"What time did you come back to bed?" Rebecca whispered into the side of my neck.

"Late. Too late." I closed my eyes as I felt a hand snake its way up to cup my breast through the cotton of my T-shirt. My body responded immediately, already electrified from the memory.

"Mmm. If only I didn't have to go to school today." she whispered.

"Oh, the things I could do to you."

Rebecca chuckled into my ear.

"You are cruel, Emily."

"You have no idea." I turned in the circle of her arms and looked deep into my lover's eyes. I saw so much love and compa.s.sion there. How had I gotten so lucky?

"When are we going to fly to Colorado?" she asked as she gently kissed my swollen, red eyes one at a time.

"We?" I asked breathlessly, my hands slowly caressing her back and rear.

"Mmhm. I'm going with you to the funeral." Rebecca's lips traveled to my ear, taking the lobe between her teeth. I closed my eyes.

"Uh, what, what about school?" My hand reached around the front of her robe and slowly pulled the belt loose, letting the material slide through my fingers.

"I'll take a few days personal leave. It's not a problem."

"Oh, Becky, honey. I don't want you to get in trouble. It's not that important." My hands swept the ends of the terry-cloth aside and I stared hungrily at her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s just before my hands found their softness. Rebecca groaned as her lips found mine.

"It's important to you, baby." Rebecca gently pushed me back toward the counter top and motioned that I should hop up onto it. I did as instructed.

"I can go alone, ooooh." I breathed as her hand slid between my thighs, her fingers finding my underwear that was already soaked. She gently slipped a finger around the edge, and slid into me. I threw my head back, my bottom lip caught between my teeth. Rebecca ran her tongue along my exposed throat.

"You'll never have to go alone, Emily." she whispered as she began to slowly pump in and out of me when she added a second finger. Her lips found mine again. "You want me to go, don't you?" she breathed into my mouth.

"Oh, yes...yes, I want...want you to go." I closed my eyes tightly. She increased her rhythm as her tongue found my rock hard nipple through my shirt. I groaned, opening my legs wider for her. Rebecca moved the silky material of my underwear aside a bit more as she reached her thumb in, and began to rub me with slow, measured movements.

"Oh, G.o.d." I moaned. I began to rock my hips as I felt myself getting close. Rebecca increased her thrusts as my moans came faster and closer together. I grabbed the handles on the cabinet doors behind me, and clenched my eyes shut, my mouth open as I felt myself slip over the edge. Rebecca quickened her movements as her fingers coaxed the o.r.g.a.s.m out of me, one stroke at a time. I cried out her name as my body collapsed against the cabinets, my breathing heavy. Rebecca removed her hand and leaned into me, kissing me softly. I held her for a moment until everything slowed down to normal speed. Finally I pulled back from her. With a wicked gleam in her Irish eyes she put her index finger that was covered with my wetness to her lips, and sucked gently. I stared, transfixed. After a moment she pulled the finger free.

"Now I can taste you all day."

Rebecca hustled out the door with a quick peck on my lips, our counter top interlude making her run slightly late for work. I closed the door behind her, and leaned against it thinking of all I had to do today to get us ready to go.

I laid my big beach towel with a faded Popeye winking at me on it, out on the front lawn, and carefully arranged myself on it, one leg bent up, the other straight out in front of me. I leaned back on my elbows, my face raised toward the rays of the uncharacteristically hot early May sun. I pushed my sungla.s.ses up slightly smudging the lens with my finger, leaving a smear of Coppertone across it..

"d.a.m.n." I whispered to myself. I closed my eyes, and waited for the sun to do its job.

"You know that's really bad for you." I heard a voice say, a slight dry tone to it. I opened my eyes and squinted against the silhouette of Beth standing over me. I didn't need to see her face to imagine the lop-sided grin that was surely there.

"So. Darla said that all the girls are doing this."

