillights of the moving van recede into the night. “I have to leave at 3:30 in the morning; that’s pretty early. You guys should just sleep in.” The girls had been busy all day, packing up what had to go to LA. Boxes of clothes, computer and stereo equipment, photo albums and books, all piled neatly into the back of the van. There was room to roll the Harley in alongside the boxes, and a trailer on the back of the truck carried her convertible. She’d see her things later, and she and Richie could give everything its own place.

“Pfft!” Stephanie hissed. “We are coming and that’s that. You need a proper send off to your new life, and you won’t let your parents go.”

“Yeah,” Gail added, “and you can’t tell us what to do, so we’re going with you.”

“Besides,” Cheryl added, “what kind of friends would we be if we didn’t see you off?” The four women shared a laugh.

When 3:30 came, the girls all gathered in the garage. It looked empty without the Caddy and the Harley sitting in it. Wiping a tear of melancholy from her eye, Jennifer gave herself a little shake. “Let’s get gone,” she said. “My flight leaves in a little more than two hours.”

Stephanie drove the truck to the airport. They joked and laughed the whole way, talking about Jennifer being a student again. “You’ll have all the college boys drooling over you,” Stephanie said.

“Yeah, right,” Jennifer said. “Like I’d even look their way if they were. Have you SEEN who I’m moving in with?”

Gail nodded. “Yeah, but still, all that young, tight, fresh meat,” she licked her lips. “Makes a girl wanna get all studious,” she said.

“You are so bad,” Cheryl laughed. “But so not wrong.”

When they got to the airport, they parked in the short-term lot and made their way to the desk. Jennifer checked in, declining a first-class window-seat upgrade in favor of keeping her aisle seat in coach. She couldn’t bring herself to sit by the window. After getting checked in, the women settled in for coffee and waited for the call for Jennifer’s flight. When it came, Cheryl, Gail and Stephanie accompanied Jennifer to the x-ray line, and waited with her until it was her turn to go through.

“Call us when you land,” Stephanie said. “We’ll be at your house for another day or so; if you’re missing anything, we can send it out to you.”

Jennifer laughed and hugged her friends. “You guys are the absolute best,” she said. “I love you.” She waved when she got through the security checkpoint, and went to find her gate.

Jennifer’s friends watched her plane take off from the lounge. They sighed wistfully, knowing that when she got to LA, Richie was going to propose to her. He had let them know that the other day. They were pretty sure that Jennifer already knew, but she was going to let Richie think he was surprising her.

The women had just turned away from the window when they heard an explosion. “What the Christ was that?” Gail asked, as they ran back to the windows. Hundreds of people followed suit.

“OH MY GOD!” someone cried from behind them. Everyone instinctively looked up, and saw smoke streaming from the wing of an airplane.

“Oh shit, is that the LA flight?” someone else asked. The sound of two hundred people dialing their cell phones filled the corridor. “Oh hell, it IS the LA flight!” another voice added.

Gail, Cheryl, and Stephanie looked at each other, then back out through the window. They clasped hands and watched in horror as the plane dipped dramatically. There was a collective gasp as the plane started to rapidly descend. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” Cheryl was whispering under her breath. All three women were crying outright.

They couldn’t tear their gazes away, though they knew they didn’t want to watch anymore. They sobbed when the plane caught the very edge of the field and flipped over. They screamed when the plane started to slide. With nothing to slow it down, the plane careened into a concrete bunker set into the hillside at the end of the field. The cockpit and first class sections crumpled as if the plane was made of paper.

Alarms started ringing, and pandemonium ensued. The women watched as fire and other rescue trucks sped off in the distance. They cried out and sunk to the floor when a fireball rose into the sky. They wrapped their arms around each other and wept.

Long minutes later, Gail pushed back. “We have to call Ma,” she said softly. “And Richie.”

“Oh God,” Stephanie said. “I don’t want to do that, but you’re right.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Shit. Gail called Ma, Stephanie called me. Cheryl was calling Krissy and Jen’s other friends. Ma’s on her way to the hospital and promised to let me know when she hears anything, but I’ll feel better if you’re there. You’ll tell me the truth. Ma will try to spare my feelings.”

Jon and Tiffany were on their way down to the garage. “Rich, we are on the way. Talk to me, brother. Talk to me until you get to the airport.”

And he did. Richie told Jon all about the ring he had bought for Jennifer, and pulled the box out of his pocket to look at it again. The ring was a square-cut 2 carat diamond set on a wide platinum band. Ava had gone ring shopping with him and had zeroed in on this one in the third shop they visited. He didn’t know why he brought it with him; it just seemed like the right thing to do. He told his best friend about the hints he’d been dropping to her about wanting to marry her, and the hints back that Jennifer was going to say yes. Richie shared his plans for asking Jennifer to marry him, though Jon already knew from Tiffany. He told Jon about their time with Ava, about Jen’s interview at UCLA on Wednesday, any and every little thing Richie could think of. By the time Richie got to the airport, Jon knew almost as much about Jennifer as he did Tiffany.

“Alright,” Richie said. “I’m at LAX. Thanks man. Thanks for listening.” His voice cracked once but Richie choked the emotion back down. “I’m gonna believe she’s alive,” Richie said, his words accompanied by a sniffle. In his mind, Jon could see Rich squaring his shoulders, forcing himself to go on. “But call me if you hear anything, no matter what it is. Promise me.”

“I swear to you, Rich, I’ll call you if I hear anything at all. Love you man.”

“You too,” Richie said, and closed his phone. He looked at it, and sighed. After paying the driver, he made his way inside the bustling airport. A group of reporters was waiting.

“Richie!” one shouted. “Is it true that Jen’s plane crashed?”
“What happened in Boston, Richie?”
“Why was Jen coming back to LA, Richie? Are you getting married?”
“Did she make it?” another yelled.

He shook his head, and pushed roughly past them, anger clouding his vision. They followed Richie inside and crowded around him while he went to purchase his tickets. Fortunately, there was a seat on a flight to Boston that left within the next hour, but it was coach. Richie didn’t care, as long as he got on the plane.

Richie turned to look at the reporters, his brown eyes having gone black with fury. “Back off,” he said, his voice quiet steel. “My fiancée was on that plane. Show a little compassion, and get out of my fucking way or I’ll break your fucking necks.” He pushed at the closest one, making him almost fall, but he moved out of the way, and the others followed suit. Richie stalked through to security, effectively shutting down their questions.