Is this happiness, Rett wondered? The euphoria was more powerful than the post-performance rush. The words were addictive — she wanted to say them over and over. "I love you."

"I've always loved you, you shit."

Rett grinned. "Now that's romantic. You think you can drive so we can go make up for some more lost time?" What did living two thousand miles apart have to mean, anyway? It was just a plane ride. They could work it out.

Angel found a tissue in the glovebox and blew her nose. "Say it again."

"I love you, Angelica Martinetta."

"Say it a lot."

"I love you, I love you, I love you."

"More." Angel pulled out onto the road again.

"I love you."

"Sing something romantic. Make my bones melt again."

" 'A-B-C, one-two-three, baby, you and me.' " Rett kept singing the boisterous little Jackson Five ditty until Angel's playful slapping made her stop.

"My sisters and nieces want to go to the Mall of America — are you up for that?" Angel pulled one of

Rett's tank tops over her head. It could have been a short dress on her. "I wish I'd remembered a change of clothes," she said for the fourth time.

"I'd love to go back." Rett toweled her hair a little longer, then reached for her brush.

"I want to find a different dress to wear tomorrow night. The dress I brought is very professorial. I don't feel professorial and it is a wonderful feeling."

"No, you're not in the least professorial. I'll sign an affidavit."

"I intend to dance with you, Rett Jamison."

"We'll start a riot." Woton High had not had many lesbians dancing in its gymnasium.

Angel kissed the end of her nose. "It's overdue."

"Find a dress to go with these." She handed Angel the little velvet box with the topaz earrings.

"Rett, these are beautiful."

"They reminded me of your eyes."

"I don't know what to say." She held the simply set stones up to her ears. "I don't have pierced ears."

"Shit."

"I'll get them pierced."

"It'll be less painful to take the earrings back and find clip-ons."

"You have a point."

The shopping trip was great fun. Rett hadn't been around teenagers very much. Angel's nieces were con¬fident and friendly without being petulant, a quality she'd been told countless times was synonymous with "teenager."

Angel assured her, however, that all of her relatives

seemed to be on their best behavior. "Hang around long enough and you'll see us with our hair down," she had said.

Rett wanted to kiss her all over, but public kissing was akin to a strip show in Minnesota. "I'll hang around, then." She didn't know if Angel understood it was a promise.

When they got back to the motel Angel refused to show her the dress she'd bought, saying she'd been ably advised by her nieces and wanted to surprise Rett. Rett realized suddenly that the dance tomorrow night was sort of like a date. An official Date with Serious Clothing and Shaved Legs.

"If Bunny hadn't made such a point of it, I wouldn't go," Angel was saying. "I'd rather sleep with just you." She stuffed pajamas borrowed from one of her nieces into her small overnight bag. They'd stopped at Rett's motel for her things before coming to Angel's parents where she bunked with her nieces who had wanted to be closer to Nana and Nana's kitchen. The rest of the family was occupying several of the cabins at the nearby lake resort.

"I feel exactly the same way."

"A slumber party, at our age." They looked at each other and Rett knew a word from her would send them back to her motel for the night. "We have to go," Angel finally said. "It's the right thing to do. Bunny went to a lot of trouble."

Later in the evening Rett was glad Angel had prevailed when it became clear that more than half of the twenty or so women Bunny had invited weren't

going to show. When they settled on sleeping bags arranged around the room there were eight of them. Bunny had already sampled heavily from her home¬made rum punch, and Lisa, Mary and Kate were also in various stages of intoxication. Natalie was so butch in her Army-issue pajamas that Rett's gaydar would not stop going ka-zing.

After a walk around the acreage to see the small farm and enjoy the sunset, Angel and Rett had changed into their PJs and sat down with the others. Bunny had reached the stage where everything was funny. The only one who didn't seem to want to get in the mood was Cinny. A week ago the sight of Cinny in her orange silk pajamas would have put Rett in a fever, but now she found Angel in her niece's Batgirl nightie far more alluring.

"This is really good." Rett sipped from her punch again. "I don't usually go for hard liquor, but this is way excellent. "

"Almost better than sex," Kate said. "It is better than the sex I got in the last year of my marriage."

"Oh, don't start ragging on men again," Lisa said. "Rett and Angel will probably join in and then I won't be able to resist."

"I've got no reason to rag on men," Angel said. "I've never had a bad relationship with one."

"You always were the smart one," Kate said. "I wasted eighteen years trying to make Alan happy, and he trades me in for a bimbo with abs of steel."

"You have to tell me, Angel." Mary rolled onto her stomach and waved her feet in the air behind her like a child. "Is life without men really satisfying?"

Rett rolled her eyes. Typical preconceived notions.

"There are lots of men in my life," Angel pro¬tested.

Kate took another sip of her rum punch. "She means sex without men."

"Works for me," Angel said nonchalantly. "What about you, Rett?"

"What can I say? I can't speak to what I've never had, and that's a man in my bed, but I have no complaints and have heard none." She couldn't help the dopey grin she gave Angel.

Bunny choked on her drink. "Wait a minute — you two? No way!"

"Oh, man," Mary groaned. "You've probably had, like, oral sex more often in the last four days than I've had in the last four years."

Rett enjoyed the blush that ran up Angel's neck. "I'm not admitting to anything."

Mary nudged Lisa. "Just think about it — oral sex isn't just a birthday present. It's required. Like, every time."

Lisa giggled. "It's your problem if Mark is de¬linquent in that area. Lee may have been an asshole, but he was not reluctant when it came to that."

"I've got no complaints," Bunny said adamantly.

"Are we going to talk about sex all night?" Cinny was still sitting up, her drink untouched. She was pale.

"What's wrong with that?"

"There's more to life than sex," Natalie pro¬nounced. "You go without for years at a time because if you don't you'll lose your career and pension and you'd be surprised how unimportant sex can be."

Rett thought that was a major hint from Natalie.