In retrospect, Betty realized that Janell had been trying to have this conversation with her for a while, but she had managed to avoid it most nights, right up until an East Coast road trip where there wasn't much to do but hope you'd picked a good roomie and talk to them. Betty and Janell had known each other long enough that of course they roomed together. Other people might switch roommates like it was nothing, but not them. That night, though, was the only time Betty ever regretted, even for a moment, sticking with her old Lynx teammate.

"I think I've figured you out," Janell said, stretched out on her bed and drumming her feet on the pillow. "Took me long enough, but I finally did."

"Oh, really?" Betty replied, a note of amusement in her voice. "This oughta be good. 'Scuse me a moment while I get a chair and some popcorn. Or shouldn't there be a couch in here for me to lie on while you go on?" She searched the minibar, but there was no popcorn to be found, so she contented herself with straddling the desk chair, leaning against its back and resting her chin on the top. "Now, then, you were claimin' that you'd 'figured me out,' whatever in the hell that's supposed to mean."

Janell smiled. "Not 'supposed' to mean anything. It is what it is. Been watchin' you since I was a rookie and you were a cocky brat who'd just won the Rookie of the Year award and didn't know nothin' about no bad hip. I don't know why people don't think I pay attention, 'cause I honestly do. I don't know how it was with you, seein' as how I'm me and not you, but when I was a rookie, I was watchin' everything and everyone to help me get some notion of what I ought to have been doin'. Watched you more than the rest 'cause you were old enough to know what you were doin' but not old enough that it all seemed so natural that I couldn't learn from it."

"You sound like you were stalkin' me. You know I'm not down with that. Now you're makin' me want to lock my underwear drawer."

"Betty, listen to me for a change, a'right? I don't try to have these deep, heavy chats with you all that often, so you got to know it's important, right? If you just think about it for a second?" Betty rolled her eyes, but rocked her chair back towards the bed. "Thanks. Honest, I thought for a while you were the punk you tried to be. Thought you were as bad-ass and nasty as the tats said. Thought you didn't want nobody, didn't need nobody, and didn't want to be needed by nobody. And I was cool with that. Everybody's got their own thing, right? Right." Janell laughed. "Man, I was wrong. I was so damn wrong. 'Cause when we started roomin' together, I heard you talkin' to your brother and the rest of your kin, and- for one, that meant you cared about people who weren't you, and you sounded so different when you were talking to them. You sounded like someone who cared about people in general. Like a good person."

"Lord, save me from the Lifetime movie of the week, I'm gonna be sick all over this hotel room if she don't shut up!" Betty proclaimed to the ceiling. "I am not some damn cliché, and I don't know where you're gettin' this notion from that I am."

"Oh, please, I already had some 'notion,' as you call it, that you weren't no damn cliché, so kindly shut up 'bout that nonsense, else you're never gonna know how I know you like no one else knows you."

"A'right, a'right. This oughta be good for a laugh, anyway. G'wan with your crazy talk." Betty leaned forward on the chair with an exaggerated expression of rapt interest on her face. Janell tossed a pillow in her general direction before continuing.

"Growin' up in Nawlins, you get to learn a whole lot 'bout walls. We got them all around the city to make sure the river doesn't take over, as it's like to do since we live on a delta. We know how well they work, and we know what makes them fall apart. Think on it long enough, and you start figuring out how you might start workin' your way behind a wall if you need it."

"And are you gonna give me tips, or have you just lost your mind?" Betty pitched the pillow back at Janell with slightly more force than Janell had put into the throw. Janell snared it out of the air and tsk-tsked.

"I do have a point, Miss Thang, so kindly put a sock in your big mouth. I can't get a word out if you keep bitchin' about how I'm talkin'. You think we're leavin' this room without airin' this? You're wrong. And you know what this all circles back to? You and your walls. You front like nobody else I have ever seen in my life, and you do it all the time- 'cept when with your kin, of course. I was thinkin' for the longest time that it wasn't a front, 'cause I figured wasn't no one could front that long, but yeah, you got your walls up. And you got your sharpened stakes on the wall, and your catapults, and the boilin' oil that you're ready to dump on anyone might come callin', so you think you're cool, can't no one break your defenses." Janell grinned, a beautiful bright smile that could light up a dark room. "Thing is, you've been stockin' up that boilin' oil and all those weapons, and here I am tunnelin' under your wall and cutting right to the heart of what you've been hidin' all these years. You act like you're pissed off at the world, but you and I both know better. We both know that behind all that angry swagger and that nasty attitude, there's nothin' but a scared little girl who just wants to love and be loved, and doesn't want the world to hurt her while she's at it."

