“God, Alice! That’s great, how did you convince her to finance us?”

            “Well, let’s say I convinced her that you are a very-very lovely woman and…” she started saying but the stopped and looked at her, trying to continue her sentence, but something was restraining her from finishing it.

            “And?” a now quasi-scared Bette asked.

            “And wife and mother” a super-scared Alice replied, shutting her eyes closed, fearing Bette’s reaction.

            “WHAT?!” well, at least she didn’t kill her… yet.

            “Yes, well, she… she started talking about her daughter and her grandchildren. And she said that her daughter wasn’t that good when it comes to family and things like that, she’s a workaholic, money lover… Let’s say she’s just like… you. BUT, seeing that Mrs. Peabody isn’t really amused by that kind of behavior, I decided that a little white lie couldn’t kill someone. So, I started to tell her how wonderful you are with your child and wife and how much you love to spend the time with them…”

            “Well, as long as I’m not going to demonstrate her that, it may had been a good idea, yeah…” she stopped and gazed at her friend, “Why do I sense that there is something else?”

            “Yeah, well, um” Alice stammered, “It was a good idea, until she proposed to come visit you, and your family, and spend Christmas Holidays here, with all of you”

            “I’m going to kill you!”

            “Okay, you will kill me later… I just need to tell you that there is one more little thing”

            “What else? You told her something else about my life I didn’t know?”

            “Nope, she wants to move this mall, the one in Manhattan, to somewhere else. She said, since there are plenty of them here, it’s not good for the business. That’s why we’re losing customers. Concurrency is a bitch, and she thought that moving the mall may be a good idea. Especially if we move it to a place where there aren’t plenty of them”

            “But, that means that a lot of employees, here, will lose their jobs”

            “Since when do you care about others?”

            “Alice, I’m not a monster!”

            “Let’s see if this will make you change your mind” Alice got closer, she brought her mouth to Bette’s ear and whispered something to her.