Chapter 6

LA – Summer 2002

At The Planet – Two weeks before the bachelorette party

Kit was standing behind the counter, quietly staring across the room. She seemed very deep in thought. Alice approached her in the search of much needed caffeine to start her morning.

“Hey Kit! What’s up?” Alice greeted her in her usual cheerful mode.

Kit looked at Alice like not understanding what was being said to her or recognizing who Alice was for that matter.

“Wow… what the hell happened?” Alice asked in shocked at Kit’s reaction.

“Why… what… did someone call you?” was Kit’s reply.

Alice was even more confused now.

“Kit… what the fuck?” She asked with a questioning face.

Kit’s whole demeanour was screaming guilty of something and that is a big, huge mistake to make when you are around someone like Alice.

“Ok… spill it” Alice demanded.

“Spill what?” Kit tried to sound as innocent as possible, but her face said otherwise. And even if it didn’t, there’s no way you can get away with whatever is in your mind once Alice is convinced someone is hiding something.

“Spill it Porter The Second! And while you are at it… could you make a double espresso? Put everything you’ve got in it… I didn’t get much sleep last night”

“Gabby again?” Kit was trying her best to divert the conversation towards something else, even if that involved Gabby.

“No and no! You are not getting away with it… What’s going on? Why are you looking like you’ve murdered the Pope?”

Kit released a sigh she wasn’t aware she was holding. Telling Alice what she’d done was not gonna help the situation but at least she would get it out of her chest.

“Kit… Even my patience has a limit…” Alice was beginning to be restless.

“I’ve made a big… big mistake” Came Kit’s short reply.

“No shit, really?… Kit… you can see a mile away that you look guilty of something… now what you’ve done is what I’m interested in”

“I… I… might have called a certain someone in New York to tell her about the wedding of a certain someone” Kit looked like a lamb that’s about to get slaughtered.

Alice was in complete silence, not even blinking which got Kit even more scared.

“Al… Al… Say something?” Kit was begging all the Gods for Alice not to start shouting for Bette had entered The Planet and was scanning the place, searching for her friends.

“ARE YOU FUC….” Came Alice’s scream.

“Shhh lower your voice Al! Bette just entered the room and she just saw us!” Kit was sure she was gonna crawl to some hole and die if they ever made it out of this one alive.

“What the fuck?” Alice said almost whispering while she turned around and spotted Bette, who was now talking on her cell phone.

“Look Alice, I know that what I did was wrong… but someone has to tell her… she has to know… if after that she still doesn’t come around… then fuck it, but we owe her… them… at least that last chance”

“Kit… you know I feel the same way about those two… but really… we’ve tried everything…. EVERYTHING! And the worst part is that if Bette hears about this… she gonna hung us both!”

“Who’s gonna hung you two and what for?” Came Bette’s voice behind Alice.

“Hi Porter The First!” Alice was trying to sound as normal as possible. “We were just commenting that Shane is gonna hung us if we don’t finish the arrangements for your up coming bachelorette party!”

Alice knew Bette completely disliked the idea of a bachelorette party so that would send the conversation down another path. Besides there was no one more blind than Bette for certain issues.

“Alice…how many times do I have to say that I do not want that party?!”

Bette was convinced she had had that conversation with Alice a thousand times before and yet she was also sure she was gonna have that damn party. Because once something got in Alice’s head there was no way of convincing her otherwise.

Bette’s cell phone rang. Her face went from slightly mad to incredibly annoyed when she looked at ID of who was calling.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this call” Bette excused herself.

“Kit… make that coffee to go please”

“And what do I do?”

“Well you could try not to look so guilty… for a start!”

“Rrright… easy for you to say… you are deserting me here!”

“Well Kit… you know what… I don’t wanna die so young and pretty. I’ll call you later”

And with that Alice grabbed her coffee and headed for the door, not before stopping in front of Bette and slightly shaking her coffee in front of Bette’s face, muttering that she had to run and she would call later. After all she didn’t want to look so suspicious.

“Hi Kit. What is wrong with Alice?” Bette greeted her sister after a few moments when she disconnected the call.

“I don’t know. Maybe she had to work?”

“Right… like that would ever happen this early in the morning”

“Ohh they are calling me from that table… tell Karen to make you your usual espresso and take two bagels… you are skinny baby sis… See you later!”

