If she hadn't wanted to talk about it, she wouldn't have brought it up. "Don't ask, don't tell is a real bitch, isn't it?"

"Damn square. I spent a lot of time on the dance floor burning off excess energy." Natalie chuckled. "I'm bugging, you know. I thought I was the only lesbian to ever graduate from Woton High, and here are the three of us."

"That's a trip," Bunny said. "Something in the water, maybe?"

"As far as I know, there's been no research study into water and homosexuality." Angel was serious. That lightning quick change from laughter to reason fascinated Rett.

Bunny hiccuped. "Just kidding. Who wants some bagel bites?"

"If I don't eat something I'll get blotto," Rett said. "I don't like getting blotto."

Bunny turned her head sharply. "What the hell is that?"

Rett heard a long, persistent scratching noise. There was a tap at the window across the room, then the front door rattled. Mary squeaked in alarm.

"It's the boys!" Bunny sat up. "Tom and some friends. How high school are they?"

Natalie scrambled across the floor to turn off the lights. "I say we free our territory of desperadoes."

Lisa was laughing so hard she almost couldn't stand up. "Who do they think they're dealing with?"

Bunny stumbled to her feet. "We are not the girls we used to be." She came back from the garage with two AK-47-style water rifles. "I didn't want Tom to buy these for the boys, so I'll be glad to get even."

Natalie grabbed one. "Let's get ready to rumble!"

Mary took charge of the other water gun. "I'm in the mood for this."

After a few questions to Bunny, Natalie planned a course of attack. Two long hoses at the back of the house would provide the containment barrage, preventing the desperadoes from moving beyond the front yard. The water guns would attack from above while water brigades using buckets would provide refills for the air attack and take care of any downed enemy.

Natalie slipped out the back door and used the farm tractor parked behind the house to reach the rain gutter. She swung herself up with ease, then helped Mary and Lisa onto the roof. Bunny and Kate headed for the hose bibs at opposite ends of the house while Angel and Rett filled buckets in the mud sink to hand up to Cinny on the tractor, who handed them up to Lisa.

Rett heard the scuffling of feet on the roof, then from around the corner of the house the approach of whispering voices. There was a hiss as the hoses slowly filled.

All was quiet for just a moment. Even the crickets stopped chirping. Then the night was split with a Xena-like yell and very close by a man exclaimed, "What in hell was that?"

Bunny let out her own banshee yell and opened her spray nozzle full force while Natalie shouted positions and instructions from above. Rett kept passing buckets up to Cinny, who got drenched when one slipped out of Lisa's hands.

Lisa screamed with laughter and gasped out, "I'm gonna pee my pants," while Cinny swore and turned the next bucket upside down on Rett, who in turn

dumped a bucket on Angel. Angel returned the favor, and then they all fell back as heavy footsteps pounded across the backyard toward them. Angel grabbed the next full bucket and flung the contents in that direc¬tion.

Curses faded into the night.

"The enemy is in retreat," Natalie hollered from the rooftop. She let out another Xena yell.

Mary screamed, "Loooooosers!"

Natalie stayed on the roof while Bunny went to turn on the front-yard lights. There was movement at the end of the driveway behind Rett's rental car.

Rett found her voice. " 'These boots were made for walkin'!' " The other women chimed in and they repeated the verse several times before something that looked like a white flag was waved over the rental car trunk.

"What are the terms of your surrender?" Natalie called out.

Tom's voice floated back. "I just want some dry clothes, Bunny."

"You wuss," another voice judged.

"I want some dry clothes," Tom repeated. "You'll have some when we get back to your place, but they won't fit me."

"Is that you, Mark?" Mary brandished her hose.

"We're going now, honey."

"Bunny? Sweetie? Can I at least have dry pants?" Tom risked raising his head above the car.

"You better git!" Natalie punctuated her orders with another squirt from her water gun. There was a satisfying curse in response and the desperadoes quit the field of battle.

They dragged the hoses and buckets back to the

rear of the house while Natalie shinnied off the roof and helped Kate and Lisa down. Rett went back to the front of the house to see if there were any more buckets. Finding none, she went around the side for a last look there.

"Rett."

She turned in the direction of the voice.

Cinny stood in the shadows. "I need to talk for just a minute. Alone."

