It wasn't quite the way Rett remembered it. "I never thought of myself as popular. I didn't care."

"Oh, God." Angel put her hand on her stomach and Rett could see tears glittering in her eyes. "That it could matter so much after all this time. I've been around the world, endured twelve years of college, yet I think about high school and some things still hurt."

"You're not the only one. A lot of my memories can still hurt me." Far more than Rett was willing to admit, even to herself.

"I wanted to have a name that didn't end in a vowel. I wanted to be wanted, but I wasn't even welcome in the prayer group. I knew my Bible better than just about anyone else, but the unwritten rule was Lutherans only. I was the only Catholic, the only wop, the only one who preferred garlic to mayonnaise. I didn't want to be skipped forward a grade and always be the youngest. I didn't want to be the brain. I'd have given anything to have a fraction of what you had. And I wanted to love you."

Rett could find nothing more to say than, "I'm sorry. But that was then and this is now." She reached out for Angel's hand, but Angel stepped back.

"I can't... no touching. I'll have no resolve at all."

Rett let her hand fall back to her side. "I can empathize, you know." She knew how awful she had felt, suffering what seemed like rejection after rejec¬tion and not being able to be with the one person she wanted. Her lips trembled and she struggled for control. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I thought something was familiar, but—"

"She was in the way. She was so blonde, so tall, so beautiful. How does a short, Italian girl in glasses compete with everybody's dream?"

"You don't have to anymore."

"I don't believe you."

Rett took a step toward her, suddenly aware of the open door and the clatter of people in the hallway beyond. "Leave with me."

Angel shook her head. "I told you, I want you to confront how you feel about her —"

"I don't need to."

"I need you to."

"That's not fair. I'm not the one who has a problem with it."

"I don't believe you. I can't. I have too much at stake." She started to walk by Rett, but Rett grabbed her arm.

"Angel, don't do this." A spike of heat surged up her arm.

Angel was breathing hard. "I may be nearly forty, but my mother won't sleep until I walk in the door. If I call at this hour she'll think someone has died while she kills herself running for the phone."

"That's just an excuse." She was breathing hard, too.

Angel's lips parted and for a heartbeat she leaned

toward Rett, then she shook her head angrily. "Stop that, just stop it." She yanked her arm away. "I want you to deal with her. I'm sorry if that's not rational. You have no idea how badly you hurt me the first time around."

Angel was gone before Rett could stop her. Jesus H. Christ, she thought. She wanted to shout after Angel that it wasn't all her fault and that she was not going to be manipulated into a guiltfest. She hadn't hurt her on purpose, all those years ago.

She was shaking all over, feeling torn in too many directions. She wiped ineffectually at her stage make¬up. The sudden entrance of a critic from the Star Tribune forced her to find some semblance of calm.

He was complimentary and inquisitive, first asking some simple questions about her background, then working around to her new relationship with Henry Connors. The few interviews she'd done in L.A. helped her sound casual. When he asked exactly what had happened between Henry Connors and Gilda Bransen, she had her answer ready. Naomi's first rule of inter¬views: Never gossip, it never pays.

"I wouldn't know." She shrugged. "I wasn't there. I just feel like the luckiest singer in the world that Henry remembered me."

Her pretense at calm was tested by Cinny's arrival. She made a "duty calls" gesture but Cinny remained just outside the door. The critic wrapped things up quickly and Rett hoped he wasn't too disappointed that she wouldn't give him some exclusive dish on Gilda Bransen. Cinny entered as he left.

"I just wanted to say a private hello," she said from just inside the doorway.

After a long moment, Rett managed, "So hello."

Cinny was moving toward her slowly. Damn Angel, anyway. Damn her for making me want her and then leaving me with Cinny. Inch by inch Rett felt Cinny's approach.

Cinny edged toward the dressing table, glanced in the mirror, then crossed the room to touch a chair. Every step brought her closer to Rett. That slow approach was maddening, and Rett remembered that was how Cinny had always been. Never a beeline for a kiss, always a slow dance, allowing Rett a long look at every inch of her.

Rett was remembering how slowly Cinny had slid across the car seat toward her, how she made it seem not deliberate and yet directly intimate. Just now, with Cinny's back almost to her, she could be the same girl Rett had sweated over, held, tried to love. Cinny idly examined an object on the dressing table again, then turned to face Rett. She was only a foot or so away. She was all breast and all waist and all hip and all leg.

Rett was seventeen again, and wanting to taste Cinny's skin. Or was she all grown up now, and aching for Angel in her arms again? Her head was pounding in keeping with her heart. She put a hand on her stomach. There was still magnetism between her and Cinny, but would the flame be leaping so high if Angel hadn't fanned it?

"Bunny and the carpool went home. I drove by myself because I had a house to show." Cinny swallowed, then added in a low voice, "I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere."

Rett tried to tell herself she knew better. She knew how she felt about Angel and yet her pulse was throbbing at Cinny's nearness. The rule she'd carved