“That’s good,” he said wisely. “It means you don’t feel you have to prove anything.”

“Sure,” I agreed again, in another effort to end the conversation. “That’s what we’re doing.”

At precisely 7:30, I was only the tiniest bit worried when Bette hadn’t arrived yet, mostly because I figured she had maybe joined the ranks of the rest of us normal people who don’t need to arrive early or exactly on time.

At 7:36, though, I was a little worried and was checking my hair at a manic and neurotic pace.

At 7:37, Bette called.

“I am really sorry,” she said. “I’m running late and I haven’t got a chance to-”

“Are you still at work?”

“Yes, I am, but I am leaving in ten minutes.”

“Uh, okay, um…” I looked at the clock. “We might… miss our reservation.”

“Do me a favor,” Bette said hurriedly. “Call them, see if you can push it back to 8:30 or something, the reservation’s under Porter. Okay?”

“Um, okay. Do you-”

“Can you do that? All right, Al, ‘bye.” She hung up. I figured a glass of water would make me feel better.

I called the restaurant and they told me pushing our reservation back to 8:30 was not a problem and I began to feel a little better. Good enough to turn on the TV, actually, and catch the tail-end of an episode of The Love Boat.

At 7:54, though, the phone rang again and Bette sounded similarly rushed:

“Did you change the reservation?”

“Yeah. Are you…”

“I’m ***** putting out fires here, Alice. I’m really sorry. It’s driving me nuts.”

To be fair, it was driving me a little bit nuts, too, but I just said, “Should I cancel the reservation? We can do something else.”

“Uh… y-yes-yeah. I’m sorry. I’ll give you a call when I’m all finished.”

“Sure.”

I cancelled the reservations. I figured a beer would make me feel better.

By 9:30, though, it wasn’t like I had gotten the idea that Bette was standing me up or anything, because I knew she wasn’t capable of that, but I did start to feel a bit snubbed.