"Okay." Rett joined her in the shadows.

"You and Angel — pretty serious, huh?"

"Yes," Rett said honestly. "Very serious."

"You're in love with her, aren't you?"

"Yes, very much so."

"That makes me the most pathetic person on this planet."

"Cinny, don't. You're not pathetic. You're just trying to figure it out as you go along, just like the rest of us."

"I don't want your pity." Cinny put her arms around Rett and hugged her tightly. Rett began to wonder how she could extricate herself without further hurting Cinny's feelings.

"I made my choices and I'll live with them." She let go and stepped back.

"Do what makes you happy, Cinny. That's what matters."

"What makes me happy ... If only I knew what that was when I could actually grab hold of it."

"Oh, Cinny." Rett didn't know what to say.

"I know. I blew it." She turned on her heel and went into the house, leaving Rett to fight demon guilt — there should have been something she could have said to help Cinny through this. Not every

lesbian sprung from Martina's forehead fully developed and clad in boxers.

She followed Cinny's path to the back door and kicked off her soaked shoes into the pile with the others. Her pajamas were plastered to her. She'd have to sleep in the T-shirt she'd brought for the morning.

Mary was pulling what looked like one of Ted's T-shirts over her head when Rett went into the kitchen. "Bunny will find you something." She gave Rett a puzzled look. "You're in pretty bad shape."

Rett went on to the living room where everyone had changed but Cinny. Bunny stopped in the middle of handing Cinny a T-shirt to stare at Rett.

"What happened to you?"

Rett looked down. The fabric over her breasts was highlighted with brilliant orange dye — the very same color as Cinny's silk pajamas. The stain continued less intensely to just below her crotch, where Cinny's short pajamas ended. She could feel everyone's gaze going back and forth between them, matching up the body parts that had obviously been in prolonged contact.

Think fast, Rett. As naturally as she could, she said, "Geez, Cinny, it never pays to get silk wet, does it? It must have happened when I helped you down from the tractor."

Kate was the one who didn't want to leave it alone. She looked Rett up and down from her seat on the floor atop her designated sleeping bag. "Uh-huh. That was some assistance."

"Drop it, Kate," Angel said. She did not meet Rett's gaze. "Nobody here owes anyone explanations about anything."

"There's nothing to explain," Rett said. Angel was making it worse. Why wasn't Cinny helping out?

Cinny just stood there, ghostlike.

"Hey, after all that talk of sex, I can't blame Cinny for trying. I'd try it if I thought it would float my boat." Kate chewed on the end of her straw and she listed to one side before pulling herself upright again.

What bullshit, Rett thought. "Is that what you think? I'll hop into bed with any woman who says she's willing to give it a try?"

"Maybe you're your mother's daughter."

Rett exhaled slowly. "You've had way too much to drink, Kate." Why wouldn't Angel look at her?

"This isn't productive." Bunny tried to ease the tension. "We're all half drunk —"

"I haven't had more than a couple of swallows," Cinny said. "I'm not drunk."

"Then you knew exactly what you were doing, didn't you?"

"You can be such a bitch sometimes, Kate." Cinny stripped off her wet pajamas heedless of modesty and yanked Tom's T-shirt over her head. "Rett said some¬thing nice to me and I hugged her. There's nothing more to it than that."

Angel said with utter conviction, "Of course there wasn't."

Rett's world went right again.

"Must have been something very nice."

Mary appeared from the kitchen. "Will you just shut up, Kate?"

Cinny was shivering and Rett knew it wasn't cold. "She told me I should do what makes me happy. The first person in my whole life to think I could make a decision about what makes me happy."

"It's okay, Cinny." Bunny tried to get Cinny to sit down, but Cinny shrugged her off.

"Everybody knows what makes you happy," Kate said. She drained the rest of her glass. "New clothes, a Caddy that zigs, nice husband with money, lots of compliments about how you never seem to get any older." She hiccuped and lost her battle with gravity. Sprawled across two sleeping bags she said, "I think you've been sacrificing virgins."

"I'd be happy if you'd shut up," Lisa said. "You've been a bitch since the divorce and Cinny's just the person handy."

This wasn't going to end well for anybody. A slumber party — it sounded so innocent. Rett tried to derail Kate with, "Is your divorce final?"