“If you’ve been in LA for six years, you got here when you were what, 15, 16? How are you doing hair dressing school without finishing school? Or did you?”

I chuckled. “I got a GED just before hair dressing school.”

Tina’s voice floated over the water, “How have you managed to pay for that let alone hair dressing school?”

Ah, a back door question to the frontal assault she tried earlier. “Someone I knew offered some help…” I let that hang in the air for a while, then tilted my head back to try to see Bette. “I can accept help when I have to.”

Bette chuckled and splashed some water in my direction. She tried to keep the next question just as playful.

“Who would you call?”

I had to hand it to them, they were quite clever to ask their questions with roundabout questions instead of direct ones. But somehow the roundabout ones were easier to answer.

“My mom.”

“What about your dad?”

“Never met him.”

Tina sighed. “When was the last time you saw your mom?”

I smiled, thinking they were suddenly pushy, but not really minding too much. Give an inch… I just floated, and stared at the sky. It was as if they knew that was the end of answer time, and Tina began telling us about her day at work. I asked what she did exactly and she started telling me about how she develops scripts and movies. Much more interesting than my life, so I asked her what that entailed and she started telling me about the movie business. We chatted a while longer, and then got out of the pool, Bette throwing each of us a towel to dry off. I grabbed the glasses and took them into the kitchen, grabbed the sponge and started to clean them. I could hear Bette and Tina out back making out. I chuckled to myself and took my time with the glasses, giving them their space. I would have just snuck out the front door and leave them to their business but I had only thrown my shirt back on, so my pants, boots, cigarettes and such were still out back. As I finished the glasses, they came inside, bringing my stuff with them. Bette came up to me.