lady. So many young people nowadays... Oh, dear!..." She cautioned herself: that was enough; she must be careful not to overdo it. "You'll wait here for me? You won't go away?"
"Oh, no. I won't go."
"Thank you." She opened the door and went in.
There were twenty or thirty women inside; everything at the airport was busy tonight, Mrs. Quonsett thought, including washrooms. Now she needed an ally. She looked the field over carefully before selecting a youngish secretary-type woman in a beige suit, who didn't seem in a hurry. Mrs. Quonsett crossed to her.
"Excuse me, I'm not feeling very well. I wonder if you'd help me." The little old lady from San Diego fluttered her hands and closed and opened her eyes, as she had for Peter Coakley.
The younger woman was concerned at once. "Of course I'll help. Would you like me to take you..."
"No... Please." Mrs. Quonsett leaned against a washbasin, apparently for support. "All I want is to send a message. There's a young man outside the door in airline uniform---Trans America. His name is Mr. Coakley. Please tell him... yes, I would like him to get a doctor after all."
"I'll tell him. Will you be all right until I get back?"
Mrs. Quonsett nodded. "Yes, thank you. But you will come back... and tell me."
"Of course."
Within less than a minute the younger woman had returned. "He's sending for a doctor right away. Now, I think you should rest. Why don't..."
Mrs. Quonsett stopped leaning on the basin. "You mean he's already gone?"
"He went immediately."
Now all she had to do, Mrs. Quonsett thought, was get rid of this woman. She closed and opened her eyes again. "I know it's asking a great deal... you've already been so good... but my daughter is waiting for me by the main door, near United Air Lines."
"You'd like me to get her for you? Bring her here?"
Mrs. Quonsett touched the lace handkerchief to her lips. "I'd be so grateful, though really it's an imposition."
"I'm sure you'd do as much for me. How will I know your daughter?"
"She's wearing a long mauve coat and a small white hat with yellow flowers. She has a little dog---a French poodle."
The secretary-type woman smiled. "That should be easy. I won't be long."
"It is so good of you."
Ada Quonsett waited only a moment or two after the woman had gone. Mrs. Quonsett hoped, for her temporary helper's sake, she did not spend too much time searching for an imaginary figure in a mauve coat, accompanied by a non-existent French poodle.
Smiling to herself, the little old lady from San Diego left the washroom, walking spryly. No one accosted her as she moved away and was absorbed in the surging terminal crowds.
Now, she thought, which was the way to the Blue Concourse "D," and gate forty-seven?
TO TANYA Livingston, the Flight Two announcement was like a scoreboard change at a quadruple-header ball game. Four Trans America flights were, at the moment, in various stages of departure; in her capacity as passenger relations agent, Tanya was liaising with them all. As well, she had just had an irritating session with a passenger from an incoming flight from Kansas City.
The aggressive, fast-talking passenger complained that his wife's leather traveling case, which appeared on the arrivals carousel with a rip in its side, had been damaged as a result of careless handling. Tanya did not believe him---the rip looked like an old one---but, as Trans America and other airlines invariably did, she offered to settle the claim on the spot, for cash. The difficulty had been in arriving at an agreeable sum. Tanya offered thirty-five dollars, which she considered to be more than the bag's value; the passenger held out for forty-five. Finally they settled at forty dollars, though what the complainant didn't know was that a passenger relations agent had authority to go to sixty dollars to get rid of a nuisance claim. Even when suspecting fraud, airlines found it cheaper to pay up quickly than enter into a prolonged dispute. In theory, ticket agents were supposed to note damaged bags at check-in, but seldom did; as a result, passengers who knew the ropes sometimes replaced worn-out luggage in that way.
Though the money was not her own, Tanya always hated parting with it when, in her opinion, the airline was being cheated.
Now, she turned her attention to helping round up stragglers for Flight Two, some of whom were still coming in. Fortunately, the bus with downtown check-ins had arrived several minutes earlier, and most of