“Talk to her Tina, for your own sake.”

Then the phone stop ringing. Tina, however continued to stare at it. Kate watched Tina wage a silent war with the phone. Kate started to wonder whether Tina would ever tear her eyes away from the phone when she quickly got up from her seat.

“Will you be OK here for a few minutes on your own? I have to make a call.”

“Go Tina, I’ll be fine.” Kate watched Tina exit the restaurant and start to pace up and down the street while waiting for the person she was calling to pick up.

“Hello.” said the voice of the other end of the line.

“Shane, it’s Tina. I’m so glad you answered. Where are you? Do you have time to talk?”

“Hey Tina. It’s good to hear from you, Alice said you called the other day. Oh..and by the way I’m at home and, for you, of course I have time to talk.” replied Shane.

“I have something I need to ask you and I need you to be completely honest with me. Can you do that?”

“Tina, have you ever known me not to be honest with you?”

“No Shane, but I need that more than ever this time. How has Bette been coping since I left?”

There was a brief silence on the line while Shane considered her answer to this question. It would be so easy to sugar coat this answer to spare Tina some pain but to do this Shane knew that she would be doing her two friends a disservice so she pressed on with the answer that Tina had asked her to give.

“She’s not been to work since you left and I don’t think she has left the house for the last two days. I can see her actually. She’s standing by the living room window. She’s looking at something that she has got on a chain around her neck but I can’t see what it is.” Shane was hoping that this was honest enough and that Tina would understand the implications of Bette not going to work, given how important Bette’s job had always been to her in the past.

“How does she look right now?” asked Tina, not really knowing whether she wanted to know the answer.