Chapter 34

Alice paced back and forth in front of the chart displayed on her wall. She looked over the names carefully, considering each one she set her eyes on.

“There has to be someone on here that can fit the bill on short notice,” Alice muttered as Kristen sat on the couch panicking.

“Do you know all of these women to even contact them if they do, in fact, fit the criteria we’re looking for?”

“The lesbian phone tree is very powerful, you can’t discount it.”

“So your brilliant plan is to find someone on this chart and use the lesbian phone tree to contact them, begging them to go to dinner with Tina?” Kristen asked in disbelief.

“Well we’d need to prep them on their back story since I told Tina how we met her and that she was coming out of a long-term relationship.”

“Is this as ridiculous as it sounds to me?”

“What do you propose then?” Alice asked Kristen as she folded her arms and began to feel the stress take effect.

“How about the truth? Or is that completely foreign to you?”

“What am I supposed to say? That I fucked up in an effort to free them from themselves and the chains they put around their love?”

“Not quite so dramatic,” Kristen said rolling her eyes.

“We can always ask Jackie, she’s an aspiring actress so she could pull off the back story, but she doesn’t look anything like Bette or Helena,” Alice pondered.

“Again, how about the truth?”

Both women were startled when there was a loud banging on the door. Alice looked confused, given the time of day, at who would be outside her door and rather insistent about getting in.

“Who is it?” Alice called out.

“It’s Bette, open up I want to talk to you.”

“Oh shit,” Alice whispered to Kristen.

“Now Al,” Bette insisted in an even firmer voice.

“What do we do?” Kristen asked panicked. “I told her I was busy and would call her back later so now she’ll know I blew her off and lied!”

“Go in the bathroom and hang out there a second. I’ll see what she wants and try to make it quick,” Alice said. “Hang on one second Bette I need to finish getting dressed!”

Kristen scurried into the bathroom and Alice followed just to make sure she was settled before answering her door.

“Al,” Kristen whispered to get Alice’s attention. “Seriously try the truth.”

“With the greater of two evils? Not a chance!”

Alice walked to the front door and opened it a crack to look out at her friend. She could see that Bette was angry, her eyes were darker then usual, and her posture was tense.

“This is a surprise,” Alice said smiling to try to disarm Bette’s anger.

Bette responded by wedging her hand in the crack of the door and pushed it open to the point where she could squeeze through and walk inside.

“Come in,” Alice offered sarcastically.

“I planned on it.”

“I could tell,” Alice said following behind Bette on a path to her living room. “What do I owe this surprise to during the workday?”

“I had a dire need to see my friend Alice,” Bette said sarcastically.

“I’m so sorry if that really is the reason because I have a prior engagement and…”

“I know you won’t mind taking a few minutes to talk to one of your oldest, and dearest friends,” Bette interrupted. “I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“What are you up to Al?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“With Kristen,” Bette said as she leaned against the chart with her arms folded across her chest.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this,” Bette pointed behind her at the chart and then turned to face it while Alice also looked on.

“What are we looking at?”

“Here,” Bette pointed to Kristen’s name and then the line that connected it to her own. “Look how big this chart is Al. It’s big isn’t it?”

“I take pride in it,” Alice smiled.

“With all of these women, why do you need to buddy up with her? Why this particular line?”

“What do you think is going on Bette?”

“I think that there’s no possible reason that you would invite Kristen back here without an agenda.”

“She was drunk,” Alice said defensively.

“There are cabs.”

“She didn’t have the keys to her old house yet and from what I gathered, she thought she’d be spending the night at yours and it didn’t work out that way.”

“That’s what she said?” Bette said in a concerned voice.

“More or less.”

“Which is it Al? More or less?”

“Basically that,” Alice answered now feeling the need to defend herself. “Is it that horrible that I would offer a place to my oldest and dearest friend’s lover? I thought I’d be doing you a favor.”

“For the record, she’s not my lover anymore. I’m very grateful that you didn’t let her get behind the wheel,” Bette said in an effort to calm down. “I’m just not comfortable with this new found friendship.”

“Why is that Bette?”

“Well if I thought it would stop at you lending her a pillow to crash, I’d have no issue. But she’ll likely have to return your shirt, which will lead to another encounter, and things tend to just grow with you.”

“Well let me ask you,” Alice said in anger. “What’s so wrong with me that if Kristen wanted to be friends she shouldn’t be?”

