Dana sits and surveys the devastation that Tonya caused on her noisy and bitter exit. She looks down at the lamp smashed to pieces when she ducked down to avoid its impact. She remembers the hatred and anger as her words registered. At first she couldn’t believe that the words had left her mouth, it was only when Tonya had looked at her that she realised that she’d indeed told her it was over, Tonya’s reaction had been intense to say the least, she’d fallen to her knees and pleaded for another chance. When that hadn’t worked she’d threatened to expose her to the tabloids, Dana must have smiled at this threat because the next thing she knew the lamp had come hurtling towards her followed by various missiles that readily came to Tonya’s hand.

Now an hour later everything is quiet and she is surrounded by the consequences of her actions, Tonya thankfully had finally left and now she can think, ***** what the ***** did I do that for, were the first words that came into her head. She looks at her phone which had remained wilfully silent during the encounter but now she is willing it to ring, she needs to talk to Alice. She picks it up and scrolls down to contacts and dials.

She listens to the voice mail message, Alice’s voice causing her to shiver with rememberance at how it’d felt when her friend had brought her to *****. She hangs up without leaving a message, she can’t face the situation at the moment. She goes to her cd player, opens the drawer, inserts the first cd that comes to hand and presses random. The room is filled with The Murmers and Squeezebox Days, she picks up the case and sees its the soundtrack album of Alice’s favourite ***** film, “All Over Me” that she’d given her months before when they’d been dissecting her musical taste or Alice was, she remembers how by the time she’d finished most of Dana’s cds had been resigned to the pile for the welfare store, totally decimated had been her thought when she saw that she’d been left with less than a dozen cds.

She recalled trying to plead her case and how Alice had just stared at her holding out the top cd from the rejected pile. “Dana, come on nobody listens to Britney Spears first album anymore, well only to take the mickey or maybe novelty value, you need some role models, i’m going to educate you, come with me.”

As she thinks about how she’d been frog marched almost to an appropriate record store she can’t help smiling at the memory of how Alice had thrust cds by artists she’d never heard of and how she’d sighed with relief when she spotted Dido’s album, held it up for approval and been gratified when Al had nodded at her choice, she didn’t realise until then just how much knowledge Alice had over the music scene. She goes back to the player ejects the cd and searches frantically for “Life For Rent” needing Dido’s soothing words about love and romance.

As White Flag begins, her phone vibrates, she’s so absorbed in the music that she fails to hear it.

Alice hears the voice mail begin and hangs up. You should go over there, storm in and demand that Tonya leaves, way to go with the commando fantasy Al, maybe you should no don’t go there, you shoud sit here and watch Tina watching Bette sleep. Dam her conflicted mind, at that moment she wants to be with Dana, she misses her friend, she recalls how it felt when Dana had made love to her, how sweet and gentle, god so gentle. She looks at her phone, a missed call symbol flashes, she’d not noticed it before, as she scrolls to missed call list she smiles, Dana’s number fills the screen.

Decision made she grabs her jacket and keys. She approaches Tina touches her arm, at the contact she looks up.
“Go and get your woman, I’ll be fine, good luck.”

Alice turns to go grateful to her then notices the tears that are filling her eyes.
“I can stay if you need me to.”
“No, you need to go and I need to be here, I love watching her sleep, she looks so calm so peaceful, this is the woman I fell in love with and the one who still has my heart even though she has caused me such pain, I just wish I could forgive her but I don’t know how to start.”
“You’ll know when the time comes, she did wrong and I won’t defend her but I’ll say one thing, seven years ago before you met she was lost, going from one girl to the next, the latest notch on the bed then she found you and for the first time she had an anchor, you achieved what most women could only dream off, you captured the heart of the greatest player this town had known and I believe that Candace was just something that needed to be scratched not a fixture.”
“You make her sound like a disease, I can understand why, in a way, our ***** life wasn’t great and all the pressure but I didn’t stray, I remained faithful, why couldn’t she?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“No, only she can so go, you need to talk to Dana.”

Alice smiles at her gratefully and exits her apartment. Sentences form in her head,all the things she wants to say to Dana, she drives slowly, absent mindedly drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. She switches the radio on and Damian Rice’s Cannonball fills the Mini Cooper, she begins to sing along thinking how spot on he is with his lyrics, how can a man be that sensitive and thoughtful, all her feelings for Dana flow to the top of her thoughts and she acclerates a little, wanting to be with her.

As she walks up the steps she hears Dido singing and smiles. So Dana, she knocks on the door hoping and praying that Tonya doesn’t answer.

She’s relieved when Dana opens the door and waves her in, they look at each other then Alice surveys the room, wordlessly they come together in an embrace desperate for the other’s touch. Dido plays on in the back ground as Dana leads Alice to the sofa, talking can wait for the moment.