"It's your turn." Jennie tried and failed to suppress a yawn as she peered across the coffee table. Lisa was sitting cross-legged on the floor, peering intently at her row of Scrabble tiles with her eyebrows drawn together in concentration.
"Pass," she said at last.
"Lisa, that's the fifth turn in a row you've passed!"
Lisa ignored her, picking up the bag of loose tiles and exchanging two of her letters. "Go ahead," she said, looking up at Jennie.
"You know, that's a bad strategy," Jennie explained. "Even if you end up making some amazing word, you'll use up too many turns to catch up."
"I know how to play Scrabble," Lisa replied.
Jennie looked down at the score sheet where she'd been tallying points. "The score right now is 68 to 4, Lisa."
Lisa nodded. "You do it your way. I'll do it mine."
"Fine." Jennie looked back down at her letters and picked out five of them, placing them neatly across a Triple Word Score. "Let's see..." she said, counting up points in her head. "That makes it 98 to 4."
She looked up at Lisa, raising her eyebrows in silent challenge. Lisa met her gaze without even looking down at her rack. "Pass," Lisa said.
"Lisa!" She buried her face in her hands. "Seriously?"
Lisa was already reaching into the loose tile bag again when Jennie looked up. "Yes!" Lisa hissed, as she examined the letters she'd just pulled out. "Ok, Ok. Hurry up." Lisa waved a hand at Jennie to take her turn.
Jennie watched Lisa from across the table, shifting letters around on her rack.
"What's taking you so long!" Lisa exclaimed, looking up at Jennie impatiently.
"Fine." Jennie put down another word and tallied her score on the sheet. "Go ahead," she said. Lisa grinned back at her and then placed her tiles on the board upside down. "Are you ready?" Lisa asked.
"This better be good."
Lisa flipped the tiles one by one to expose the word she had placed, composed of ten letters and one blank tile.
F U C _ K E N D A L L
Jennie knitted her brows, looking down at the board in confusion. "What word is that?"
"Fuck Kendall!"
"Are you kidding me?"
Lisa was counting up her score under her breath. "Four. Five. Eight. Nine..."
"Lisa, that's not a word."
"Why not?" she looked up at Jennie, eyes wide with innocence.
"Because it's two words," she said. "And one of them is a name."
"You're not going to let me count this?"
"No!"
Lisa pouted. "I passed like eight times in a row to make this."
"Why do I get the feeling you're not taking this game seriously?"
Lisa was picking the tiles back up and placing them on her rack again. "Well, I didn't realise we were playing it the anal retentive way," she muttered.
Jennie picked up the cover of the box where the instructions were printed, and handed it to Lisa. "We're playing by the rules. Do you need to read this?"
Lisa tossed the box over her shoulder and looked back at Jennie defiantly. "Pass." she said.
"Oh, come on! You could make words! What about 'flack'? That's a good word."
Lisa shook her head, smiling at Jennie lazily. "Pass." she said again.
