Bette stood leaning against the doorway of the open French Doors. She raised her cup of coffee and took a slow sip as she watched Tina and Alice vigorously following the Spin Class instructor on the TV. She could hear the kids laughing and splashing in the pool. The energy of youth, she thought chuckling to herself as she continued to gaze upon the two women exercising.

Her conversation with Tina the night before continued to roll around in her head. Maybe Tina was right. Maybe she was looking for some sort of closure. Although it happened years ago, the whole situation with Laura left a bad taste in her mouth. She would like to think if Laura was still alive, that she would have forgiven an immature move Bette made all those years ago. It seems Laura did forgive her on some level by giving her the research for the lost painting. However, there was no excuse, of course. Laura left her because she was too weak to stand up to her father. The shame of how she let him disrespect her and then allowed it to happen again with Tina still haunted her.

Bette’s stomach growled. Coffee was a poor substitute for breakfast, she thought.

”A little hungry?” Nat said with a smile as she walked up to Bette holding her own cup of coffee.

She smiled back at the woman who had captured her blonde friend’s heart while helping her reconcile the loss of two important relationships. ”Waiting for the girls.” She took another sip. ”The sugar loaded cold cereal the kids had this morning just wasn’t appetizing to me,” Bette said shifting her gaze back to Tina and Alice.

”Yeah, me neither… I used to live on the stuff. I guess age has changed my taste buds, that and a desire to maintain a semblance of my waistline from my youth,” she laughed as she shifted her gaze to the two women exercising. ”God… how do they manage to keep up. I mean, Alice dragged me to one of her classes once and I died after about 10 minutes,” she laughed.

A slow smile grew on Bette’s face as she nodded. ”The girls have been doing Spin Classes for over a decade. Shane used to do them also, but I think she gave up long ago.” Bette looked down at her cup, ”I think she was there more to pick up girls,” she laughed to herself.

The next few weeks were a whirl wind. Los Angeles had been opening up gradually as summer unfolded and everyone seemed to start to feel a level of normalcy. People were traveling again. For some, it was more limited in how they moved around often opting for old fashion road trips. But, of course, there were those who did not see the Pandemic as such a serious situation, more an extended vacation.  They were traveling to further destinations across country and south to the few remaining open resorts. Bette and Tina had a long discussion about traveling. Tina dug in regarding any air travel being dangerous. It was rather interesting the role reversal of their perspective that had taken place over the last few months regarding the Pandemic.  Bette was coming more from the position, that if precaution were taken, catching anything was remote. But Bette understood Tina’s concerns and opted to put the whole treasure hunt issue away for a while. It was not worth the disagreement as Tina’s motivation was only a concern for the welfare of their family.

Bette with a great deal of persuasion, convinced Tina that a road trip would be good for them. Although, they had managed to find comfort in their home, quarantine fatigue had taken hold of them all. Getting out into a new environment was greatly needed for their mental health. So, the Porter-Kennard family decided to spend a week in Palm Springs. They rented a house and invited Shane and Alice to come along. Shane was busy with her bar and grill, but Alice and Nat jumped at the idea of getting out of Los Angeles. Both Bette and Tina were glad they were coming along and thought this would be a great opportunity to gauge how Alice was doing. The anniversary of Dana’s death had come and gone. Neither had the opportunity to speak to her about Dana since Tina’s effort several months prior and Nat had not said anything about Alice’s mental state. So, with kids in tow, the two families escaped Los Angeles at least for a week.

The Porter-Kennard family left early not knowing what the Friday traffic would look like. Bette looked over at Tina with a loving smile as she directed the car towards the transition East on the 111, it was a steady, comfortable ride with the air conditioning running on a typical warm day for this time of the year. It was a beautiful morning and Bette felt a weight moving off her shoulders as each mile passed.  The stress from the Pandemic had been building over the last few weeks.  The treasure hunt added a whole other layer of worry, so it was nice to be letting it go for a while. She looked again over at Tina who was lost in thought staring out the side window.

Three thousand miles away, a tall, lean blonde stared out the window of an estate sitting on the shore of Palm Beach.  She blew through her lips the smoke from her cigarette in a slow measured breath.  In her hand she held a glass of brown liquid from which she drank, alternating with inhales from her cigarette that she held in the other. 

Her cold eyes focused on the tower of Mar-a-Lago that could be seen in the distance.  She had stayed at the historical resort many times prior to losing her financial position and no longer being in a position to write checks to support the current owner. Marjorie Post must be turning in her grave with the knowledge of the asshole who now owns the beloved property she built, the woman thought as she turned towards the sound coming from an outer room.

The room in which she stood, an office, was lavishly furnished with a large oak desk, bookshelves across two walls filled with books collected by her long-deceased first spouse and a deep leather chair placed in the corner for quiet reading that she never did. The only thing that did not fit were several boxes scattered on the floor with one acting like a depository laden with volumes in disarray of constant use.

The house was all that was left of a fortune she had amassed from three marriages.  A fortune that was taken from her by her now nemesis, Bette Porter.  She still could not understand how the court could have ruled in Bette’s favor and awarded punitive damages that for the most part stripped her of most of her wealth. 

