Summary of previous chapter: Bette and Tina are sitting by the pool after Bette has unexpectedly come home early to a sight she had not anticipated.


Bette and Tina have continued sitting by the pool. They have continued to sit in silence. The only noise has been Bette getting up to go into the house to refill her drink.
She finally breaks the silence, turning to stare at Tina. Whats for dinner?
Excuse me?
Do you have anything planned for dinner.
We have salad in the icebox. Tina says in a voice that indicates her confusion over being asked such a mundane question under the circumstances.
Do you mind starting dinner while I check my email?
Uh, okay.
Tina goes into the house and begins to make dinner because she can think of no alternative action. She is waiting for the explosion that is imminent.
About twenty minutes later, Tina has made salad, linguine and shrimp in a butter and garlic sauce. She goes into the bedroom they use as an office and finds Bette sitting at the computer.
Uh, dinner is ready if you want to eat.
Just a second.
A couple of minutes later, Bette enters the dining room and sees the table set with the food. What kind of wine would you like?
Whatever is fine. Tina says. The wait is becoming unbearable.
Bette selects a bottle and pours a glass for each of them.
The linguine is great, T. Bette says as she is eating. I was noticing that the pool is looking a sit sandy on the bottom. Do you think we should get one of those vacuums that sits on the bottom of the pool. You know, to supplement the weekly pool service visits.
Uh, yeah, if you think that is a good idea.
Ill put a note asking about it when I mail in the bill. Bette replies as she continued eating her linguine. I think this months bill just came in the mail a day or two ago.
They continue to eat in silence. When they are both finished, Bette gets up to take their plates into the kitchen.
I can get that. Tina says as she recognizes what Bette is doing.
Thats okay, T. You cooked, Ill get the dishes. Go watch TV or something.
Tina is afraid to object. The wait for Bettes wrath has become interminable. Tina both wishes to get it over with and wishes to delay it for fear of how severe it will be.
She goes into the living room and is flipping channels with the volume turned low. The sounds of Bette in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner sounds perfectly normal, eerily normal.
The sounds stop and Bette enters the living room. Tina is sitting on one end of the couch and Bette sits on the other end, curling her feet underneath her legs. She picks up a magazine from the coffee table and begins thumbing through it as she asks, anything good on?
Not really Tina replies as she continues to aimlessly flip channels paying virtually no attention to what is on the screen.
To the outside observer, it would be a normal evening in their household, odd only for the fact that Bette has inexplicably arrived home from work several hours earlier than usual.

As the evening has worn on at the Kennard-Porter house the threesome has gone their separate ways from their meeting at the planet. Dana has gone home to Tonya, her angst over the midnight visit from Alice temporarily overshadowed by her emotions and uncertainty over what Alice had witnessed at Bette and Tinas.
Alice has gone home and is smoking one of her Alice P. specials. She stares aimlessly at her computer and at the chart on her walk. Repeatedly, she checks her cell phone willing it to ring and provide some answers.
Shane has gotten in her truck and has driven to the beach. She is parked, staring at the ocean trying to make sense of it all.