She clicked the call shut, as she extended a hand out to Dan, “Hi, I’m Tina.  I’m really sorry about being late.  The plane…then the traffic,” she caught herself, and then turned to Bette.  “Honey I’m sorry,” she bent to give her partner a kiss.  Bette smiled up at her, and slipped the mobile she had been busy with, into her jacket pocket, to receive Tina’s kiss.  They drew apart, smiled at each other for a few seconds, and kissed again.

Dan was observing them, taking a few notes.

Tina sat down, next to Bette, they exchanged glances, and held hands.

Bette said, “Alright, Dan. Here we are, finally….”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thirty minutes into the second session with Dan, the stress levels of both Bette and Tina were beginning to rise.  Dan had been worried that the initial session had been extraordinarily polite; if the second session went the way the first one went, he was thinking about trying another format for the next appointment, in order to begin to look into the issues that he could tell were bubbling beneath the surface.

He saw the irritants, at the moment, were related to the clash in schedules of the two, and how this affected activities that required both of them, such as viewing apartments Sarah had lined up for them to look at.

“I just don’t understand why we have to go by her schedule,” Tina was saying, her voice rising, while her face began to redden.

“It’s not her schedule,” Bette responded, then turned to Dan, “forgive us Dan, but this is the first time we’ve been able to talk face-to-face, because both of us have been away, and we both just flew in this morning.”

“No… don’t stop on my account,” Dan responded, eyeing them with interest, and continuing to take notes.

“As I was saying,” Bette said, her irritation growing also, not the least by Dan’s puzzling attitude.  And all that note-taking! What is he doing, anyway?!  “…T, it’s not her schedule, it’s ours.  We both happen to have a hole in our calendars… and that’s 3:00 tomorrow, Friday.” 

“See?” she showed Tina the calendar app in her tablet, which had reflected Tina’s calendar, also, that had been synched in.

Tina blew her breath out. “I know that it looks like there’s a hole in my calendar at that time,” she began to explain, “but …but there’s an appointment I haven’t put in, that was just confirmed to me an hour ago.”