“Sorry Tina.  Clearly you wouldn’t be comfortable with that. No problem it’s fine I’ll come to your place.”

“No Bette it‘s fine.  I was just thinking but you’re right a lot of our memories of Dana are in that house.  I’ll come by around eight.”

“Ok great.  I’ll see you then.”

“Bye Bette. See you then.”

Alice passed through the lounge looking at the box in the middle of her floor which she had been steadily ignoring since the night before and sighed.  She quickly walked passed it into the kitchen and opened the fridge grabbing a cold bottle of water as she felt the burning in her muscles slowly ease after her Sunday morning jog.   She opened the bottle and took a long cool drink to quench her thirst.  Just then her home phone began to ring.  She reached for it, putting the handset to her ear, as she simultaneously tried to close the refrigerator door with her foot and replace the cap on the water bottle with the fingers of the hand that held it as her other  hand was now occupied with the phone.  No surprise then that her greeting to the caller was less than polite.

“Mmmhmm?”

“Alice, is that you?”

Alice immediately froze, stunned by the voice coming through the line.

“Oh my God, Tasha?  I thought you couldn’t… how did you… how come you’re able to… shit, oh shit, are you hurt? Tasha, are you ok, what happened?”

“Calm down Alice.  Everything’s fine, nothing has happened.  I just had the opportunity to call you and I thought it would be nice to hear your voice.”

Alice smiled and felt her body relax a little as she listened to the utterly calm voice trying to appease her.  She headed for her sofa and made herself comfortable.

“Well it sure is nice to hear your voice.  So, this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to speak to somebody in a war zone, maybe we should skip the friendly chat and I should hit you up for an exclusive interview?  I’m not sure my readers would appreciate a serious piece on your experience over there but how about giving me the low down on the top ten things to do in Baghdad when you have some free time?” Alice asked grinning.