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Bette answered as she sat down on Alice’s couch and leaned her head back.

“That’s not how you’re portraying it!”

“Believe it or not Alice I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Alice said sitting down on the coffee table in front of Bette.

Bette felt the tension of the last few weeks building up. Thoughts of Tina, Angelica, Kristen, and the gallery flashed through her mind as she felt her eyes begin to tear up. She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, but to no avail, tears began to fall.

“Tell me what’s going on Bette,” Alice said gently as she laid her hand on Bette’s knee and rubbed it in comfort. “I really want to help.”

“You won’t understand and then likely call me egotistical and piss me off.”

“I promise I won’t call you egotistical,” Alice said sincerely. “I won’t even use my vast vocabulary to come up with a simile.”

A moment of silence fell over the two friends as Bette pondered her next sentence. Alice recognized her efforts and remained quiet to offer her a chance to organize her thoughts.

“Do you remember when I cheated with Candace?” Bette asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“That one mistake cost me my life for a long time Alice.”

“Ok,” Alice said trying to understand the direction the conversation was headed.

“I had this moment,” Bette continued. “It was right before Provocations opened and I was in the shower getting ready for the party. I stood there and let the water just run over me as if it could wash away my sins. The walls just closed in and I couldn’t even think of an excuse as to why I would cheat on the one person that I loved with all my heart.”

Alice listened in silence but continued to rub Bette’s leg to show her support and understanding. She was concerned at the sheer look of regret and sadness that crossed over Bette’s face as she seemed to relive the moment she was describing.

“Tina came into the bathroom bellowing about her dress and I could barely understand what she was saying my mind was so numb. I opened my mouth to talk and nothing would come out. I just sat in the shower, slumped over, without any energy to even get up and make an effort at anything.”

“Bette, things happen…”

“Let me finish,” Bette interrupted.

“Ok.”

“Tina reached into the shower and picked me up off the floor and turned the water off. She so lovingly wrapped me in a towel and the only words I could say was to ask her about starting our family. I leaned in to kiss her and she pulled away and kissed my forehead and I just broke down crying. It was like she couldn’t even bother to kiss me like she once had.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that she needed time before we tried again,” Bette said sadly. “Then she said that we needed to get ready to go and ushered me out of the shower.”

“She didn’t address why you were crying?”

“She thought it was about the baby,” Bette said. “In that moment I wanted so badly to hold her and feel that sense of closeness we had. The way we’d communicate without any words, the feeling of complete love, or just that we were going to be ok. I needed to feel close to her and all I could get was a kiss on my forehead.”

“She couldn’t give you more?”

“She didn’t know how badly I needed to feel more,” Bette said. “It isn’t Tina’s fault that I cheated, don’t misunderstand me, I had no right to even want to be close to her given what was going on with Candace.”

Bette wiped a fresh set of tears away from her cheeks as she continued to try to explain to Alice how she felt and why she was uneasy with her newfound friendship with Kristen.

“That night at Provocations,” Bette continued. “I don’t know what the hell happened. Hours before I needed any sign from Tina that we were going to be ok, but then when I saw Candace I completely disregarded Tina and her feelings. In one touch Tina saw what she needed to in order to confirm that I had been cheating. That night she confronted me and it got so ugly Alice.”

“I remember coming home to her on my couch.”

Silence fell over the two friends as Alice contemplated her next question.

“Why Candace?”

“She paid attention,” Bette said sadly as she leaned forward with her head in her hands and her body shaking from crying.

Alice moved closer and held her tight, rubbing Bette’s back in an effort to calm her down.

“It’s over Bette,” Alice whispered in her ear. “You’ve got to stop punishing yourself. Everyone makes a mistake and you’re no different.”

“It gets worse,” Bette said sniffling working to gain control. “Those following months, I swore I’d do anything to get Tina back. I begged her to take me back. I never placated her by running to her before I knew I could do what she asked me to. I didn’t want to fuck it up twice.”

“I always wondered why you didn’t call her sooner then you did?”

“Because I owed it to her to know that I could completely commit to her without ever straying again. She deserved at least that much. I lost everything Alice, all my friends, my job was slowly being stripped away from me, and I did nothing but drink myself into numbness so I didn’t have to feel any pain.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Were you?” Bette asked pointedly. “It felt like I had no one but Kit and Shane standing by me.”

