Bette had been in her office, putting the final touches to her analysis of a proposal George had asked her to look at when she saw Tina’s text pop up on her screen.  She hurriedly saved her document, and fast-walked to the kitchen to join the blonde. 

What’s up?  she mouth to Tina when she walked in.  As soon as she saw Tina, though, she felt something wrong was happening: Tina was red-faced, pacing around the vast kitchen island, hands roughly going through her hair. 

“Bette’s here — and you explain why you think I should postpone our honeymoon so I can save your asses,” Tina said angrily.  Alarmed, Bette motioned to Tina to calm down, baby.  Take a breath. 

William’s fatherly voice floated out of the speakers, “Hi Bette, this is William.  Listen, I’m in a real pickle here, and I am running out of options with this one.” 

“Hi William,” Bette said calmly, “How can we help you?” as she walked to the bar to pour Tina a glass of sparkling water, clipping a lemon wedge on the lip of the glass.  Here, take a sip.  Calm down, baby.  

Tina needn’t burn her bridges with William, Bette thought.  The blonde had become increasingly frustrated at work, she knew, but it was only because they were giving her the projects that they felt no one else could take on.  They had been extremely understanding, in the meantime, with Tina’s schedule, both during the reconstruction period, and lately, agreeing to a change in her workload so that the blonde was able to take fewer extended trips to sets outside of the New York area. 

William was saying, “…so we’ve already sunk over $250 million into this thing, and we’re now in the middle of a critical period of production, re-shooting the climactic scenes.  And, as you know Bette,” No, Bette didn’t know, actually, but… “in action-oriented films, these are the scenes that matter.  The producer who’s been working on this just upped and quit.  I think the pressure really got to him.” 

“So you and Tina were discussing….,” Bette started to say, holding onto Tina’s hand, to keep her from jumping in. 

“Yes…we’re discussing pulling Tina in to oversee production at this critical stage.  Unfortunately, that’s going to be in a week, and right around the time of your wedding, I understand,” he ended, a touch
uncertainly.  Bette hit the mute button quickly as Tina let out a stream of obscenities.