Notes: The film scene described in this chapter can be seen in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which everyone should watch anyway because it's totally boss.

Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

In less than a week, so much has changed at Vic Mu. Vera's in the hospital, and nobody knows when she's getting out. Edith will be back at work soon, but to be honest, Betty's dreading having to face her. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose someone she loves as much as Edith loved Doug. What on earth do you say to someone, after that?

And then there's the matter of Kate Andrews.

Yesterday, as they were leaving the factory at the end of shift, Kate started singing some hymn from the olden days, about the harvest being gathered safely in. She walked along at Betty's side, singing like she'd had to contain the music all day long and couldn't hold it in any longer. The sound of it seemed to stop time. Betty wouldn't have been at all surprised if they'd reached the street car stop, only to find that years had passed and the war was over. She's never allowed herself to get all girly and romantic over another woman before. She knows she's in trouble. The way Betty feels is already so big that she can't help worrying that someone will see, and she'll be hauled before the chaplain before the fortnight is out.

She doesn't think they would have gotten so close so fast, if not for the other night. The night after Vera's accident, Betty screwed up every ounce of courage she possessed and told Kate … told her that she knew that something bad had happened to her, and that she would look out for her. Since then, they've been friends. That in itself seems unbelievable, even though Betty has made quite a few female friends this year. There's a scowling adolescent inside Betty who insists up and down that she doesn't want to be friends with any silly, simpering girls. Betty knows as well now as she did then that the reason she's always kept her distance from other women is because she was afraid of feeling like this. She's spent her whole life petrified of looking at another girl and finding so much to like about her, but it keeps happening over and over again.

How the hell can Betty stand to be around Kate, when Kate makes her feel this way? If Betty had any sense, she'd go off and find someone else sick like her. The thing is, Betty has a sneaking suspicion that her feelings for Kate aren't going to be fixed by getting up to unspeakable things in the alley behind some bar with a secret knock. She doesn't know if anything could fix it.

(Some moments, she doesn't know if she wants to fix it.)

Early on Friday morning, Betty lingers outside Kate's room for a full minute before she gets up the nerve to knock. She puts her hands in her pockets and rocks back and forth on her heels as she waits for Kate to answer.

"Hi there," Kate says as she peers around the door. She hasn't let anyone inside her bedroom yet, although last night, Kate left the door open and the curtain hanging for twenty minutes while she made herself some tea and chatted to Susan and Phyllis in the kitchen. Betty felt rather proud of her, but she didn't say so. It wouldn't do to imply she notices Kate too much.

"Hey." Betty gives her a cordial nod. "Wanna ride to work together?"

"I'd love to," says Kate, grinning. Every morning up to now, Kate has been the one to ask, as if she thinks Betty has women lined up around the block wanting to sit beside her on the street car. If it were anyone else, Betty would let them ask and ask. Sometimes, she would make a point of saying no, just so it was absolutely clear that she's just fine with riding to work alone.

She's not so concerned about looking funny, now. Not when it's just her and Kate. Kate deserves to know that people like having her around. And well, there's something so lovely about how happy Kate looks to be asked that Betty suspects it'll keep her in a good mood until lunchtime.

"D'you get out to the movies much?" Betty asks, as their street car approaches Vic Mu.

"Not really," says Kate vaguely. "It wasn't … always possible, moving around so much." For a fleeting moment, the strangest expression passes over her face. An expression like she's so tired, so sick with herself for having to lie or half-lie with every word out of her mouth. Betty knows that expression. She's never let herself actually show it, but she's felt it often enough, on the inside. "Actually, I've only ever seen one," she says in a rush.

One movie in your whole life? Betty says incredulously inside her head. Aloud, she asks casually, "Which one?"

"Snow White."

Betty can't help but smirk a little. "You mean the cartoon?"

"My fa – my family were pretty strict. No hit parade, no romance magazines, and no movies. But my mom and I thought Snow White would be okay, since I was twenty-two at the time." She says it all on one note, poking fun at herself. Betty snatches up that tiny anecdote and adds it to the treasure trove in her mind, the repository of Things I Know About Kate.