“I didn’t agree with what happened Bette, and I won’t say that I handled that well, but I did defend you when people like Tonya would say things.”

“Was that more about me or about defying Tonya on any issue you could?”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Alice said in her defense.

“You sent Tina to a lawyer to divorce me,” Bette said with a mixture of sadness and anger in her voice.

“She needed to protect herself, she had nothing!”

“You’re right,” Bette said shocking Alice. “You know when I realized that? When I picked up a fucking woman in a bar in New York and fucked her all night when I was supposed to be winning Tina back.”

“You did what?”

“I’m so ashamed of what I did,” Bette said as tears fell faster down her cheeks and Alice removed her hand from Bette’s knee taken back by the admission. “While I was screaming as loud as I could that I loved Tina and would do anything to get her back, I got plastered and picked up a fucking twink at the bar.”

“Why?”

“You still don’t get it do you? I did it because that is who I am! I never deserved Tina and when push comes to shove, even now, I’m the weaker one. I was so damn lucky to have had what I did with her to begin with. My biggest fear was that she’d know she deserved better and leave me and I made that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did everything I could to push her away.”

“I don’t think she felt that way,” Alice said carefully.

“I lost my life when I lost Tina and I worked so hard to get it back, including my friends Al, that a day doesn’t go by where I don’t visit that lonely place inside me that won’t allow me to feel secure in where I am now.”

“I know we weren’t there for you,” Alice said sadly. “I know that we judged where it wasn’t our place to, but you’ve got to let it go. Your friends aren’t going anywhere, your sister isn’t going anywhere, your daughter isn’t going anywhere, and there are people that see what an amazing woman you are, like Kristen, and want to be with you!”

Bette took a shaky breath to try to calm herself before she continued. She pondered for a moment what Alice said about people seeing her differently and wanting to be a part of her life, which caused the guilt over Kristen to seep further into her consciousness.

“She’s amazing, just like Tina is, but she was never my soulmate,” Bette said allowing her tears to fall faster down her cheeks and onto her suit coat.

“Well I think you only get one,” Alice said simply. “You had already found yours when you met Kristen.”

“Kristen was the only other serious relationships I had after Tina.”

“You’re kidding right?” Alice asked shocked.

“No,” Bette shook her head and wiped her eyes once again. “I dated a lot, but fuck-buddies don’t make relationships. I dated Kristen seriously, she wasn’t just someone I slept with, I shared my life with her.”

Kristen remained in the bathroom, but began to listen intently to Bette’s voice as it recapped her feelings for Kristen.

“I worked so hard Al to not allow her into my life, but Kristen just made it impossible for me to hold her role to just someone I slept with.”

“She does seem very special,” Alice agreed causing Kristen to smile while she continued to listen.

“She is,” Bette agreed. “Tina aside, Kristen is the most loving and caring person I’ve had the pleasure of dating.”

“Gee thanks,” Alice said as she pretended to pout.

“You know I think of you as just a friend these days,” Bette said smiling. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

“We’re better as friends for sure.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Alice asked surprised at Bette’s question.

“Because you threw it in my face that one day I came here to talk to Tina about seeing Joyce.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You said you had been there,” Bette said sadly. “Did I treat you that badly?”

“You ended things abruptly before I was ready for them to end, but I don’t regret any of it, even the time it ended.”

“That’s my problem,” Bette said quietly.

“What is? That I don’t regret our relationship?”

“I hate my past mistakes and I’m afraid of them,” Bette said as she avoided Alice’s gaze.

“You think you made a mistake with me?”

“No,” Bette said frustrated at her lack of conveying her feelings. “I feel I made a mistake with Kristen.”

Kristen cracked the bathroom door open slightly to hear what Bette was saying clearly. She was taken back by the admission and felt a sense of hope ignite within her.

“Fuck it,” Bette said as she got up fro the couch and headed toward the door.

“Stop right there!”

Bette turned around to face Alice with tears in her eyes.

“What?”

“Explain it to me,” Alice said kindly. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I was judged once, I don’t want to go through that again.”

“Who is judging you?”

“You do,” Bette said slightly angry at the current line of questioning.

“I have not judged you!”

Bette’s answer came in the form of an arched eyebrow.

“I judged you when you slept with Candace, I’ll give you that. But ya know Bette, who the fuck am I to stand in judgment of anyone? My love life has been a hot mess of one night stands and lesbian identified males!”