And with that last phrase Kit was gone, pretending to go take care of that inexistent request.

“Okkkaaayyy… apparently everyone is insisting on leaving me alone today… great…”

Later on that afternoon Alice could not hold it anymore. She was sure Kit had meant well, but probably had done more damage than the good she intended. She grabbed her cell phone and stared at it, thinking about what she was about to do.

Ohh fuck it! If Porter finds out about this she’ll be mad as hell anyway… no matter how many times we’ve talked to her… And with that thought in her head she hit the speed dial key.

“Good afternoon, Tina Kennard’s office. How may I help you?”

“Hi Rachel, is Alice”

“Ohh hi Alice, how are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. Is she in?”

Rachel was convinced that something very bad had happened for her boss to leave the office like that, but now she was even more worried if Alice was not making any small talk before asking if Tina was around.

“No… she left earlier, in the morning… and she hasn’t come back yet. Alice is something wrong?” Alice could tell by Rachel’s tone of voice she was really concerned, but still she decided it was best not to share anything with her. She didn’t quite know how much Tina’s assistant knew about the whole thing.

“No… no, nothing is wrong. I was just bored… you know… nothing much to do at this hour so… I thought I would check on TK… but thanks anyway”

Rachel didn’t know Alice at all, only the few conversations she had had with her on the phone every time Alice called and Tina’s line was busy, but she could certainly tell she was lying. Anyway she decided to drop it there; she would have time to ask Tina herself what was going on.

“Ohhh, ok then. Why don’t you try her on her cell phone? I know she switches it on whenever she leaves the office…”

“Thanks Rachel, talk to you soon. Take care” And with that Alice disconnected the call.

Fuck! If she’s out of her office, then it’s bad… bad news… ok, here we go again… you better pick up Kennard…

The phone rang several times, clearly Tina was debating with herself weather to take the call or not.

“Hi Al”

“Hi TK… I…”

“You’ve talked to Kit”

“Yeah… yeah… look Tina I…”

“You don’t have to say anything Alice, really” Tina sounded really defeated.

“Yes, yes I damn do Tina. I…” Alice made a pause. “I hate you for being so stupid, as much as I hate Bette for the same reason… but you as well as Bette are my friends too… so I can’t stay mad at you two for your own issues… and I really care about you TK”

“Who is she marring Al?” Tina interrupted Alice.

“What difference does that make?” Alice knew Tina was not gonna like the answer to that question, so she tried her best to move the conversation onto something else.

“Who?” Tina was certainly not gonna drop it.

“Well, why do you wanna know… I mean… you are not gonna come to prevent that wedding from happening… are you?”

And then Tina realized why Alice was being so cautious.

“It’s her… right? I mean why else would you go around a simple answer… unless it was her” Tina was starting to sound aggravated now.

“Oh… I’m sorry… is this jealousy I’m picking up in the tone of your voice?” Alice felt hurt for some reason.

Tina remained silent; she knew she had no right to take it out on Alice.

“T… you are not here… she is… you were never willing to give it a chance… she was… you didn’t come back here to pick up the pieces when you left… she came… what else can I say?”

“That she took advantage of the situation? That she was MY best friend I met Bette and she betrayed ME by sleeping with the person she knew I loved?”

“Ok you have a point… but had you done anything about your feelings before she slept with Bette?”

“That’s not the point Al and you know it”

“I may know it, but you and I both know that there isn’t ANYONE more blind when it comes to feelings than our little Bette Porter… so do you really think she would have gone for Julia instead of you if she would have known? Do you really think that she would be marrying Julia if she had the smallest bit of an idea of how you truly feel about her?”

“But that is the thing Al… she knew… Bette knew…”

“No, you think Bette knew… but she didn’t… you never stopped to consider that she may not have realized anything… again it’s our blind Bette we’re talking about here… besides, thanks to who do you think that… whatever happened between you two actually did happen? Because we all conspired for you two to actually get it on already… it was getting on everyone’s nerves!”

Tina was out of arguments. She had no choice but to admit she just was plain jealous. Because she wasn’t the one sharing her life with Bette, planning a wedding, sleeping with her, eating with her, staring at her while she slept, touching her, kissing her, she wasn’t the one who was gonna grow old with Bette. And that was killing her… eating her alive.