"I've had enough of this bullshit!" Betty protested. "Betty ain't scared of anything!" She leaped out of her chair furiously and stormed for the door, glaring at Janell as she prepared to leave. "Girl, you ain't paid enough attention if that's the answer you come up with. You let me know when you've got something that describes Betty a little better, and maybe I can listen to that."

As Betty started to walk away, Janell said, "Betty may not be scared of anything, but what about Betty? What about the girl who loved Minnesota, or the woman who works her ass off for her foundation? What about the girl who thought the world of Agler, or who comes early and stays late to make sure every kid who wants to meet you goes away knowin' that they did? 'Cause that sure isn't the front you put up, so it's got to be the woman behind the front, the one who's seen everything can go wrong in a career go wrong."

Betty paused before she reached the door and turned to face Janell. "Go on now," she said, but there was more curiosity than anything else in her voice, and her harsh glare had softened, though her expression was still intense as she focused completely on Janell.

"If I haven't missed my guess, you want to trust more than you want anything in this world, even another ring or a trophy to call your own. You want to know that there's something you can trust you don't feel has some obligation to you. Family's supposed to love you, after all, so how do you know they'd've stood you if you hadn't been their blood? Fans might adore you, but those folks are fickle- they'll love you one day and want your butt out of town the next. You know you can't trust coaches, 'cause they'll trade you soon as something just a little better comes 'round the bend. Teammates? I remember Grace from Tulane. No, you can't trust teammates unless you get to know them, and if you do that, you got to open up and take a risk, and if you run up against someone like Grace, then you're all out of luck. Maybe you can make friends wherever you happen to end up, but you're never there year-round, not until you give up the basketball, and you, you're never gonna give up the basketball, no matter what you do, so at most you got those friends a few months a year, and if they're overseas, then they don't speak the same language and don't understand half of what you know from the States." Janell paused for breath as she ticked off each point on her fingers; Betty watched her hands carefully, as if waiting for Janell to perform a magic trick. She went back to her chair, stopping by the minibar for a couple of bottles of water as she did. She tossed one to Janell as she sat down and uncapped the other.

"Figured you might be thirsty with all that runnin' your mouth," she said, but it was a gentle gibe, no malice in the words. "You're makin' a little more sense now, come to think of it. Maybe you're on to something after all."

Janell smiled again. "Awful sweet of you to admit I might be right. I know how hard that is for you. Put that finger down. So you, not able to trust anyone 'cause everyone goes away, figure you might as well not even try to trust anyone anymore. You figure no one's gonna bother you if you look too tough for them to approach, so you got this shell 'round you that you don't let anyone through. And you've had it so long you've gotten to thinkin' that's all you need to have. If you're scared, if you're lonesome, if you want anything else, it don't matter none. You think you're better off alone, givin' only what you feel like givin' whenever it is you feel like givin' it. That's not even close to being healthy. That's, like, the opposite of bein' healthy, and I know a fitness nut like you might think that's a bad thing."

"What the hell was your degree in?" Betty asked suspiciously. She had turned around the chair before sitting in it for the second time, slouching in it with her feet leaning on the bed. Janell was privately amazed that the chair managed to remain vaguely upright, Betty was leaning so far back.

"Sure wasn't psychology, so don't bother goin' down that road. I'm not talkin' out of a textbook, I'm just sayin' what I've observed over the last four years, three of which I've spent in the same locker room as you. If you want to tell me I'm wrong, and do it without being sarcastic, go right ahead and tell me where I went wrong."

Betty sighed and straightened up her chair. "Naw, you're right. Won't ever admit it to anyone else, but you're right. Guess that means I can maybe trust you, so long as you promise not to go away if I need you."

"Can't necessarily make a promise like that, but if you need me and you call, I'll be there as soon as I humanly can. You can trust me on that." Janell offered a handshake that Betty took immediately. While their hands were still joined, Janell said, "Why don't you come sit by me on the bed here?"

Hesitantly, Betty took her up on the offer. Janell shifted slightly, trying to get into a more comfortable position for her long legs, and put one hand shyly on Betty's shoulder. "Lord, you're tense. Do you mind if I…" She trailed off, rubbing her thumb along Betty's shoulder blade and in towards the nape of her neck.

Betty paused a moment, trying to get rid of the discomfort she felt with someone sitting behind her and so close, and, her voice tight, said, "Go right ahead. Feels nice, anyway." She didn't see Janell's warm smile, but she felt Janell's warm hands against her shoulders, and gradually, she closed her eyes, relaxed into Janell's body, and let down just a little bit of her guard.