“Their flying in at the end of next month and I have the chance to present the idea to them.” Alice said and continued to stare at her phone in disbelief. After a while she broke out of her trance and interrupted Bette as she spoke to Tina again. “I gotta tell Tasha.” she said standing up and briskly walking out of the room.

Tina turned her attention back to Bette and she smiled at her as she just waved her hand and said, “Thank God. She’s been a mess for the past couple of weeks. She was so irritating on the way over here I started to knock her out and drive myself.”

Bette chuckled and said, “I can imagine.” her head was still down but Tina could hear the smile on her face as she sifted through her chart looking for any thing that should be brought up to her patient.  Alice came back in the room and almost glowing, she even gave an extra bounce as she took her seat next to Tina again.

“She wants to take me out to celebrate, you wanna go?”

For a brief second Tina wanted to say yes, but she remembered that third wheel feeling as she sat with them on a date. Of course they didn’t call it a ‘date’ but it sure did feel like one, the constant caressing of each other’s hands or the subtle; and not so subtle glances they gave each other. The lonely and isolated feeling you get surrounded by two people in love. They’ll try to engage you in a mundane and mindless conversation, when you know all they want is time alone to be affectionate without hurting your feelings. She opened her mouth to speak but reposed herself and shook her head as she spoke, “No Al, you guys go ahead and enjoy yourselves.”

“No Tina, come on, we deserve this. Do you know how long we’ve been trying to get this account away from those assholes downtown. Come on. Why not?”

The transparent and desperate need to not be a bump in their alone time was so evident on Tina’s face her mouth was posed for speech and her brow was knitted trying to come up with an excuse as to why she felt no need to join her family in celebration. Bette could feel herself sympathizing with her patient. “Uhh, Tina’s already promised– me a uhh…, movie night.” Alice looked at Bette skeptically and turned her attention back to Tina. She was also looking at her doctor in complete disbelief. Sure she could tell Alice the truth and embarrass Bette or she could allow the night to have a romantic twist for her family away from her. Besides she thought it was sweet the way Bette would blatantly lie to Alice just to rescue her from a very persistent Alice and a night of waiting for the clock to run out on her time to get home and away from the happy couple.