Tara turns and watches, as Bill enters Merlotte's. A hush falls over the crowd. Arlene darts an eye at busy Sookie and takes his table; he asks for O Negative and without even pausing she tells him all they have in is A Negative. Sookie hears his voice, and stares over. Arlene takes off with the order just as Bill's trying to ask her what's going on in the bar. Why all the people of Bon Temps need a good stiff drink tonight. At the bar, Tara tells her they have plenty of O and A Neg both, and Arlene makes it clear he can go fuck himself. "And don't microwave it neither. He can have it cold." Tara throws her hands up and says Arlene is bad, but really what Arlene is, is gross. The advantages we take, when we can, to be nasty. For the purposes of this transaction, waitress and customer, she's the king of this world. She can do whatever she wants. Won't bring Dawn back -- not that she cares -- and it won't make her feel better. Sookie, knowing she's just being a bitch, already knows that Bill prefers O Negative, and offers to take it out to him. "Good. He gives me the creeps," Arlene says. Which is pettiness that adds up to hate. It's not the raving lunatics that make a nation racist, it's the tiny little pieces of us all.

Sookie places the bottle on his table and takes his hand, leading him outside without even looking at his face. It's a cool moment. This is her world; she knows he's not sure of the rules. "You know my friend who works here? Dawn? Someone killed her last night." Bill's question, outside, is the wrong one: "How?" The rules are, if somebody's friend died, you say you're sorry. She explains this to him without a whole lot of attitude, and waits for him to say it. "You don't even have to mean it. Lord knows they don't most of the time." He is shy, he says he's sorry, and she thanks him. And then right back to the conversation: "Anyway, I'm the one who found her. Strangled. Cops think it was my brother." They discuss how, even in Bill's jaded "anyone is capable of anything" world, Jason Stackhouse is not capable of pulling off two murders, emotionally or intellectually. He can barely pull off breakfast.