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Luckily at a certain point Vanessa’s divatude leveled off at borderline bearable, but the two women never stopped sparring and challenging each other.
    Whenever it got to be too much, Jane went skating. She kept a pair of inline skates under the desk in her office. A few nights a week, as soon as the bar closed at 2 A.M ., she would change clothes, put on her skates, and roll out the back door. One of her favorite things was to skate late at night down the town streets when they were empty and still. She had grown up in Brooklyn and as a girl went with her father almost every weekend to the legendary roller-skating rink on Empire Boulevard. All her life she had skated and as she grew older, it became as much therapy as a hobby for her. Sometimes she skated to think through problems in her life. Other times she willed her mind to empty so she could simply enjoy the feel of her body slicing through the air, wheels whizzing across the ground beneath her feet. It was why she was at the shopping mall when she met Vanessa after her confrontation with Dean. Jane had been on her way to buy a protective helmet. She had recently begun learning how to speed ice-skate at the college and her instructor was adamant she wear the proper protection.
    Walking now toward the sporting goods store, she wondered what had caused Dean Corbin to tell Vanessa he’d had enough of her.
    Jane’s partner, Felice, believed it is almost always something small or unexpected that ends a relationship. In general the hammer blow does not come from things like finding out your partner has been unfaithful, or they become unbearable behind closed doors. Those revelations may knock you to your knees, but it is actually seeing the secret snapshot of them with the other person, both looking so happy, so completely stoned on love or sex, that finishes it. Or the slight wicked smile on their face after they have been intentionally cruel to you. The end, like God, is in the details.
    In this instance, Jane would have been truly surprised to learn something she’d said was the tipping point for Dean. The night before, while chatting at the bar with Vanessa about relationships and sex, Jane had said offhandedly, “Most men think they are good drivers. Most women think they’re good in bed. They aren’t.” The line made Vanessa laugh, but it sure didn’t tickle Dean when it was repeated to him earlier that morning.
    “Were you talking to Vanessa Corbin?”
    Jane turned around and there was Felice. As always, she was delighted to see her love. “I was. How’d you know I was here?”
    Felice handed her a brown bag containing a fresh blueberry muffin the size of a shot put and a small cup of black coffee—Jane’s favorite breakfast. “I was getting something to eat in the food court and saw you two talking. Then I remembered you were coming here this morning.”
    Felice managed the bookstore on the next floor up in the mall. It’s how they had originally met—luckily for both women, Jane was an avid reader. She happened to visit the store a month after Felice took over as manager there. The very first time she saw Jane, standing in front of the fiction section with her arms already full of novels, Felice said to herself, “If there is a God, that woman is gay.”
    “What did Mrs. Diva have to say? Didn’t you just see her last night?” Felice disliked Vanessa because Jane disliked her.
    “Her husband wants to split up.”
    Felice grabbed and squeezed Jane’s arm. “No way ! You always said he adored her.”
    “Apparently not anymore. Wanna go sit down someplace for five minutes so I can eat this? I know you’ve got to get back to work. I’ll eat fast.”
    They walked to a wooden bench near a fountain and sat with their four knees touching. They had been together a year but were still jubilant to have found each other. Neither woman had ever been successful at love. Certainly over the years it had flirted with both of them; sometimes it had even