Chapter 3

The door opened at the Planet and just as it had every other time it had opened that morning Marina looked up expectantly. It was just Dana though. Marina tried to greet her with a smile and got only a half-hearted one in return. It looked like she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t having the best of mornings.

Dana leaned on the counter and looked longingly at the pastries. Gourmet therapy. Alice swore by it. Maybe she shouldn’t listen to any advice Alice had been giving. Maybe she should just stay away from Alice altogether. Only that wouldn’t be so easy now that she knew about Bette and Tina.

When did things get so complicated? First Alice kisses her. Then of course she kissed Alice back. And she’s only supposed to be kissing Tonya. Now she finds out Bette’s been kissing the carpenter and she doesn’t even know how long that’s been going on for. And she’s definitely only supposed to be kissing Tina.

Then there was Kit and Ivan. She hadn’t seen them kissing but there was something definitely going on there. Kit was only supposed to be kissing guys. But wait, did Ivan class himself as a guy? And what about the person who was normally kissing all the girls? Shane. Where the heck was Shane?

She’d disappeared sometime during the night and no one knew where to. This was her territory. She was the one who usually knew what everyone was up to and was much better equipped to deal with it than Dana was. It was too complicated.

‘What would you like Dana?’ Marina‘s dulcet tones rousing Dana from the questions floating about in her mind. Dana looked up at her absently. She’d forgotten about Marina. It looks like Marina was kissing Robin. Only Robin was also kissing Jenny. And Jenny was kissing that Gene guy who was talking about the walruses. Absolutely. Positively. Way too complicated.

‘Dana?’ Marina asked again. ‘Huh?’ Great Dana thought to herself. She’d obviously been taking lessons in how to be incoherent from Alice. ‘Honey! There you are!’ Marina and Dana both turned towards the door, it was Tonya, wearing the only smile either of them had seen that morning.