Tina had slept in after her and Kate’s night out in Soho. She was glad of the day off and the rest that it had afforded her but now she was agitated and cursing that eight hour time difference between London and LA. She knew that she should wait until at least 4pm to call Bette so she decided to look over some paperwork and when that didn’t work she went for a short walk around the hotel vicinity to waste a little more time. Fortunately Tina had always known Bette to be an early riser so when she could wait no more she went back to the hotel and dialled the number for Bette’s cell phone.

“Hi Bette, it’s me.”

“Hey T.” said Bette, happy to hear Tina’s voice on the other end of the line.

“You sound surprised to hear from me.” replied Tina who couldn’t help but smile at the way Bette sounded so happy.

“I just didn’t want to get my hopes up so, to be honest, I convinced myself that you wouldn’t call.”

“I said that I would call Bette so here I am. Look, I need to ask you something. I…Bette, where’s my ring?”

“It’s safe Tina.” replied Bette who was a bit taken aback by the directness of Tina’s question.

“What do you mean by safe?”

“Let’s just say I keep it with me all of the time.”

“OK, I don’t really know what you mean by that but I get the feeling that’s all I’m going to get out of you for the time being.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be obtuse. It’s just that…well I’m taking care of it the best way that I know how. In case you should ever want it again.”

“Bette, don’t get carried away. We’ve only just begun talking.”

“I know, but you can’t blame a girl for trying.” replied Bette, laughing at her almost insane optimism, given the situation that she currently found herself in. She then found herself weighed down by the seriousness of it all.

“As we’re talking, can I ask you something Tina?”

“Of course.”

“How did you know?”

“I knew because…Bette you’re beautiful, I wasn’t blind to the fact that other women found you attractive but you never paid them any attention and that just made me feel incredibly secure about how you felt about me, about us. Then something changed between us. I don’t know if it was the baby or…I don’t know what it was but I felt you pulling away from me and I tried to talk to you about it but I guess we got distracted. Distracted by things that we both thought were important at the time, but really when you look back on it they were insignificant compared to the issues that we needed to deal with together. So when I saw you with her, on the night of Provocations, it just became all too apparent as to why there was so much distance between us.”