(Beside the pool, as Joyce just finished telling Bette that Tina’s lawyer had contacted her, she pulls out an envelope…)

JOYCE- “Here, this was couriered to my office this morning and I was told to wait until I got her lawyer’s fax this evening before notifying you. It’s for you.” (Bette reluctantly and slowly takes the envelope from Joyce’s hand. She stares at it for a moment, almost admiring the handwritten Kennard script that displays her name on the front of the envelope…just ‘For Bette’. Alice is about ready to keel over from anticipation. She puts her hand on Bette’s upper arm as she turns to Joyce.)

ALICE- “So, what’s happened?”

JOYCE- “Bette, maybe you should read the contents of the envelope first. What I have to tell you is, I’m guessing, not quite as important as what’s in that envelope. Suffice it to say that I don’t have bad news as far as any legal points that have to do with these documents that were faxed. I expect you’ll be happy.” (Bette slowly sits back down onto the chair and stairs at the envelope, while Alice sits next to her.)

ALICE- “Do you want us to give you some privacy?” (Bette shakes her head.)


(Sometime in the past, at the beginning, before the hope of a future, before the future had begun to formulate let lone fade, before everything…)

Bette walked over and sat down next to Alice. “I’m sorry,” said Bette. Alice kept looking forward and downward. “Alice I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Alice nods. “Al I…” Bette raises her hand to stroke her head. “It’s ok,” replies Alice. She continues, “Look, I understand. I’ve never heard you talking about someone like this before…not me, not anyone. It sounds big.” (She smirks and tries to inject some humour…) “Sounds like the big whammy, Bette. And a straight girl! WOW.”

“Alice, I don’t know if it’s anything at all, I was blindsided.”

“By an 18 wheeler it seems…AND she’s a straight girl! Go figure.”

“It might turn out to be nothing…” comments Bette.

“Right, and I’m a reporter for the New York Times. Bette…please…you told me she turned your world upside down. You said everything else and everyone in the room stood still and fell into the background…she was the only person or thing you could see.
Now apart from the fact that that sounds pretty corny, I do think this is a lot more than ‘nothing’. Porter, you have fallen hard.”

“Al, we haven’t even gone on a date…”

“Close enough, you met her for coffee didn’t you?”

“Yeah, so?”

Smiling and half sarcastic, Alice makes her point, “You entered me at the opera and we’re breaking up, so you never really can tell!” Bette bows her head but Alice tones it down a bit. “Bette…you said you couldn’t stop looking at her eyes…that she seized you… ‘seized’ Bette…you said ‘seized’….what the hec does THAT mean? Anyway…I get the picture…Porter’s going down for the count!” Bette looks away. Alice smiles and starts becoming just her friend, “So, Porter, when’s the next date?” Bette looks at her… “I don’t know.” “What?! Porter you gotta get a move on. What’s going on? You’re scared aren’t you? Straight girl has you all confused eh? Listen, they’re all straight until they’re gay…and she hasn’t really had happiness until she’s had a Porter…believe me…so don’t let her go Bette…ok?” Bette smiles softly and grasps Alice’s hand. “Oh my gawwwwwd…Porter’s gone mushy on me….Just do me a favour… don’t take her to the opera too soon, ok? You might frighten the poor thing off.” They laugh.


(The next morning, in the present day, Peggy is going through documents in her office and Helena rushes in, looking and speaking like the sky is falling…)

HELENA- “Mother…” (Peggy looks up.) “You have to help me.”

PEGGY- “I’m not raising your salary Helena…”

HELENA- “No no mother, please…we need help…”

PEGGY- “No donation or loan either…”

HELENA- “Mother please!”

PEGGY- “All right child, what is it?”

HELENA- “It’s all gone to blazes…you must help!”

PEGGY- “Did you call that estranged girlfriend of yours yet or am going to have to bribe her to come back to you? Helena you really need to find a way to loosen up.”

HELENA- “Mummy this is serious!”

PEGGY- “Well I’m not laughing…”

HELENA- “Mummy I’m not sexually frustrated! Now please listen to me…”

PEGGY- “Helena, that’s way too much information and hurry up and tell me what’s wrong because I’m really not having fun dear…”

HELENA- “It’s Tina…”

PEGGY- “Oh no…no no no…Helena look, I told you to let them work things out. It’s not our place to…”

HELENA- “Too late, she…she…Angelica…San Francisco…”

PEGGY- “What? She sold her to the gypsies?”

HELENA- (Gives her a look of annoyance…) “What?!”

PEGGY- “Well YOU’RE not making any sense, I’m trying to decipher your rant dear.”