"What do you care what the other girls are doing?" Beth plopped down on the gra.s.s next to me, her long, shorts-clad legs bent at the knees, her hands dangling over the tops. She adjusted her Denver Broncos cap on her head, lifting the bill slightly so I could see her face up to the bottom of her eyes, the rest cloaked by shadows.

"I don't know why on earth you bother wearing that cap. The Broncos suck." I said wrinkling my nose.

"You just wait, Em. One of these days we are going to get the greatest quarterback ever to play the game, and then you'll laugh. Craig Morten is okay for now, but you just wait. You mark my words. Can you say Superbowl Champions?" She adjusted the cap again.

"Whatever. So why are you so late? I thought you were going to come over earlier this morning?" I grabbed the small brown bottle of suntan oil from the towel under my thighs, and squirted some into the palm of my hand. "Want some?" I extended the bottle to Beth.

"No. I don't intend to sit out here and bake, thank you."

"Hey, just 'cause some of us aren't naturally tan like some people I know." I glared up at her. Besides, a tan looks really good." I argued as I began to spread a second layer of the coconut smelling oil over my very white legs.

"Yeah, in June or July. Em, this is the first hot day we've had yet this year." I chose to ignore the obvious fact, and returned to my first question.

"So where were you?"

"I was talking to my dad." she said trying to hide the grin that slowly spread across her face.

"He called? Oh, Beth that's great! I know he hasn't called since Christmas." I smiled, truly happy for Beth. I knew that her basic nonchalance was a complete and total act. She was always beyond thrilled when Jim called or wrote. "What did he have to say? How's his new wife? What's her name?"

"Lynn." I nodded, and began to spread the sticky oil on my other leg before starting on my arms. "They're fine. Happy. Guess what, Em?" the level of excitement in her voice quadrupled in those last three words. I looked at her, sensing that she would need my full attention for what she had to say. "I'm going away for the summer!"

"What!" she had my attention, all right.

"Yeah. My dad is going to send me to a camp for talented kids. I'm going to do theater! Isn't it radical!" Beth glowed. I felt my heart sink. What would I do for an entire summer without my Beth? I felt my heartbreak turn into anger.

"What, so you're dad has nothing to do with you for like almost two years, and now you're going to drop everything and run to his beck and call?" Beth's face dropped. She looked at me for almost a full minute before she spoke, her voice very low.

"I am not running to his beck and call. I love my father, and would do anything to see him and be with him if even for just a little while. And besides, this isn't about him. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do different kinds of theater. Gain some experience. Some of the best instructors in the country are going to be there." She stood and wiped her hands over the rear of her shorts to knock any loose gra.s.s off. "Besides, someone like you wouldn't understand. You're too busy trying to look like Darla Newman." Beth stepped over my beach towel and walked across our yard to her own before disappearing through the torn screen door.

"You'll miss my birthday, and the fourth." I said to myself, feeling beyond miserable. My stomach felt strange, my chest felt,... empty.

I slowly lowered the lid of the suitcase, the solid click of the snaps bringing me back to the present. I wiped a finger under my eye, and collected the wetness with the tip. I had hurt Beth so bad that day in late spring. I should have been thrilled for her. It was a chance of a lifetime. She knew it. I refused to care.

I opened the screen door, careful not to let it slam behind me, or chance being skinned alive by my mother. Hopping off the step of the porch, trying to gather my courage, I headed a few feet toward the Sayers' yard when I stopped dead in my tracks.

"You're worthless! You'd rather run to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d who left you! You got that, Beth? He abandoned you sayin' you ain't even his kid anyway!" Nora Sayers screamed, her shrill, drunken voice carrying on the late evening breeze.

"That's not true!" Beth screamed back, her voice just this side of all out tears.

"No? Ask 'im! Ask that rotten son of a b.i.t.c.h if you don't believe me. Him and that s.l.u.t wife of his."

"You're just jealous because you can't find anyone who will put up with you because you're a drunk!"

SLAP!!!.

I jumped as I heard the sharp sound of skin hitting skin.

