Terri sat in her hotel room near downtown. Her hair was still damp from her shower and she was dressed in a peach terrycloth robe that came to below indecent. She sat on the couch and nervously picked at the cotton burs around the hem. She was waiting for someone she’d never met before. Terri met Edie in an Internet chat room. The room was devoted to sex and their first online encounter was filled with the longings and desires of someone who’d gone without real intimacy for several months. It had been several months--6 in fact--since Terri had been with a woman. She left her former lover over nothing really. They just drifted apart. Then Terri got tired of the relationship, so she walked out.
Now, Terri picked at the belt knot around her robe. She pinched a bur and rubbed it between her fingers. Then when that bur separated from the fabric, she’d pick another bur at random and rub it until it fell off, too. It was 2:38. She regretted arriving so early. She couldn’t help it, she told herself. She was excited beyond anything she could put into words. She would be meeting her online lover for the first time.
Edie would be arriving around 4:30, maybe. Terri’s mind was suddenly an overloaded circuit with conflicting images and thoughts all running into one another: What is she was being stood up? What if Edie cashed in or sold the plane ticket that Terri bought for her? But she trusted Edie. The PI is a poor country and Edie could have been leading her on all these months. Maybe she does this to everybody: meet someone online, have mindblowing net sex, talk for several months and decide to meet in person. The real lonely losers will put up the money for a ticket. When Edie picks up the ticket, she sells it to the highest bidder or cashes it in. The thought of this almost made Terri ill. She rose from the couch and went into the bedroom. She took her satchel out of the closet and opened it. Her laptop was fully charged but she plugged it in to save juice. She was thankful that so many good hotels now recognize the importance of providing high-speed access to the internet. The screen finally loaded its image and Terri was online. Terri typed in the airline that Edie would be flying. Her nervous fingers filled in the flight number and other info and she clicked Go. A wave of panic and nausea rippled through her as the airline interface returned an error message: The flight you specified does not operate. Please verify and re-enter. Terri stared at the screen, her eyes darting through the information. She clicked the back button and carefully read the numbers and names she had inputted. The flight numbers were transposed. Terri breathed a sigh and rolled her eyes to the cream white ceiling. She erased the city inputs and just added the correct flight number and clicked Go. The screen “thought” about its answer and displayed the correct information: Departing SFO, Arriving LAX at 4:33 p.m. Terri was relieved. The flight looked like it would depart on time. But Edie wouldn’t be arriving until six at the earliest. She’d have to clear Customs, which would probably take twice as long as it used to since the country was attacked. Terri checked all of her e-mail accounts for any new messages from Edie. Nothing had come in since last night. Terri opened it and the words gave her hope that Edie would be walking through their hotel door by six-thirty tonight.