Bette pulled into her driveway, much earlier in the day than normal.
She’d forgotten some papers that she needed for the new Peggy Peabody
show that she was opting for next summer.

She got out of her blue Saab and closed the door softly, and she heard
a voice in the back yard of Kit and Ivan’s home. Bette moved to the
hedges, trying to see over them. She stood on the tip of her toes and
looked over to see a handsome black man talking to someone on the back
porch. Bette cocked her head, listening and then she saw Kit leaning
over the railing and kissing the man.

It wasn’t a friendly kiss, it was a kiss of passion and Bette hunkered down and let out a gasp. Kit was cheating on Ivan?

Bette stopped in mid thought, why should she care? She didn’t like the
fact that Kit was with Ivan anyway. Bette stood, walking to the front
of the house so that Kit couldn’t see her, back pressed against the
wall of her own house, feeling like a spy.

That’s what this was, Kit cheating on Ivan, like a thief in the night
taking away something precious from someone else. As much as Bette felt
pangs of guilt over cheating on Tina, she didn’t regret it as she
should.

Kit was wrong by cheating on her new beau. No matter how Bette felt
about Ivan as a person, no one deserved that stinging hateful pain that
came with being cheated on. It was her one deepest regret in turning to
Candace, the god awful pain she’d inflicted on Tina, and the suspicion
that it had twisted her in some irreconcilable way. Bette stepped into
her house with a new resolve, to set Kit right one way or the other.

~*~*~*~*~*

Dana was jogging up one of the hills in the back of the country club;
her trainer had called it a day, but Dana needed to work out a bit
more. They’d gone all out during their honeymoon, and she had a few
pounds to melt off before her next big tournament.

Her feet planting firmly on the soft ground with each long athletic
stride, sweat made her whole body gleam in the failing sunlight. She
loved to run, to sweat and let her mind wander to places she’d never
allowed it to wander before.