Chapter 9 

The Planet

“So then Helena ended up getting drunk,” Alice laughs as she tells her friends about the previous night. “And Tammy ended up taking her home to ‘take care of her’, and Helena phones me at 4 in the morning asking me to come help her down from her fire escape she was stuck on ‘cause she sneaked out the window, which she closed and couldn’t get back open.”

“It wasn’t funny,” Helena says seriously, sitting down with her coffee. Bette and Tina laugh and Jenny shakes her head.

“It was priceless to see you hiding from her last night though,” Dana adds.

“If you thought that was funny, you should’ve seen her face when she had to make the 20 foot drop into the garbage bin to escape from the – what did you call it?” Alice looks to Helena. “Farthest depths of hell?”

“And I wasn’t exaggerating,” Helena says enthusiastically. “That woman is insane!”

They all share a laugh. “Where’s Carmen and Shane?” Bette asks, playing with Angelica’s delicate little hands.

“I don’t know, Carmen wasn’t on the couch this morning,” Jenny answers. “And Shane wasn’t there when I went to ask if she was coming.”

“Well someone’s having sugar with their coffee,” Alice laughs.

“There you go jumping to conclusions again,” Dana sighs.

“Oh, and you think otherwise?”

“Maybe…” Dana says.

“Ok, let’s find out,” Alice opens her cell and phones Shane. It rings a long time before Shane picks up.

“He – hello?”

“Hey Shane,” Alice starts. “We’re all at the Planet, where are you?”

“Oh – I’ll uh… I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Have you seen Carmen by chance?”

“Yeah, yeah – she’s right here. You want to talk to her?”

“No, that’s alright, you two should come on by,” Alice smiles and winks at Dana. “We’ll see ya in a bit.”

“Yeah for sure,” Shane says hanging up.

“Told you,” Alice says triumphantly. “Don’t play games with the master. I know all. Well – all when it comes to the brail actions of Shane.”

“No, you just stick with your same theory,” Dana retorts.