“It’s just us,” Joan murmured. “I’ll stop before everyone else gets here.”

“You better,” Grace said, pretending to chastise Joan. Of course the other woman would stop before everyone else arrived.

“Can we figure out a way to make sure there’s no meetings on Tuesdays from now on? I don’t care what we have to do, but I am not going a whole week without being with you again,” Joan said, hands settling on Grace’s hips. She pulled the other woman closer to her, and Grace’s head dropped back to rest on Joan’s shoulder, giving her plenty of access. Kissing down her neck, Joan trailed her lips down to the curve where neck met shoulder.

“Yes, yes,” Grace said distractedly, too lost in how Joan’s touch made her feel. She pushed the cake to one side, along with the knife, and turned in her lover’s embrace to kiss her gently. She had missed the other woman terribly, even though they had spent all of Tuesday in the same room, and she knew tomorrow they’d be making up for lost time.

Grace  pecked Joan on the lips, trying to placate her, but Joan had other ideas. It wasn’t long before their kiss turned heated, hungry and open. Joan pressed Grace against the counter, tongue slipping into the blonde’s mouth.

Grace whimpered as she pulled away. “We have to stop,” she said weakly. “I probably look like a mess right now, I need to freshen up.”

Joan smirked. “We still have time,” she murmured, before leaning back in for another kiss, just as passionate as the last. Grace couldn’t help but smile against Joan’s lips as they kissed, her hands coming up to rest behind Joan’s neck, keeping her close.

They didn’t hear the door open, nor the sound of heels clicking down the hall, nor the voice of Rita Castillo until it was too late.

She stands in a field. The sky above is kindly blue and decorated with the most puffy, immaculate clouds. There is a table at the center of the field, equally as immaculately white. It is surrounded by flowering shrubs and artfully planted tulips and petunias. Around the table sit members of Elysium Park Garden Club; they chatter and clink crystal glasses filled with luxurious champagne.

Mavis and Joan turn to look at her while Brenda and Judy help themselves to croissants. Grace has her head turned towards the sky, rays of sunlight wash over her delicate cheeks. There is an empty chair, just one and Rita makes her way towards it. If only she had noticed the withering bougainvilleas that shed dried petals around it.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” She greets.

Mavis takes a sip from her champagne and quirks a brow at Joan who makes a point of picking through the morsels on the table. Rita clears her throat. Brenda and Judy are suddenly very engrossed in a conversation about the God awful new detergent Brenda’s cleaning lady has been using; “just terrible, ‘ocean breeze’ is a terrible scent, it’s too strong and my clothes are faded!” Rita clears her throat a second time. Grace looks over but she looks past Rita. Her eyes are fixed over her shoulders. She opens her mouth but before she can get a word out…

Rita furrows her brows; the immaculately white table is sprayed and spotted generously with red. And for a moment it doesn’t add up. For a kind moment she doesn’t even realize…

“Alma?” Joan furrows her brows.

Alma laughs, it is that same awkward and loud laugh that Rita has grown ruefully familiar with. The ladies at the table look horrified, concerned, mournful… But they don’t make a move to help her.

Rita brings her hands to her chest and they come away drenched in blood. Her brows knit in confusion before she falls back. The shears protrude from her chest.

And when she wakes the pain is still there, faint pangs and jabs. “Scooter?” She calls softly. She can’t quite remember where she is. She knows where she had been. She knows that she had been outside of Chez Magnifique in an alleyway…

“Scooter?” She tries again. The air smells sharp, like disinfectants and...

“He’s not here, dear.”

Rita furrows her brows. “Grace?”

The woman gives a small half smile.

“Grace, what’s going on?”

“You got stabbed.”

“Stabbed?” She squeezes her eyes shut. She knows that she had been stabbed in her dreams. She holds her hand to her chest only for Grace to take her by the wrist and move her hand lower, down to her belly. She can feel the slight bulge of several layers of bandages beneath her hospital gown. “Alma?”

Grace nods, “she’s not who we thought that she was.”

Rita thinks faintly that, at one point, Alma probably was who they thought she was. Somewhere down the lines the woman had changed. A bizarre parallel to the shift in her own life. “My head hurts.”

Grace gives a sympathetic smile. “I can imagine. I can send for the nurse. You should get something to eat.”

“Grace, how am I going to pay for all of this?”

“You can stay with me, dear. At least until the court sorts out the inheritance.”

Rita rubs her head; what an absolute mess this is. She had damn near forgotten about that. And with the recollection comes a steady flow of memories. Of the confrontation, of the confirmation that she had been framed. “A-Alma Fillcot stabbed me!”

“She murdered a lot of people, apparently. You think that you know a person…” Grace sighs. “And to think, I thought that she was a nice lady.”

Rita’s head pounds with more fury than ever.

“She nearly ruined me.” Grace laments.

“You and me both.” Though she thinks that her own undoing had been more or less complete. Or maybe, and how ironic would it be, Alma has saved her. She was leading a miserable life under a guise of luxurious opulence. She doesn’t think that she can confidently say that she was ever truly happy living in the Castillo mansion. She doesn’t think that she can say that she has ever had a real friend. “Why are you here, Grace?”

She shrugs, “because I think that you could use someone who cares.”

Rita swallows, her eyes are brimming with tears. She thinks that she has been crying too much lately. God, she could use a smoke…

Grace dabs at her eyes with her sleeves. “Once you get out of here we can go to my house, have a few biscuits and some champagne like we used to.”

“With the rest of the club.”

Grace shakes her head. “The Elysium Park Garden Club has been scandalized beyond repair. We’ve disbanded.”

“We can still meet up for…”

Grace shakes her head again. “I think that everyone just wants to forget.”

Rita nods. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I remember you mentioning New York.”

Betty Draper Francis (Mad Men)

Grace Kelly

Grace Berk (Why Women Kill Season 2)

Trudy Campbell (Mad Men)

Jill Ruckelshaus (Mrs. America)

Princess Margaret (The Crown 1&2)