Bette had felt sick to her stomach signing
those papers.  The ride down in the
elevator of the Marsters building had been long, and thought filled.  She sighed, kicking the underside of the door
of the Saab.  She turned and jogged back
to the front door of the building, seeing the elevator closing and she yelled
for the person inside to hold the door.

            “Thank you.”  Bette said breathlessly, not looking at the woman who was
holding the button to hold the door.

            “Least I can do.”  Tina said, giving Bette a sideways look.  Bette sheepishly crossed her arms.  She hasn’t realized it was Tina; she gave her a timid smile.

            “I forgot my purse.”  She said lamely, seeing how that looked bad,
a total set up, right?

            “You are always forgetting it; you
should have a reminder tattooed on your hand so that you remember it when you
leave.”  Tina scoffed, trying not to smile. 

            “Oh gee thanks Tee.”  Bette laughed, and Tina chuckled, looking up.

            “Had to be the 45th floor huh?”  Tina asked, and Bette scoffed,

            “Better than the 100th floor?” 

            “Ok, I give you are right.”  Tina smiled, leaning on the wall and looking at Bette with a careful eye.  Bette examined her nails and they rode in silence.

~*~*~*~*~*

            Ro was walking down the street,
flexing her now cast free hand, the other hand held a spray can.  She had a song in her heart, and she felt
like painting.  She didn’t have any supplies;
she had one can of paint, a bright green that was only good for tagging a wall
with your name.  She whistled the Tegan and Sara song that Daisy had made her listen to
last night in the bathroom on the little ipod contraption.  Now she couldn’t get the beat out of her
head, it was infectious. 

            She liked Daisy, the cute way she
pretended to be tough, when she really wasn’t. 
Ro almost regretted having lied to her about being *****, but then again,
Ro had virtually no experience with men or women.  Save for the quick hook ups in the gang,
she’d been lucky; she’d been jumped in and out by fighting.  Some girls were jumped in by getting gang banged
into the gang.  She was five years
Daisy’s senior and Daisy had more experience than she did, it was sad. 

            Ro slowed her gait, the dogs were
all barking, and a flock of birds passed overhead.  Ro stopped; she felt it, the soft subtle
shift in the earth.  The static panic
from the animals, and the lull in the sky just before the earth shook.

            Her eyes darted left and right,
knowing she wasn’t going to make it to a structure before it hit, and just as
she was thinking that she was tossed onto her *****.  She grunted as a 6.4 earthquake shook LA onto
its proverbial *****.