“There were a few positives to it, in this case: all the time he was hanging around me, he knew just what to say and made me laugh when I was particularly out of it.  He had also argued for me with the senior guys, and, early on, helped me stare down a few union types that were looking to disrupt production.”

“In a way, perhaps somehow he dragged me out of this morass I was sinking into, and that people around me even in Film Features and on the set, had ignored about me.  In many ways, he was able to confirm… I don’t know, a sense of being alive, while out on the set.  That I was visible, to someone.  And that I knew what I was doing.”

“So that night, seeing the condition I was in, I don’t know how many drinks I’d had, as he took me to my room, he began to try to kiss me. I pushed against him, but I was also… I don’t know, judgement-impaired, half-out of my mind with loneliness, and just missing physical contact with you.  He mistook that as a tease, I guess.”

“So he became more aggressive.  I could have pushed back harder, but… I didn’t.”

Tina paused, refilled her coffee cup. She fell silent, and looked at Bette, who had remained quiet.  Reflective.  Observing her.  After a stretch, Bette said, “Go on, Tina.”

“It was over quickly, and at the end, I shut myself in the bathroom, and threw up violently."

"Although I felt terribly guilty, when I returned to New York, the guilt, and a sense of alienation, fed into this strange cycle of wanting to bridge, but inexplicably also distance myself further from you.”

She paused again, raised a shaky hand to her head, and run her fingers roughly through her hair, before continuing, “A few days after Christmas, when we had wrapped up a marathon editing session, after hitting a bar, we got a call from the editor about a problem with one of the segments.  Scott and I returned to the studio, and worked through that with the editor, and decided to start on another segment.  I was exhausted, and by then we were by ourselves, as the editor had left us.  Once again, Scott was aggressive.  In a way, I felt worse than the first time, afterwards, and locked myself in the studio’s bathroom for a long time.  I don’t know how long I stayed there, but when I finally got back to our place, I think it was nearly 5 in the morning or something.  You were asleep in the second bedroom…”