“Why not?” Alice asked innocently.  We’ll start with Slippery Nipples and work our way to Cosmos.”

Bette shook her head.  Alice’s drinks had a way of turning your head upside-down and sideways the way she made them.  Bette was going to talk and Alice was going to keep the drinks coming.  “Oh, boy.  I’m in for it, huh?”  Bette was thrilled to be leaving with Alice.  She hated being alone, but in the past few months she was growing used to it.  Revisiting that special time in her life sounded like a fun cap to the evening and Bette put her arm in Alice’s and led them out.  “Okay, then.  Let’s go for it.”

_____

Bette had put on a white tank and her striped pajama bottoms.  Alice was wearing another of Bette’s tanks and a pair of pink panties as they sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa with a pitcher and two glasses between them.

“So you met Ashton by some painting, right?  I remember something about that.”

“It was a sculpture.”

“Okay, spill.”  Alice asked as she poured the Sambuca and Bailey’s mixture into Bette’s glass.

“The day I met Ashton Schwartz, I was sitting in the art gallery, listening to my Walkman and looking at this beautiful sculpture.  It was called Undine Rising from the Waters.  It was created from the most exquisite, pure white, marble I had seen.  I was in the fall semester of my sophomore year and had been going to the gallery nearly every day to check out all of the art, but I always sat in front of that one.  It was a chilly afternoon, I remember that because I was bundled up still when this guy saunters up to me.  He’s white, but has this crazy Afro thing going on.”

“This was what?  ’83? ‘84?”

“Yeah, around then.”  Bette sipped her drink and smiled as the liquid slid down her throat.  “Slippery Nipple, indeed.  It’s excellent, Al.”

“Everybody’s hair was crazy then.  Go on.”

“So he sits next to me and says, ‘Looks like you’ve got a real jones for Undine.’  I looked at him like he was a total moron.  What a stupid line—you’ve got a real jones for Undine?  *****.  So I turn up my Walkman and just give him this patronizing, totally fake smile that lasts all of half a second, but this guy isn’t finished.”