Previously:

    Yeah, Bette. You’d be happy to get rid of her… wouldn’t you?”

    Exhausted and beaten, Bette walked to the bedroom,
took a couple of sleeping pills from the bedside table, and lay down on
the bed. She carefully popped the pills one by one. She tucked her
favorite blanket around her, the one with the jagged lines at the edge.
Closing her eyes in defeat, she fingered the lines one by one, counting
as she sunk into sleep.

    She dreamt of falling into water. She dreamt she had
turned into a salmon. She dreamt she was swimming upstream, frantically
beating her fins against the heedless current. She saw the flash of
scales that moved further and further away, leaving her gasping and
tiring, always, inevitably, behind.

    “Alice…”

    “Bette?”

    “Alice, I can’t get out of bed. I have a really bad stomach ache.”

    “No you don’t.”

    “I do! I’m cramping all over and I may be having a heart attack.”
   
    “Bette, how old are you?”

    “You know very well that I turned 30 last month.”

    “Don’t you think you’re a little too old to be faking sickness to get out of going to school?”

    Shane grinned at Dana. Dana turned to Alice with an
incredulous look and spoke loudly, “Is she not leaving her apartment
again?”

    Silence from the line as Bette appartently heard
Dana’s outburst. Then, “Fine. Alice, please, could you call the woman
and cancel? Please? Please? I’ll never ask anything of you again. I
just… I just… I’m really not comfortable with this arrangement and
I feel like it would be disastrous to both of us if we were to meet
under these circumstances. You understand, don’t you?”

    “You’re asking me this on the morning of your appointment.”

    “I… There were alot of things in my mind
yesterday… and, and I was distracted and busy… You know… I
couldn’t really think yesterday after you flung this thing at my lap!”

    This time it was Shane who commented loudly, “Are
you talking about Tina? I ran into her the other night at Milk and DAMN
that woman is something! I would’ve asked her to dance but I didn’t
feel like getting into fist fights that night.”

    “Fist fights?! Fist fights?! What? Was that Shane?
What’s she talking about?” Bette’s voice started sounding panicked and
Alice shot an angry look at Shane, who simply smiled serenely.
   
    “Alice, is this woman one of those big amazon
kill-you-with-my-bare-hands people?! Is she going to…” Bette’s
theatrical gasp made Alice roll her eyes, “… kill me?”