"I can’t believe she actually expects us to have a good time with straight people all over the place," Alice muttered, pushing half the clothes in the closet out of the way so she could look at the other half to try to find something to wear to Tina’s dinner party.

"Come on, she’s just trying to have everybody get along. It’s got to be weird, being shunned from both the straight and gay communities. I figured you’d understand that feeling pretty well," Dana replied, watching in a sort of awed amusement as Alice deposited an armload of clothes onto the bed and started sorting through them. To anyone else, it would have looked like utter chaos, but Dana knew there was some sort of method to the madness. Even if she couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

"Yeah, I totally get where she’s coming from with that. It’s not like I’m trying to judge her for being with a guy or anything, I just think the way she’s going about this is awkward. It just feels forced to me, that’s all. It’s like she’s trying to make everybody get along, and I just can’t see it working. People generally stick with what makes them comfortable, so it’s weird to me that she’s trying to have a group of dykes mingling with the fucking Stepford Wives."

"You’re being judgmental, Al. She’s just being nice…and I bet you’d be even more pissed if she hadn’t invited us at all. Let’s just go and try to have a good time, okay? For Tina’s sake. She’s still our friend."

Alice stopped rifling through the heap of clothing and turned to Dana with a sigh and a shake of her head. "I know," she said quietly. "I know she is, and I think it’s fucked that she feels like she can’t be that anymore just because she’s not sleeping with women."

"I don’t know if that’s all it is. I mean, we’re all friends with Bette, so she probably just feels uncomfortable around us because of that." Alice nodded. "Hey, you didn’t ever feel like that, did you? That you couldn’t be friends with us if you slept with a guy?"

"Well, I’m not going to act like it wasn’t awkward or anything, because it was. But no, I never really felt like you guys didn’t want me around anymore. You made fun of me a lot, but it wasn’t like I thought you were serious. Eventually I got tired of all the bullshit, though, so I took the easy way out," Alice replied, grinning and walking the whole two feet over to Dana to give her a quick kiss.