(Perhaps that's another reason Betty feels so drawn to her. Kate seems so genuine, so utterly without pretence. It's not an act, Kate is both those things, but there's a lot she doesn't want to let people in on. A lot she wants to forget. Betty's only too happy to help out.)

"Well, there's a whole other world for you out there," says Betty. "We should take you out to the pictures." Then, because the idea of being alone in the dark with Kate for several hours is equal parts thrilling and terrifying, she adds hastily, "I think Aggie and Moira and them are planning a trip this week, to see some musical. You'd have fun. You should invite yourself along."

"I couldn't!"

"Yeah, you could. Invite yourself, and then invite me, okay?"

"All right then, I will," says Kate abruptly. It throws Betty, as she had anticipated several more minutes' argument. Kate sees the surprise on Betty's face and laughs, settling triumphantly back into her stiff unyielding seat as though exhausted from hours of furious debate.

It's after they've reached work that the unthinkable happens. Betty is just brushing imaginary specks of dust off the cuffs of her coverall, when a voice rings out across the change room. "Morning, ladies!" The accent is so unbearably cut-glass, Betty wants to sweep it straight out of the change room before it hurts anybody.

She doesn't have to turn around to know that it's Gladys Witham. She still gets a shock when she turns, though. For some reason, Gladys is wearing a white coverall, like the girls who work the floor.

"Gladys?" Kate's face lights up.

Betty folds her arms. "What the hell are you dressed like that for?"

Gladys draws herself up to her full height, which is, unfortunately, slightly taller than Betty. "I'm working the floor with you."

"You are not," Betty blusters. It is possibly the most pathetic retort she's ever come out with in her life, but in her defence, Gladys looks so bizarre dressed like a floor girl that Betty is having trouble forming coherent thoughts. She's far too immaculate, like a movie star playing a factory worker. She may as well tuck an orchid behind one ear and burst into song.

This has got to be a practical joke, Betty thinks, aghast. Only that doesn't seem to be the case, because when Kate offers to help Gladys tie her turban, Gladys accepts. They look like little girls playing hairdressers at a sleepover. This is not appropriate workplace conduct. What is even less appropriate for the workplace is the pang Betty gets when she sees how thrilled Kate is to touch Gladys' long, dark hair, like it's something she's wanted to do since she first laid eyes on her.

"This is such a surprise," Kate says, laughing. "You being on the floor with us, instead of all the way up in the office."

"Let me tell you, I had a terrible job keeping it a surprise. My last day in the office, I kept wanting to come over to the two of you in the canteen, to tell you I'd be working with you soon. But I'm here now, and I can't wait to get started," says Gladys, with a significant look at Betty.

Betty's smile is decidedly grim. "You're not getting any special treatment here, Witham," she says bluntly. "I'm gonna run you ragged."

To Betty's intense irritation, Gladys positively beams at these words. "That's all I've ever wanted."

After inspection (which Gladys passes, thanks to Kate's assistance), the Blues are sent out onto the floor. They're working the stencil line again today. Mrs Corbett can sense that some of them have reservations, but she can't afford to spare anyone, no matter what they witnessed on Tuesday. She picks the workers she deems least skittish to carry empty casings to the start of the line. That's Betty and Kate. Betty feels ridiculously warm, having her name called aloud, along with Kate's – warmer still when she notes with satisfaction that Gladys won't be able to spend the morning tagging around after them, if they're moving around and she's at her work station.

Walking to the head of the line, Betty and Kate watch as Gladys holds a casing in gloved hands. She presses a tender kiss to it, leaving the imprint of her lipstick on it. "Go get 'em," Gladys tells it in a tremulous voice, before hanging it on a hook and watching misty-eyed as it rises toward the ceiling. It's clearly a big moment for her.

Kate frowns. "Someone should probably tell her that casing is covered with chemicals."

Sure enough, Gladys grimaces and surreptitiously wipes her mouth on her sleeve, leaving a red smear on her cuff. After a moment, she has to put her hand up for a sub and dash off to splash water on her face.

Betty rolls her eyes. "There, you see? She's so – so ... Witham is all wrong for this kind of work, I'm telling you."

