“Hey,” a gruff voice behind Alice made her twist awkwardly in her chair and look up to see her friend Shane sauntering up to the table. She dropped into a vacant chair and tossed her too-long bangs out of her eyes. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, we were just talking Tina here out of moving to Buffalo.”

Shane raised an eyebrow. “Buffalo? What’s in Buffalo?”

“Wolves,” Dana said. She waved a waiter over. “Are you guys ready to order? I’m starving.”

Once the quartet had ordered their food – Alice had to override Tina’s monotone request for water with lemon and ordered Mandarin Almond salad for the both of them – Shane asked Tina what was going on.

“Did you have a fight with Bette or something?”

Tina shook her head. “I’m just fed up right now. I need a break.”

Dana slapped the table enthusiastically. “That’s it!”

Shane steadied her water glass and looked at Dana suspiciously. “What is?”

“This weekend is a three day weekend. MLK day is Monday, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Alice interjected. “I forgot about that.”

“Exactly,” Dana continued. “What you need, Tina, is a getaway.”

“I don’t know….” Tina demurred.

"You just said you wanted a break. So take one,” Shane said.

“How about Vegas?” Alice asked.

Tina wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know…”

“Come on,” Alice said. “It’ll be fun. We’ll all go!” She looked around the table for support.

“I’m in,” Dana said.

Alice glanced at Shane. “Yeah, sure,” she said with a somewhat mischievous grin. “I’d go.”

“I know Bette will go if you want to, Tina. Kit would probably tag along too, except I know she’s at that small business owner’s conference. What do you say? We’ll go all out and make sure you forget all about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s really bothering me, I guess. I mean, there’s nothing seriously wrong. I just need a change of pace,” Tina said. “But I don’t really want to go to Vegas. That’s not what I want. Noise, lights -”

“And gambling!” Dana piped up helpfully.

“And showgirls,” Shane said wistfully, undoubtedly realizing the proposed group weekend in Sin City was disappearing before her eyes.

“The point is,” Tina said, “I can have all that here. Well, most of it, anyway. A little vacation would be great. But it needs to be a real change, not more of the same.”