“Ms. Porter, I can not be bothered with mundane business at the moment as I have more pressing matters,” Harold reponded. Bette was furious. Mundane? Did he not hire her personally to run this whole resoration project and engineer the display for the exhibition? How could he call it mundane?

“Just a second, I was hired,” she started but was cut all to short.

“Yes, Ms. Porter, you were hired because I was assured you could handle these trivial tasks and not come running to me to fix things for you. You were hired,” Harold rose from his desk and started walking toward the door holding it open, “because I thought you would be adept in doing your job not in complaining about every obstacle presented to you. You were hired to give me a brilliant display, not lag on about all your accomplishments or lack there of thus far. Now please, Ms. Porter, I have more pressing matters to deal with at the moment,” and with that he showed Bette out and slammed the door.

“And apparently the door slamming shut could be heard throughout the whole building,” Helena revelled as she told Alice the whole story. Alice sipped her tea before diving into her fish. She nodded her head as Helena took delight in the retelling of the story. She munched on a bit of potatoe as she studied Alice over their lunch.

“You’re not happy,” Helena stated. Alice shruged and swallowed her fish. She continued to look down at her plate picking up various little vegetable with the end of her fork.

“I just hate that I have to keep reminding you that Bette is my friend and I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk about her in my presence,” Alice said taking another bite.

Helena rolled her eyes. How was she suppose to revel in Bette’s defeat if Alice wasn’t going to join in with her. “I’m sorry, I won’t bring it up again,” Helena stated. She delved into another bit of potatoe and looked down at her watch. “Mmmm isn’t it nearly time for you to dash of to your meeting with that Hawthorne person?”

Alice pulled Helena’s arm toward her and looked down at the beautifully crafted watch with diamond encrusted face. “Oh my god,” she said and took one more bite of veggies before she stood up and grabbed her purse.