"Give her a chance," says Kate. "You did for me, and I was much worse than Gladys."

Betty hopes Kate doesn't see her reddening. "That's different."

"I don't think so. Besides, with you training her up, I'll bet a week from now, you won't even recognise her."

"Who knows if she'll even make it that far?" Betty says hopefully.

"I have," says Kate. It's the first time Betty's heard pride in her voice. Kate looks at Betty, and in one moment, she seems to take in everything about Betty: the swearing, the smoking, the trousers, the dirty jokes, and the short hair. Something else, too. Something maybe even Betty can't see, or doesn't know about yet. "Because of you," Kate says, with a shy, sweet smile, and it makes Betty feel something she's only felt once or twice before in her entire life.

When Betty was seventeen, she went to the movies to see this flick called Morocco. She'd heard people talking about this one scene where Marlene Dietrich sang in a fancy nightclub, looking stunning in a top hat and tails. That in itself was enough to pique Betty's interest. It wasn't like now, when female factory workers can wear their trousers off shift without raising too many eyebrows. Back then, women who dressed like men were considered deeply suspect, not patriotic.

In the darkened movie theatre, Betty slouched oh-so-casually in one of the cheap seats, busying herself with smoking cigarettes every time Dietrich and Gary Cooper had a scene together, until the nightclub scene came around. Dietrich certainly cut a dashing figure in her suit, but nothing, nothing could have prepared Betty for what happened next.

After Dietrich finished performing, she made her way through the crowd of spectators, stopping in front of a young woman in a glittering, beaded shawl. Dietrich plucked a white flower out of the woman's black hair. "May I have this?" she asked, her deep voice tinged with amusement.

"Of course!" the dark-haired woman replied.

Dietrich smiled to herself, gently tipped up the woman's chin, and kissed her on the lips. The nightclub erupted into thunderous applause as Dietrich tipped her hat to the blushing woman. It makes Betty shake her head to think of the way she was then; rigid with shock in her seat, dropping cigarette ash all over her skirt, with every hair on her body standing on end. She was so young, and starving for something she couldn't even say aloud.

It was the first time Betty had gotten confirmation that she wasn't the only girl in the world who wanted to kiss women. And it wasn't just anybody who was like Betty. It was Marlene Dietrich, a beautiful, famous actress! Betty had a tough time not fainting on the spot. It wasn't because of Dietrich herself, it was just that Betty was so relieved. If a big movie star like Marlene Dietrich could kiss a lady in front of the free world without caring what people thought, then why not Betty?

As soon as she left the movie theatre and walked back into the harsh light of day, it became abundantly clear why Marlene, and why not Betty. Marlene lived in Hollywood, not rural Saskatchewan. Marlene didn't have to hear her own brothers groaning in disgust over Clement Gilroy, that goddamn sissy, that mama's boy, who got his teeth kicked in outside their town's one crummy dance hall for looking too long at another guy in the men's room. Marlene Dietrich didn't have to look at anybody she loved and wonder if they'd stand up for her if she got her teeth kicked in too.

For one shining hour, though, Betty felt like it could be okay. Being with Kate, she feels the same way. This is how she can keep being around Kate, even though she likes her. It's because in these moments, with just the two of them, Betty doesn't feel sick. Not even a little.

"I'll give it a chance," Betty says, before amending it to, "I'll give her a chance. Gladys Witham, I mean. But if she messes up, I'll let her have it."

"Yes, I know," Kate says, biting back a grin, the same way she did when Betty said that dopey thing about oceans and lakes. This time around, it makes Betty want to do something totally insane like – like put her arm around Kate's waist and introduce her to people as "my girlfriend." She couldn't ever do that, of course, but it is okay for her to want to. Perhaps the fact that Betty is a woman doesn't mean much, when someone is as beautiful as Kate. Betty couldn't not like her. It would be just plain stupid, not to want to keep her safe. It would be impossible to look at someone like Kate and not melt inside.

"From now on, I'm not holding back," Betty says. Though Kate doesn't seem to realise, Betty knows she's not talking about Gladys any more.