Bette grinned,“Yeah, had dinner in a fancy French place here. Well, everything is fancy here, so …”

“Yeah, well, not everything’s fancy where I am,” Tina smirked.  “Who’d you have dinner with?” she asked.

“Um… Sarah.”

“Sarah?”

“Yeah, someone I met in the mall.”

“There’s a mall there?”

“Well.. the fanciest mall you can think off, but yeah, a mall.  Anyway, she dropped her earring on the escalator, and I picked it up, tapped her on the shoulder, and gave it to her.”

“And for that she treated you to dinner in a fancy French restaurant?!”

Before Bette could respond, Tina said, “Oh yeah, I forgot, everything’s fancy over there.”

After a pause, Bette said, “Enough about me, how about you?”

“Well, things are going better, now that Scott’s taken over”

“Scott?”

“Yeah, he’s this hot new director who we managed to get for this picture.  A real take-charge kind of guy.  He could save our asses on this, and probably help turn this thing into a decent picture.”

“You seem to like him.”

“Yeah, well, as people here say.  What’s not to like?”

They both paused.  Tina asked, “So have you thought about what we could do for Christmas, yet?”

“Well… I might as well tell you, in case we see George, as he may ask, that I was planning to have you join me here for Christmas. You know… just get away from everything for a few days.  Unplug.”

“Oh, Bette, had I known!  I would have joined you for sure!  Then maybe you wouldn’t be getting invited to fancy restaurants by random hot women.”

“I didn’t say she was hot.”

“Well, was she?”

“Um… I don’t know.  I guess…,” Bette shrugged her shoulders.

“You guess?”

“I didn’t really notice, T.”

“But you had dinner with her, Bette!  Surely something registered?”

Another pause.  Bette elected to let that slide.  She didn’t want to continue on this topic with Tina, at least for the moment.

So she switched back to the original topic, “Anyway, I don’t have a plan B to suggest.  What about you, have you thought about what we could do?”

“No, no I haven’t.”

“Why don’t we just stay in, T?  Stay in New York, enjoy our first Christmas in the city together, walk in Central Park, do what New Yorkers do…”