Alice sped home to find her apartment deserted. Tina sounded so detached when she had imparted news of the crash and Alice was concerned. After checking the entire place she headed back towards her car, trying to determine where Tina would have gone. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Tina’s phone but it went straight to voicemail, Alice decided that this wasn’t a time to go leaving messages so she hung up and tried Bette & Tina’s home number but Bette’s voice just asked her to leave a message and that she would call back.

That was all it took to shatter Alice’s heart into a million pieces all over again. She willed herself to believe that there had been a terrible mistake and it wasn’t flight eighty-five that had crashed. The reporters didn’t have their facts straight, there had been a miscommunication of some sort.

Bette couldn’t be dead, it simply was not possible. They had spoken only a few hours ago, they were having coffee when Bette got back from Paris. Yet all the reasons that Alice mustered couldn’t calm the sick feeling that comes with knowing that your world is broken and it will never be the same. Alice climbed into her car and shut the door, wanting to block out everything, wishing she could block out this day.

She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks. If Tina had have been at the apartment then she could have handled it but now the situation was escalating and Alice needed help. She found Dana’s cell number and dialed it.

“Hey Al”

“Do you know?” Alice’s words ran together in her hurry to get them out

“Deep breath, Alice!” Dana laughed “Know what?”

‘Of course you don’t know, you are always the last to know’ Alice thought sadly

“It’s Bette”

“Are they ever going to sort this out?” Dana sounded impatient “I can’t take much more of this *****, I mean I know they’re our friends…”

“Bette’s dead” Alice whispered, willing herself not to cry but knowing that she was about to fail

“OK, that’s not funny” Dana replied in her standard ‘I’m pissed at you’ tone