"I’d love to go with you, Dana, but it’s probably not a good idea since tonight is about Alice. But I really think you should go."

Shane and Carmen watched the exchange and hoped that Dana would just suck it up and be woman enough to support Alice after everything that had happened. And once again Shane couldn’t help but notice the palpable tension between the couple once the topic turned to that of Alice and Dana.

Finally, after a few more minutes of venting her doubts, Dana reluctantly agreed to show up, but reserved the right to exercise her escape clause if she thought Alice didn’t want her there. After the four women finished their meals, and Lara had returned to the kitchen to finish her shift, Dana brought the party up once again.

"So who’s gonna be there tonight?"

"You know, just us, Alice, Tina, Bette, Helena obviously, Jenny, Max, Kit, Angus, Jules, some people from LA Magazine, KCRW, her sister, and other random friends of Alice’s."

Dana nodded slowly as she tried to figure out which name didn’t register. "Wait a second, who’s Jules?"

"Uh," Shane scratched her head unsure of how to describe Alice’s new girlfriend. "It’s a friend of Alice’s." Shane figured it wasn’t exactly a lie, since they were in fact friends. Plus, it wasn’t like Alice had ever referred to Jules as her girlfriend…at least not to Shane.

"No I’ve never heard of any Jules," Dana began to feel the frantic pangs of the fear of the unknown creeping slowly upon her, "how does Alice know her?"

"Um, ha, funny story actually. She called into The Chart a few weeks ago and invited Alice to The Knitting Factory to hear her band play, so—"

"Wait a second," Dana interrupted. "Jules is that girl that was flirting with Alice on the air that day! She said that I wasn’t worth Alice’s misery, or something like that, right after she finished hitting on her."

Shane nodded, "That’d be her."

"So what are they like, dating now? Was this the girl Alice had a date with the night of Jenny’s party? Is it serious?" Dana questioned, forgetting her plan to try to act cool about the whole thing and not show any signs of jealousy. But as she finally heard all her worst suspicions confirmed, the pain of her constricting heart was too much to bare, and she asked all the questions that had been troubling her mind for the past three weeks.

"Actually yeah, they are dating. I’m not sure how serious it is because Alice hasn’t really let any of us meet her yet, but I’ll guess we’ll find that out tonight," replied Shane.

Dana couldn’t even plaster on a phony smile this time, as her mind reeled with thoughts of seeing Alice with someone new. "Yeah, I guess we will."

Shane and Carmen exchanged a concerned look and turned back to Dana who was quietly ripping up the napkin she had been wringing in her hands. Her gritted teeth and furrowed brow convincing no one that she was happy the woman she loved was slowly starting to move on.