Dinner with her, Dinner with Bette Porter, she had no choice and she knew it. Without laying it on the line Helena ,as her superior and as her friend was telling her that she must put her personal feelings aside for the sake of her career.

Tina stood up with straight shoulders “very well”

“Good” Helena said, rummaging on her desk for something. “Here, she left this for you .I’ll expect a report on my desk tomorrow morning”

“You’ll have it.”

When she reached the door, Helena stopped her. “Tina, this account wouldn’t make or break Porter. She’s already proven herself. Maintaining the reputation of her company as the best is what motivates her. To her it’s all a game, and money is only the means with which to keep score. But the OCEAN BREEZE commercials will mean a tremendous amount of money to us. I know you’ll do a good job of keeping everyone happy.”

“That’s right I will” Tina said and proudly exited the office.

******

The personal, singular B at the end of the terse message galled Tina the most. Lying in bed, trying to relax, waiting for Henry to come home, She read the back of the business card for the hundredth time. “A car will pick you up at seven-thirty. B”

Well I might not want one of your damn cars to pick me up at seven-thirty, Bette” she screamed . But the car would arrive on time, and she knew she’d be ready. Like it or not, she had been coerced into cooperating with Bette” Where the hell was Henry ?,his hours were getting later and later coming home from work. Recently it seemed like they kept missing each other. When he got home she would be in bed . If she didn’t know better she’d think he was avoiding her? and in the morning they always seemed to be rushing through the door to beat rush hour traffic. I t seemed of late that he never had time for her…or was she imagining it?

Just last night , she was rudely awaken by the telephone,which happened to be a wrong number. She had rolled over to make sure that the noise hadn’t waken her husband, when she had noticed that he wasn’t in bed. She had thought she was dreaming, but she wasn’t dreaming. She was wide awake. By LA standards, it was practically the middle of the night and her husband wasn’t in bed with her. If the phone wasn’t enough to wake her up,then Henry’s unexplained absence certainly was.