“Do you want to start now, or do you want to wait until after Rose and Christy arrive to get Angelica?,” Bette asked, sitting back on her heels as she looked across the room at Tina.  She plugged her tablet to a nearby wall socket, noticing it had begun to run low on battery power.  She’d pulled the entire dataset so that she could refer to her notes as she and Tina looked over everything.

“Um…why don’t we wait?” Tina suggested, looking up from her play with Angelica.  She gave Bette a quick smile, checked her watch, and then started to collect the dolls she and Angelica had been playing with.

“Okay,” Bette responded, took a last look at the spreadsheet, satisfied that the graph came out well, and then stood up to walk towards them.  She bent to pick Angelica up, and swung her in the air, “How’s my angel this morning?  Ready for a wild and crazy play-date with Jason?” she asked as she nuzzled Angelica’s tummy.

“You sure you don’t want to go and join them?” Tina asked, as she fondly looked up at the two laughing and giggling.

Bette responded without breaking eye contact with Angelica, “Oh, I do want to join them…”

Tina cocked her head to one side, “But…?

“But I think we need to sit down and go over this, sooner, rather than later, as you pointed out the other night,” Bette responded.  “And today’s as good a time to do it as any, before we have any more arguments about it…”

“Bette,” Tina started to say, in an admonishing tone as she stood up, “I wouldn’t say we’ve been having arguments about it.  We just need to…”

“Oh, and what would you call that exchange we had on Wednesday night?” Bette cut in, still vexed about what had happened.  “A calm discussion?”

Tina pursed her lips, equally irritated by the memory, “You know as well as I do that that exchange wasn’t about the art.”

She slung Angelica’s bag onto her shoulder roughly, and faced Bette, arms akimbo.  She and Bette had managed to get past the incident after they’d initially argued within earshot of passersby in a hallway adjacent to the ballroom of a hotel during a fundraiser for charities that Bette supported.  They’d made up, but apparently there were residual irritants that could cause both to bristle still.