Bette was simply leaning unsteadily against the side of the Saab. “Bette?” Tina called across the lot, “shouldn’t you.”

Bette took a stiff, if somewhat wobbly stance. “I don’t HAVE any
flashlights in the car, Tina. This is why I have AAA and a cell phone.”

“Yeah, right,” Alice said out of the corner of her mouth. “A lot of
good that’ll do ya now, girlfriend.” Bette glared daggers at her
friend, folded her arms, and slumped back against the car, deliberately
avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the group, even Tina who was
lying across the front seat, legs dangling out the door, fumbling under
the seat for the flashlight she just knew had to be there.

In remarkably calm fashion, Helena had thrown open the trunk of the
Astin Martin, closed her eyes and allowed her hands to locate what she
was looking for. She hauled a fat plastic case out of the trunk, set it
down at her feet, reached back in to find the bungee cord she was
looking for. Looping it through the handle, she tied the ends of the
cord and slipped it over her head and across her chest, letting the
case fit snugly if somewhat uncomfortably under her arm.

“What’s that? Your makeup case?” Bette snickered.

Helena took one very long deep breath. The former head of
the CAC had just about found her last nerve and gotten all over it. She
was running perilously low on that Peabody reserve of manners and good
behavior. “An emergency road kit,” she said in carefully nuanced but
clipped speech, “first aid kit, flares, some tools, a shock blanket.”

Bette waved her arms at the woman she considered both arch nemesis and
rival for her wife’s affections. “A shock blanket?” she sneered. “Does
it look like anybody here is in shock?”

“A lot can happen between here and there,” Helena cautioned slowly.
“It’s better to have what you don’t need, than to need what you don’t
have.”

Bette rolled her eyes, disdain visible by moonlight. “What we NEED, Helena, is more light.”

Helena gave her a baleful look, reached back into the trunk, and hauled
out one of those marina-sized flashlights, flicked it on and shone it
directly into Bette’s eyes. She waggled it in the air and gave her a
look that said, “There! Now shut the ***** up!”