“It’s okay baby, I am getting Anna to send me.”

Shane was crestfallen. She wondered if she did anything wrong.

“I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yeah. I love you.” Shane wanted Carmen to know, to reassure her again. “I love you very very much.”

“I love you too baby. Very much.” Carmen said with a sigh as she hung up the phone. She glanced at her mother still cooking in the kitchen and sighed again. It is time to face up to the music.

“Carmencita, is that Shane?” Mercedes asked without looking up from her soup.

“Yeah, momma.”

“Okay.”

“Momma?”

Mercedes set the ladle down and looked patiently at Carmen.

“Momma, I’m…”

——————————————-

Shane sat in the kitchen with her coffee a little while longer, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. ‘Maybe it had been the phone calls? Nah…’ Shane knew Carmen and her peach wasn’t one to get jealous like that. ‘What if she knew about the conversation I had with Mercedes!’ Shane gasped. She started laughing in spite of herself. ‘How would she have known?’

“Maybe it is nothing.” Shane said. She looked around and realized that she was talking to herself. “That’s not good, Shane. Oh my god! I’m doing it again.”

A decision to get out of the house came swiftly as she felt herself start to go crazy. She flipped her cell phone open and dialed the first number on her list.

“Hello?”

“Hey Alice, let’s do lunch. Please.” There was desperation in Shane’s voice and Alice could sense it.

“Okay Shane. What’s up? Did something happen?” Alice asked in her most skeptical voice.

“What makes you think something did happen?” Shane rolled her eyes, annoyed that Alice would think something was wrong, but secretly she admired how her best friend could tell that something was up.

“Shane.”

“Can’t I just meet my friends once in a while?”

“Is Carmen coming along?”

“No.”

“Ahah! I knew it! Did you piss her off, Shane?”

“No Al! Look, if you must know, we had the best fuck ever last night. But now she has gone to her mother’s.”