Bette burst out laughing at the mention of Lisa, the entire concept of a lesbian identified male still being a complete mystery to Bette as much as it was when Alice was dating Lisa. Alice joined in the laughter and pulled Bette’s arm to get her to sit back down on the couch and finish their talk.

“God it feels good to laugh.”

“You should do it more often Porter,” Alice said gaining her composure. “Tell me what’s bothering you?”

“You really want to know what I’m afraid of?”

“I got being judged, but by whom?”

“You,” Bette said sadly. “I’m afraid that the more time you spend with Kristen, the more you’ll talk about what you have in common…”

“And you think you’re the only thing we have in common?”

“I think it’s bound to come up that she loved me with more then anyone could ask for and I couldn’t do it.”

“So because you slept with Candy, picked up a twink, and let an amazing woman free to hopefully be with someone in the future that loves her like she loves you, that gives me material to be judgmental?” Alice asked.

“Pretty much.”

“You know how dumb that sounds right? I mean, after all, I have more material in your wardrobe these days then in your relationship.”

“Funny,” Bette said sarcastically. “Seriously Al, what’s goin’ on?”

“Look,” Alice said cautiously. “The things that drew you to Kristen in the first place she still has.”

“Such as?”

“You need me to tell you why you dated her Porter?” Alice challenged. “First she’s beautiful.”

“I’ll give you that,” Bette said smiling.

“She’s sweet from what I can tell.”

“I don’t want her hurt Al.”

“I don’t want her hurt either,” Alice admitted. “I really think I like this girl.”

Alice had completely forgotten Kristen hiding in her bathroom as she continued to speak.

“I saw her at the bar Bette and I felt this need to talk to her. When I saw that she was upset, wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Bette smiled at her friend.

“With her?”

“I had that with Tina.”

“Tina,” Alice said cautiously. “Yeah I need to talk to you about that.”

“That?”

“Her date.”

“I’m not happy about that either,” Bette muttered.

“Well, I’ve been told that honesty is the best policy.”

“Who is this woman?”

“Look at the chart,” Alice pointed to the wall that displayed the complicated chart. “Pick any one of them and they can be the Belena.”

“The what?”

“Belena,” Alice said as if it were the most common word in the English language.

“What the hell is that?”

“I swear, between you and Shane….”

“What?” Bette interrupted Alice’s thought process.

“It’s Bette and Helena combined.”

“I think I’m likely to be sick,” Bette said as she rolled her eyes. “What does that mean it could be any one of these people on the chart?”

“I made it up,” Alice winced. “There is no Belena.”

“Why?”

“It sounds bad when I say it out loud.”

“Al,” Bette warned. “You made up a woman that wants to date Tina that doesn’t exist. You better start explaining why!”

“Because I wanted to force your hand.”

“My hand?”

“Your hand.”

“Stop repeating what I say and explain Alice!”

“I know you love her, she knows you love her, Angelica knows you love her, and yet you won’t admit it. Why is that?” Alice pushed.

“What makes you think you’re right?”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter Bette!”

“Alice I am in no mood to go through another lecture, to anybody, of why Tina and I can’t be together right now. So get back to the point, Tina has no date on Saturday?”

“No,” Alice looked away.

“Jesus Al! That is the dumbest thing you’ve done yet!”

“I know,” Alice tried to agree just to placate Bette.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You’re damn right you weren’t!” Bette was getting angry. “What are you going to tell her?”

“I was hoping to get a Belena by then!”

“Shut up about the Belena shit!” Bette yelled back.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said slinking down in the couch. “I didn’t think she’d agree let alone you not stop her.”

“Why would I stop her?”

“Hello? Do you not remember the love part?” Alice asked.

“She has a right to date whomever she wants.”

“Well what are we going to do?”

“We?” Bette asked shocked at being named an accessory to Alice’s scheme.

“Help me Bette! Well at least help me not hurt Tina.”

Bette stood up and began to pace in front of the couch.

“Don’t do anything,” Bette said smiling.

“I can’t just have her stood up! It would crush her!”

“She won’t be,” Bette said smiling. “Trust me Al!”

Bette got up and walked out of Alice’s apartment feeling better then she had all day. She made her way down the steps and out into the parking lot before breaking into a jog to get to her car.

“You’ll be shocked at your date Tina, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”