From Tina’s vantage point she had a view of the restaurant that Bette didn’t; she kept her face straight when she saw what was about to happen and waited for the drama to play out.

Bette nearly shot out of her skin when Alice’s hand clamped on her shoulder “Great, you’re out of seclusion..good I’ll join you.. no-one else could make it..”

Bette turned to Alice “No..”

Alice looked at Bette pretending she didn’t understand “No? C’mon you wouldn’t make a girl eat alone would you..”

Bette stood up “Alice what part of No don’t you understand ..N..O..we want to be alone..”

Alice looked towards Tina “Help me out here..”

Tina shrugged “I’m not sure I can help Alice..she’s down to spelling words out ..I think she’s serious..”

“You’d make me eat alone …and have to watch you two eating each other as well..?” Alice said determined not to miss anything, hoping that her foray down here would at least nab her a juicy piece of gossip she could pass on to the others.

“And where the ***** were you hiding..” said Bette feeling the situation was slipping out of her grasp, considering making a run for it with Tina.

“I wasn’t hiding..I was in the bathroom..a girl’s gotta go somtimes..you don’t think I was lurking in there waiting for you do you?” Alice said

“Were you?” Bette asked.

“Bette” said Tina feeling things had gone far enough.

“Keep out of it!” said Bette then immediately regretted her angry response “Sorry..I..”.

Tina looked up at Alice “Al, it’s really nice to see you but Bette and I only have two days together and we need to talk about a whole lot of things. Would you give us some time huh? I’ll be back in a couple of weeks and we can catch up then..”

Alice looked at Tina “Oh..OK..why didn’t you just say so..OK well ” she leaned in for a hug “Bye”.

“Ciao Bette” Alice blew her a cheeky kiss and waved as she left the table.

Tina took Bette’s hand, stroked it soothingly “You know” she said unable to suppress the smile that tugged at her lips “its hard to see how you two lasted as long as you did as a couple”.