“Funny Al,” Dana said as she gave the book back to Alice.

“I gave you the opportunity to come clean at the Planet, and you didn’t.  Start talking or I’m outta here.”  Alice said and looked like she meant it.

“I’m not really sure what she’s talking about.  Bette gave me a ride home.”

“I thought you took a cab, you can’t even keep up with your own lies.”

“Yeah, I lied about that, because I didn’t want to have this conversation with you,” Dana said.

“What conversation, the one where I need to hire Angela Lansbury to figure out what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” Dana chuckled, “Miss Marples right.”

“No,” Alice shook her head in disdain, “Jessica Fletcher, Murder She Wrote.”

“Right,” Dana realized.

“Don’t get off the subject, tell me what’s going on.”

“A lot of stuff happened last night, and I don’t really remember it all.  I’m not sure why Lara’s pissed but I only slept with my teddy bear last night,” Dana tried to unfold Alice’s arm which crossed her other one at her stomach.

“Am I the biggest idiot because I want to believe you?” Alice asked.

“No, you just love me.”

“I’ll just ask Bette about it and then we can move on.”

Dana dropped Alice’s arms, “Why do you have to check out my story with Bette?  You can’t trust that I wouldn’t just lie to your face?”  Dana said angrily.

“But you said you took a cab home, that was a lie,” Alice said meekly.

“I just said thatthat was just a stupid lie, itit wasn’t to deceive you about being with another woman.  I just said that to avoid thisthis unnecessary fighting.” 

“I don’t want to fight, I just want you to be honest,” Alice said.

“When I tell you stuff you can’t just let it be, let it be for what it is, you always have to rework your own definition of stuff.”  Dana hits the dictionary in Alice’s hand.  “Why can’t it just be, Alice? 

“It’s not so easy for me.  I told you, we weren’t officially exclusive, so why couldn’t you just tell me then what did or didn’t happen with Helena.  I gave you an out.”  Alice said.

“It meant nothingit was nothing.  Is this going to go on and on?” 

“We could have talked about it and moved on already.”

“No, no, after being intermingled with your crappy baggage, we’d still be talking about it.  We wouldn’t have” Dana glanced over to the sofa.

“Wait, if you told me the truth, you might not have gotten laid?”

“Pretty much,” Dana nodded and started to clear off her sofa.

“***** you!” Alice yelled.

“You did,” Dana yelled back.

Alice threw the dictionary.  It went through a brown paper wrapped, rectangle object.  They both rushed over to it.  Dana unwrapped the paper to see a rip in a painting of the Baroque style.  “Oh *****,” Alice said.  “It’s not a original, right?”

Dana looked up and gave Alice an “eek” look.

Alice knelt down next to Dana and felt the canvas.  “Maybe we can fix it and no one will know.”