“Kit! I’m so glad you’re here.” Alice rushed over to her and grabbed her arm as she dragged her through the maze of tables over to a table full of papers and open notes. “I need your help.” She said pushing her down into a chair across from hers. “Ok, so I’ve been talking to Tasha and she thinks it’s a bad idea to have an open bar. But I say that the looser people are the more likely they are to play all of the games and shit. What do you think?”

The statement and questions came out so fast that Kit had to laugh at her before regaining enough composure to answer her, “Child what is wrong with you?” she laughingly asked. “What have you been drinking?” Kit asked as she finally looked the two empty espresso cups, God knows how many she’d had before those. “Tea for the rest of the day for you.”

“Come on Kit, this shit is crazy and I need to call the lady back today to let her know or not.” Alice whined.

“Did you ask Tina?”

“Hells no! What good would it do to ask her, she can’t drink.”

“Well she may not want drunken people at her shower, Alice.”

“Fuck it, I’m doing it.” Alice said dialing the number.

“You’d already made up your mind didn’t you?” Kit smiled at her.

“Yea I just wanted somebody to agree with me.” Alice answered while she waited for the lady to pick up her phone.

Kit waited until Alice was done with the phone call and laughed at her unmercifully. “You’re a nut you know that.”

“Yea, I know but that’s why everybody loves me. Besides Tina would love to have a great shower. I just want to keep her so occupied with everything that day so she doesn’t get too down, ya know?”

“Yea I know. How is she doing anyway?”

“She’s fine.” Alice side-stepped the question as she plugged in a text with her phone. No one really noticed that Alice immediately disregarded questions about Tina’s health and the baby. Almost, as if those topics were not up for discussion with her. Even Tasha had known that Alice was extremely fragile when it came to those subjects. She had even witnessed a meltdown or two at home with Alice. Alice had persuaded her not to tell Tina so as not to upset her any further, but Tasha knew that Alice was hiding behind a very thin veil of normalcy. Alice wasn’t the type of person you pushed into sharing her feelings, much like Tasha she needed to be gently coaxed into a difficult conversation, but when and only when she was ready. And as much as she wanted to, she knew there wasn’t much she could do other than be there for her wife, when she finally let go.