Dallas, Texas

Hanging up the phone after making her third unsuccessful call of the evening, Sue Ellen frowned and sighed to herself; she didn't want to admit it, but she was bored, or sad, or frustrated, or lonely, or something, she couldn't quite put her finger on exactly what it was she was feeling, but whatever it was, it wasn't nice. Admitting to herself, or anyone else for that matter, that she was feeling unhappy at the moment sounded ungrateful to her though, so instead, when she phoned various friends and acquaintances, she did so under the guise that she was simply enquiring about how they were. Unfortunately, before she could even get to that point, she actually had to be speaking to the person she had phoned, which thus far, she hadn't had much success with. Of the three calls she had made, two had just rung out and she'd hung up after assuming nobody was home, the third call, to her old friend Paula, had been answered by her son James and then his babysitter who had told her that Paula and Roger were out and weren't expected to return until later in the evening. From the small sample of people she knew, it appeared everyone had plans for Saturday night, everyone except her.

Spending time in her large, spacious home was nice during the day, she adored having her own space, with her own land, it was relaxing, beautiful, and the perfect place to raise John Ross. Having the time she did during the day was nice too, it was hers to do with what she wanted and she had found a good mixture of things to do and did them on a somewhat regular rotation that she never felt like she had to look around for something to occupy her time. That was the day, the early mornings and evenings that sometimes ran into late nights were different, ordinarily, they were time for her and JR to focus on their marriage and their family, especially in the evenings, the few hours after JR came home from work and before John Ross went down for the night were precious to them. Their weekends were much the same, they liked to go out and do things together as a family and occasionally they spent time all together with the rest of the Ewings; their evenings were either dinner dates and dancing, family dinners, or attending an event like the symphony, though they hadn't done that for a while. Every few weeks too, she and JR spent some time away from Dallas alone, or they took John Ross with them, both were nice, the purpose was simply to spend time together away from work and their everyday lives, the change of scenery was nice too, she hadn't travelled much in her lifetime and doing so now always excited her.

She had a good life, though in some ways it seemed rather pathetic as she thought about it; she tried hard to spend her time doing meaningful things and she made an effort to socialise outside of her immediate circle, but even with her charity work and the other women in John Ross' playgroup, she still didn't really have friends. It was frustrating, most of the time she didn't even realise how friendless she was, it was only at times like this, where she was alone in her big, empty house that it really became apparent. She had thought she had crossed the loneliness bridge and safely reached the other side a long time ago, but the way she felt now told her she had simply filled her life with enough distractions that her loneliness had been dulled temporarily.

Fighting tears as her thoughts and feelings sank in, she allowed herself to sulk and feel sorry for herself for a few minutes before shakily leafing through her address book again. JR was out with Bobby and Jack, Miss Ellie and Jock were out with Punk and Mavis, and Lucy was spending the night at a friend's house, so spending the night with family was out. It sounded terrible, but approaching any of the DOA ladies for social companionship was automatically out too, the DOA had served its purpose in her early marriage and even now it still had a place, but its place didn't extend to providing anything more than polite acquaintanceship. As for the women she worked with at her volunteer job and the other mother's in the playgroup she and John Ross were a part of, she'd already phoned the ones she felt closest too, everyone else fell into the firm acquaintance category and she didn't feel comfortable trying to make something out of nothing.

Flipping from A to Z and back again for the second time, she stopped suddenly and slowly turned the pages to what had caught her eye, in the P section of the book there were two numbers neatly written beneath the name Pamela. At the time she had transferred the numbers from the notepaper they'd originally been written on, she hadn't even considered that she was creating a contact under the wrong letter of the alphabet, but now her error was glaringly obvious. Pamela was a Barnes, as in Digger Barnes' daughter, Jock's ex business partner's daughter, the daughter of a man who apparently hated the Ewings and blamed them for everything.

To be honest, she didn't find it that difficult to believe Pamela's father was a victim of Jock's rough handling of situations, both business and social, Jock had passed a lot of cold behaviours on to JR and she imagined that there were far worse things in history that she didn't know about. Whatever Jock had done to Digger though, she still found Pamela's dismissal of Bobby and their family to be a bit of an overreaction. Knowing the family as she did, she knew they weren't all bad, especially Bobby, and to her it seemed a bit silly really that Pamela was so involved in something that was clearly a very old, stale fight. Digger had barely been mentioned in the time she had been a part of the family, apart from as a featured character in the stories Jock told about he, Jason, and Digger wildcatting together, and even then, those stories were decades old. Pamela was probably around her own age or younger, they hadn't even been born yet when all of whatever happened in the past had occurred, so was it really their fight to fight? In her opinion, it wasn't, in Pamela's opinion though, apparently it was.

Hovering over the entry she had made in her address book, she considered the relationship she had with Pamela herself, one that had never been anything less than pleasant, though also one that she wasn't sure she could yet, or ever, class as more than an acquaintanceship, or former acquaintanceship. She had felt like they had connected on some level and could even be friends, but they had never actually spent any time together in a social situation, nor did she think Pamela would want to now. As she considered it though, she heard Doctor Williams' voice in the back of her head, she would never know whether Pamela would give her a chance unless she asked her, and in the case that she did decline, that wasn't the end of the world and honestly, she wouldn't really be any worse off than she already was.

Making up her mind, she picked up the phone and slowly began to dial the home number Pamela had given her, her breathing slowing as the ringback tone sounded a few times before a voice on the other end picked up, "hello?" Sitting in silence for a moment, she was stunned as she realised she had actually reached a live person for the second time that evening, "hello?" hearing the man speaking again, she suddenly snapped back into focus. "Good evening, I was wondering whether I could please speak to Pamela?" hearing herself speaking, she cringed as she wondered how her call was being perceived so far, she felt awkward and unsure, so she had a feeling the man on the other end of the line could sense her feelings. As he mumbled something that sounded like, "sure", and seemed to put the phone down though, she relaxed a bit, the man probably hadn't given a second thought to her feelings, and why would he? He didn't know who she was or why she was calling his home.

Waiting for Pamela to pick up the phone, her mind wandered and she found herself trying to think positively; if in the event that Pamela did listen to her but still needed some persuading that she was being silly holding an old feud against uninvolved family members, she was probably capable of doing that. If Pamela didn't want to know her at all now though, then at least she knew and wouldn't waste her time wondering about the 'what ifs'. Either way, she had made the first move to mend whatever bridges had been broken, even if she wasn't personally involved in the actual fight, and that was something in itself to be proud of.

"Hello? Connie, is that you? Cliff wasn't sure", hearing Pamela's voice on the other end of the line, she suddenly felt discouraged and silly; Pamela had friends already, why would she need or want another one? Especially one that came with so much baggage. "Hello, are you there?" not realising she had been silent for just a couple of seconds too long, making Pamela wonder whether the phone had been cut off, she then reminded herself of her positive thoughts and began to respond. "I'm sorry, I'm here, I'm not Connie though. Pamela, it's Sue Ellen, I was hoping we could talk, but it sounds like you're busy, I can call back some other time if now isn't good for you". Responding in a somewhat awkward fashion, her stomach did a little flip as this time she listened to the silence on the other end of the line; silence could be good or bad, but although she wanted it to be good, with her earlier mood, she was inclined to think it meant only bad things. "Sue Ellen…" hearing her name spoken, she breathed a small sigh of relief, Pamela hadn't hissed her name, or hung up on her, that was a positive start, though she knew she was only the very beginning of what needed to come.

To be continued…