HELENA- “You have to call the San Francisco company….call Bill Graham.”

PEGGY- “Call Billy? Why? What on earth for?”

HELENA- “Only you can do something about this. Billy will do anything you say.”

PEGGY- “He still has the proverbial ‘hots’ for me, he’ll do more than anything…”

HELENA- “MOTHER! Too much information! Please…call him.”

PEGGY- “Would you like to fill me in on what I’m going to say or are you going to be playing charades while I ring him…?”

HELENA- “Tina was there yesterday and Bette went to see her…” (The phone rings and Peggy picks up, to Helena’s dismay…)

PEGGY- “Yes? Ok yes, patch him through. Edward, hello…yes yes…of course, yes I have a moment…” (Helena grimaces…)


(Alice is driving like a bat out of hell as Shane holds on for dear life…)

SHANE- “Alice will you slow the fuck down?!”

ALICE- “Oh relax…those friggin boobs…why do they have to be so dense? I mean geez louise you know?!”

SHANE- “Alice I want to LIVE…will you please slow down!!!!”

ALICE- “Shane this is our only chance and I’m not going to stop now…”

SHANE- “FINE, just please trying going a little slower than 50 miles over the friggin speed limit!”

ALICE- “You’re really pretty wooosy considering your Yoda status…geez!”

SHANE- “The title implies wisdom Alice not INSANITY!”

ALICE- “Alright! I’ll go a little slower…ye have little faith! I don’t understand the Peabodies…all Peggy had to do was let us use the other plane or at least a helicopter!”

SHANE- “She thinks we’re nuts as it is, why on earth would she let us use the plane?”

ALICE- “And Helena! What a boob. You’d think that woman would have at least SOME privileges at Peabody’s company but noooooooo…she can’t even sign for simple transportation for crying out loud…what’s the point anyway?”

SHANE- “Al, she’s been making it on her own for a while now since…well, since…”

ALICE- “Whistler? WHISTLER Shane? You can say it you know…you won’t be struck by lightening!” (Shane looks annoyed.) “Damned these Sunday driver types! Get off the road you yahoo!!!!!!”

SHANE- “ALICE!”


ALICE- “What?! It’s a highway not a side street!”

SHANE- “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

ALICE- “Trying to save the great love?”

SHANE- “NO…letting YOU drive!”

ALICE- “Trust me, you’ll thank me for it in the end. Just let’s figure out what the hec we’re going to do when we get there.”

SHANE- “This is nuts. We won’t be there for a while, even though you’re driving at the friggin speed of light.”

ALICE- “Don’t worry, it doesn’t look like the traffic is too bad…it’s actually quite good. We’ll make record time, I’m sure. Now…I say we consider kidnapping…it’s really the best option.” (Shane grabs her forehead as she shakes her head.)


(Tina was sitting and looking out the window. The voices and images of the past were filling her head…

BETTE- “We’ll wait until you’re ready.” (She takes her hands.) “There’s nothing I want more than to touch you, to hold you, to make love to you…but we’ll wait.”

TINA- “I don’t want to wait. I want to be with you.”

BETTE- “T…”

TINA- “I’m just afraid I’ll…I don’t know…break something or inspire you to laugh instead of…well, you know…”

BETTE- (Smiling…) “Nothing will break…I promise.”

TINA- “I mean I know how…how it’s done…sort of…but I…”

BETTE- “I know…it’s ok.” (Her eyes intensify as she puts her hands around the blonde’s waist.) “It will be my pleasure to walk you through it…”

TINA- “Gaaawwwd…I feel so silly, like a lesbian in training…”

BETTE- “What does that make me?”

TINA- “Really unlucky…”

BETTE- “More like luckiest woman on the face of the earth…”

TINA- “I doubt it…”

BETTE- “I don’t…”

TINA- “I’m going to explode. I want so much to be with you and yet I fear it.”

BETTE- “Fear of the unknown?”

TINA- “Fear of the immense desire and feelings that overcome me when I’m with you…or in the same room with you…or so much as think about you…it’s unsettling. I’ve not felt this way about anyone before. I fear having you, being with you, and losing you, and I’m not sure whether this is just the beginning or the way it will be in a life our together. It’s invigorating but it’s scary…you turn my world upside down.”

BETTE- “Hm…and I thought I was scared! T…you have me, you are with me, and as for losing me…not even if you tried. You’ll lose me only if I ever lose you, though you’ll never lose my heart.”

TINA- “What does THAT mean?”

