“Phyllis just won’t let you go.” Helena’s voice held a note of pride. Bette was ‘indispensable’ and ‘too great a find’ to let go as Dean. Her teaching duties would be increased, her pay as well, but her administrative responsibilities were seriously pared back. An ‘assistant’ was hired, one who essentially worked for Phyllis herself but whose job it would be to make Bette’s life as easy as possible.

New projects took up Bette’s time, but she was excited at the changes.  Already, Bette had committed herself to creating an online journal of critical art history, with a recent call for papers nearing its deadline.  The journal was going to bring a whole new level of prestige for Bette and for her school.  No longer a curator, Bette was now working hard on the supply-end of artistic production—though she always grumbled when Helena used this kind of economic-speak to describe ART.

Meanwhile, Helena’s café was well on its way to opening.  She was spending the week putting finishing touches on the place, but tonite would be the first night for her friends to assess the café and to provide feedback. The month before, she and Alice and Shane traveled through New Mexico and Arizona, searching for textiles and pottery that could be traced ethically back to their origins.

Bette and Helena had ‘officially’ moved in.  Helena had moved her clothes into Bette’s home. They traded furniture between Helena’s beach-front property and Bette’s living room, for symbolic purposes more than practical ones. Alice and Shane helped with the redecorating efforts, and they threw dinner parties at both homes, as a way of ensuring that their friends would feel a part of the new arrangement. The beach house and the main house were still host to Alice, Shane and Helena’s drug induced artistic experiments and art induced drug experiments.  Thankfully Helena’s hair had been rescued from one of Shane’s hallucinatory attempts to cut it off at a bizarre angle, reminiscent of something she had seen on a Paris runway during fashion week. 

They slept mainly at Bette’s house, especially when working.  But the house was becoming less ‘Bette’s.  It was all of theirs, in a sense, and Bette was used to finding any number of people in her living room, kitchen or backyard.  On the weekends, Helena and Bette spent their time at the beach, or in the back garden, often with their children, but also often alone.