Now, at last, Kelly, felt she had begun to forge together a plan that would bring back her fortune and provide her the vengeance on the person who put her in this situation.

Kelly lifted her eyes to the sound of an elderly woman walking into the office carrying a phone. 

”Yes?” Kelly inquired in an icy cold voice.

The woman gave an unsure smile as she handed over the phone. ”It keeps ringing.”

Kelly put out her cigarette and took the phone. She gave a nod dismissing the woman as she began to pace. ”Yes,” Kelly commanded the voice to speak, sounding pleased to hear from the person who’s name she recognized on the screen.

Bette looked out the window up at the sky.  It would be sundown soon she thought as she turned and walked around her desk. She looked around her office, she loved this room. Lined with bookshelves, with a couch reminiscent of the one in their old WeHo home, cozy but not claustrophobic even with the boxes stacked to the side of the desk. It had been a quiet sanctuary during some very difficult and dark times she thought as her mood became somber. The pandemic had taken its toll on the Porter-Kennard family.  They were now in the middle of summer.  All of Tina’s productions were at a standstill.  The studio was reassessing to determine if it should continue to put money into various projects.  Luckily for Tina, she was given the task of sorting through the productions on all levels, so her job was secure.  At least for now.  Fortunately, money was not a problem for the Porter-Kennard family.  With Bette’s inheritance and both of their investments, they were in a good financial situation to come safely through this crisis whether either of them worked or not.  Bette was very well aware they were lucky because that was not the case for many families across the country.  The News had reported that the pandemic had triggered one of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression.  The majority of jobs lost had been in industries that pay low to average wages.   Nonetheless, companies that paid higher wages like the Peabody Corporation did feel the impact.  Bette had to furlough much of her staff. The lockdown left the Peabody Corporation and all its subsidiaries at a standstill. She and Helena tried to keep people on payroll as long as they could, but with no income it was impossible to sustain. As of now they had a skeleton crew on both the East and West Coast offices, but the international offices and all the Galleries had been shut down completely.

Angie missed weeks of school.  It took Los Angeles public schools time to come up with a remote learning plan. Nevertheless, most teachers in the Spring chose to not do live feeds for instruction which greatly impacted Angie.  She basically lost the last semester of her senior year in High School.  Even though Angie had difficulties with learning online, it had been better than nothing.  Angie talked about how her peers lamented about the loss of graduation, prom and a normal school day, but she focused on the issues of her studies.  She had applied to very competitive colleges and scholarships to go along with admission.  She feared the problems with her final classes would impact her ability to compete for both.  In addition, there was no word on how the colleges across the country would manage the new term.  The thought of online learning for her first year of college was just another issue amongst all the others related to entering into college during this pandemic.  Transiting into young adulthood is stressful enough.  When adding all the school problem, friend problems and family problems; Angie was starting to feel the impact emotionally.  Bette sighed as she reflected on the conversation with Tina about Angie’s graduation.  They had early on abandoned hope of watching their only child walk across the stage.  Tina had voiced in frustration, that High School shouldn’t have ended this hard or this sad for Angie.  As time moved closer to the term end Angie became increasingly depressed and began talking about all the losses and fears for her future.   She finally broke and cried in both Tina’s and Bette’s arms ”Why did this have to happen to us?”  The pandemic had upended the final months for the Class of 2020 in tiny and profound ways academic, economic, social and emotional and Angie was caught in the middle of it.

The sun was setting.  Bette sat at her desk in her home office staring at the boxes she had brought home a few weeks ago.  She had kept the office and they had converted the spare room into one for Tina.  Separate workspaces were working out much better she thought as she stood and walked over to the bookshelf that she had converted into a makeshift bar.  She pulled out both her scotch and a glass.  The depth of the smell and the hint of the flavors rose to her nose as she poured herself a drink.  She swirled the auburn liquid as she took a few steps around her desk, leaning up against it while she took a slow sip.  She stared once again at the boxes that had been stacked in two piles, one made up most of her office from work and the other the research for the lost painting.  She still struggled with the notion that there actually may exist a lost painting from the Nazi era. Peggy’s story about the Russian really intrigued her to such a degree that she started sifting through European News trying to find something about the man.  She learned a great deal about the wealthy entrepreneurs that were not well liked by the Russian public.  It was said they were about as popular as a man idly burning millions outside an orphanage.  These oligarchs were and still are well connected and thought to be the cause of much of the turmoil that plagued the Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Bette took another sip as she continued to sort through her thoughts about the oligarch who may have purchased the Kerschner.  It was clear from the research and the little information from Peggy, that the Russian she spoke of probably had been purged by the Kremlin.  If that is what happened to him, what happened to all his assists?  She read that part of what made these individuals so unpopular was that they stashed billions of dollars in private Swiss bank accounts rather than invest in the Russian economy.  If that was the case, the painting is probably in some storage compartment somewhere in Europe.  Bette chuckled to herself as the thought of this amazing find boxed away gathering dust with other items purchased during buying sprees.