BETTE- “I think it means that if ever there comes a time where in my heart I know that I’ve lost you, then the best part of me will be lost with you…and…well, right now I just can’t even imagine it.” (Tina rests her head on Bette’s shoulder and Bette grasps her snuggly.)

(As Tina regains awareness of her present circumstances and loses the vision of that former time in her mind’s eye, she reverts her focus to the paper in front of her. She reads a copy of her own words, penned the day before…

Dearest Bette,

I love you. I have always loved you. I always will love you. You knew that and I hope that despite everything you never doubted it. And I, though having lost my way both recently and when I started losing you after we lost our baby, even though you let go of ‘us’ back then, I somehow always have known that I held your sensitive heart in my hands.

I’m giving you our daughter. I’m not coming home tomorrow night. She is. I want you to know that I never really doubted that she was entirely mine and entirely yours. Though the confusion of our first break-up had torn my life apart and I was hurt at the mere thought of you for a time, I quickly came to realize that the life inside me was of borne of our love. I had no business trying to change that, though I was torn apart by your betrayal. I had betrayed you in a way too.

You know I have been experiencing a lot of changes and a lot of changed feelings. It’s been confusing at the best of times. Managing to lose you again during this time, lose myself in the process, and then see you move on has been the fulfillment of my greatest fears. You remember that don’t you Bette? My fears? I told you once, long ago, before we even became lovers, that the feelings you awoke in me and the thought of losing you scared me like nothing else. Do you remember what you told me then? How I’d only lose you if you lost me. Well Bette it’s happened… I lost you…I’ve watched from afar…losing you as you moved on. And part of me has been dying slowly. The sensitive heart you held in your hand has been shattered and I’m just left with your heart in my hands, so I’m giving it back now. It doesn’t belong in my hands anymore.

I have to go. Myrrdin will be your contact to me. When I get to see Angelica, basically in the same way you shared custody of her before, Myrrdin will pick her up from you and bring her to me. She’ll be the one to bring her back to you as well when my time with her is up…every time. Right now I need some time away. My lawyer has sent the necessary papers to Joyce Wishnia and I hope you’ll accept them.

Bette, I told you how much I have been hurting. I heard you tell me you wanted me in your life…you love me, you said. Bette, I’m giving you the best part of me…Angelica. This is how much I love her and this is how much I love you.

I hate to think that the fear we talked about so many years ago is somehow stronger than our love. At the very least, it is proving stronger than the sensitive heart you held in your hands.

Our love was my responsibility and yours. Angelica is greater than that love and she will always be ours. We will always have our daughter if not each other. I miss you terribly, but I must let you go.

Tina)

(Rewinding back in time to the moments that Joyce arrived with the documents and as Bette reads the letter…)

ALICE- “Bette…Bette sweetie…” (Alice sits down next to her as she sees Bette’s tears begin to flow while she’s staring at the letter.)

BETTE- (Shaking her head…) “I don’t understand…we talked…she told me she was hurting without me…I told her I still loved her and wanted her in my life…I don’t understand…” (She looks up at Joyce and then at Alice…) “Al…I don’t understand…”

ALICE- “Bette…it’s ok…can you tell me what’s in the letter?”

BETTE- “She’s giving me custody and she gets the visitation rights I did before but she’s…” (Her voice is seized by her emotions…) “She’s letting me go…”

JOYCE- “Bette, the documents basically proposed that you both have full custody after Tina gets some time away. She wants no decision to be made about Angelica to be made without both of you. Technically, we can probably object some things, but it doesn’t seem pragmatic under the circumstances, since she’s giving you more rights than previously.” (Bette slowly shakes her head as she blinks and tears are released.)

ALICE- “Bette it’s ok…this is good. She’s acknowledging that Angelica is totally hers and totally yours and she wants you to always be a full part of Angelica’s life. She also seems to be saying she needs some time…”

BETTE- “Alice she’s staying in San Francisco…”

ALICE- “Bette…”

BETTE- “No…no…don’t you understand? She’s saying goodbye.”

ALICE- “Bette listen to me…this isn’t goodbye. You two have been saying ‘goodbye’ and leaving each other and getting back together one too many times to make this any different. She just needs time. You know? Bette…it’s going to be ok.”

BETTE- (She shoves the letter into Alice’s hands…) “You read this and then tell me everything is going to be OK!” (Bette gets up and goes into the house.)

JOYCE- “Did I mention I hate practicing family law sometimes?”

ALICE- “This has been such a trip…awful. Can you wait a while before you go? In case we need you?”

JOYCE- “No, I’ve got to get going. But there’s nothing we can do right now anyway, and there’s really not much TO do as things stand. I’ll leave these papers here with you. I’ve got the originals at the office. When she has time, I’ll meet with her to go over it. You take good care of her in the interim. Ok?”

ALICE- “Sounds good. Thanks Joyce.” (Alice lets Joyce out. She stands at the doorway after shutting the door and looks towards Bette’s bedroom. She goes and sits in the living room and reads the letter. Alice’s eyes are jumping from word to word to sentence…and her heart is traveling with her sight. She grabs her head, and scratches it as she thinks…she stands. She walks to Bette’s room and doesn’t see her in the first seconds. She looks carefully around and then sees the top of Bette’s head…she’s on the floor on the other side of the bed and leaning up against it. Alice sits next to her.) “Ok, I read it. I think she’s just scared. She sounds a little confused. I’m thinking maybe she was trying to tell you when you spoke to her at the hotel but I also think that she didn’t quite know what to make of you suddenly telling her that somehow your heart hadn’t ever really let go of her and the fact that you and Jodie ain’t together and likely because both of you knew you were in love with someone else…well…I think you guys have been apart all these months and it’s been painful for both of you. But it also changed both of you in different ways. It’s not like how you broke up the first time and got back together. This last time you pretty much tore the whole damn relationship to shreds and then stayed painfully apart and hurting one another for a while. Part of the wounds had started healing and part of the spirit had started overcoming the experience and sorta moving on. I guess only time will tell if you both actually moved on to a point where you just can’t go back, even to the love of your life … but that doesn’t change that she for you and you for her are the love of each other’s lives…THAT actually has never changed. But things are different, in ways they weren’t before, and it’s both scary and it’s mostly a lot of ‘unknowns’…that’s all…just…we’re…well you’re facing a whole new ballgame and the notion that love isn’t enough is the trite premise that we are going to overcome and disprove or die trying….and I DO mean WE.”

BETTE- “Al…I…listen…can you and Shane help Kit take care of Angelica? I’ve decided I’m going to go away for a while. Jodie said she’s going to a cabin a few hours from here. I think I’m going to join her. Part of my heart may always be dead to the world except for Tina, but the rest of my heart has been through enough and if Jodie will take me back with that in mind, since Tina and I obviously can’t ever be together again, then I think it’s better to go into a future with someone with an honesty and love and respect, rather than try to replicate being in love and pretend to be in love.”

ALICE- “WHAT???!! No Bette that’s SO wrong! Bette, that’s crazy and you can’t…and she won’t take you…she shouldn’t…she knows how you feel about Tina…”

BETTE- “Yeah, and I think when she realizes that despite those feelings that part of my life is closed, she might also realize that we can still have a life together, with full knowledge that we share a love, though never a love like the one I’ve lost, but you know what? A love nonetheless. She’s good for me and I for her. And I think that after some time I can commit to her. Alice yesterday for a brief moment I thought…I thought somehow I had woken up from a bad dream and there was Tina standing there having just told me how much it hurt without me. I couldn’t believe it and at the same time I knew it…I knew it because that’s how I felt for the longest time. But Alice obviously the pain was just too much and for too long. She tried to tell me but I wasn’t listening. I knew there was something wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it…and now…here we are.”

ALICE- “NO…no no no no…Bette listen to me…”

BETTE- (Getting up…) “Alice I love you but it’s time for you to go.” (She holds Alice by the arms.) “Alice I can’t make her not let me go…read those words Al…my heart doesn’t belong in her hands anymore…that’s what she said…that means she’s come to a place where she doesn’t want it in her hands anymore…as I moved on the possibility of our life together died slowly in her eyes…she’s decided to let me go…and there’s nothing I can do except somehow pray that I can let her go totally because…” (She can’t talk further without some effort…) “it hurts…it hurts so much…” (Alice tries to keep her from ending the conversation, but Bette disengages the embrace.) “Please Alice, let me be.” (Alice sees the severity in Bette’s face. She grows sullen, nods, and strokes Bette on the face before leaving the bedroom. The door closes behind her. She slowly, not knowing what more to say or do, walks out of the house and stands in front of the door, looking ahead then turning to look at the house. Alice cries quietly.)

Evanescence – My Immortal

I’m so tired of being here,
suppressed by all my childish fears,
and if you have to leave I wish you that you would just leave,
’cause your presence still lingers here, and it won’t leave me alone,
these wounds won’t seem to heal, this pain is just too real,
there’s just too much that time cannot erase,
when you cried I’d wipe away all of your tears, when you’d scream I’d fight away all of your fears, I held your hand through all of these years,

you still have all of me…