"What you sayin' to me, you little b.i.t.c.h! Huh? Talkin' to your mother that way? Huh?"

SLAP!!!.

"Get off me, woman!"

I dared to take a couple steps forward, my eyes welling with unshed tears that I had to be so careful that Beth not see. She would be mortified if she knew I had heard everything, and had felt any pity for her.

"You're worthless, Elizabeth! You got that? Rotten and worthless!"

"f.u.c.k you, mother!" I jumped again as the front door to the house was shoved open so hard that one of the hinges protested just before it snapped from the wood. Beth flew out at a quick walk about to break into an all out run when her head snapped in my direction. I could see the wet trails that led from both pain-filled eyes, as well as a wet trail that led from the corner of her mouth. The moonlight caught in her eyes for just a moment as our eyes locked, then she turned away from me, and started to walk at a brisk pace down the street.

I wasn't sure what to do, but then I reasoned that she didn't start to run as she had originally planned because deep down she wanted me to follow. She needed me to be there for her right now as I had refused to be earlier in the afternoon.

My heart was pounding dangerously fast as I jogged down the driveway past my dad's old Dodge, and out into the street. I could see Beth up ahead, her dark figure illuminated every few yards by the street lamps that lined the way. I could barely hear her sobs above my own thundering heartbeat. Beth turned down the narrow path that would lead toward the Toilet Bowl, completely shrouded in darkness now. We had traveled this path so many times that we both could have done it with our eyes closed. I followed, increasing my speed so I could catch up to her incase she decided to duck off into the trees.

"Beth?" I called out when I was only ten feet behind her. She didn't answer, just kept walking, her hand snapping a small branch from a tree she pa.s.sed, and began to strip it of its new leaves as she walked. "Beth? Please stop. Please."

I closed the distance between us and grabbed her by the shoulder. She turned cold eyes on me, her tears still silently falling down her cheeks. She said nothing.

"I'm so sorry. I heard all those terrible things she said to you." I couldn't control my own voice that began to choke on my words, the pain and guilt from earlier mixing with the pain that I saw on my best friend's face now. "It's not true, Beth. It's not." Tears began to tumble out from my eyes as quickly as my words fell from my mouth. "What she said to you. You're so beautiful, so talented, and you're loved, Beth. You're wanted. You must know that? She doesn't know what she's saying."

A guttural sob ripped from Beth's throat, and she fell into my arms. I held her to me, absorbing the shocks of her quaking body. I felt her knees give, and she began to fall to the ground. I stayed with her, never losing contact as we slowly hit the dirt path. Her tears came in earnest now, our sobs breaking the silence of the hot, late spring night. I held her to me as if letting her go meant letting a part of myself go. I cried for her and for me, realizing that I had thrown her father in her face earlier just as her mother had done a few minutes before.

"I'm sorry, Beth. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I was being selfish." Beth took a deep breath as she tried to get herself under control. She took in several more breaths, never leaving my embrace.

"It's okay, Em." she finally said, her voice thick with emotion still needing to be shed. "It's not your fault."

"Yes, it is. I should have been there for you today. You were so excited. I'm sorry." In response she grabbed my arms that encircled her side a little tighter.

We sat on the path for what must have been close to an hour, both of us lost in our separate memories of what had just happened. I felt numb, impotent to do anything.

"Let's go sit by the Bowl." Beth said, her voice startling the stillness of the warm night.

As one we stood. I gave her one last tight squeeze before I let go of her. I looked at her face, and gently ran my thumb over the small trail of blood that had seeped out of the corner of her mouth. Silently we walked toward the small pond.

It was not lost on me that this was the first physical contact between us since New Year's. I wondered if she was thinking about that, too. Probably not. Beth had too much else on her mind to worry about than something that had happened five months ago. We never discussed the significance of that night; if there was any. We had let it go on by as if it had never happened, both claiming to have been too drunk to remember much of that night. But I remembered, no matter how much I tried to forget.

We sat at the pond's edge side by side, our hands in our lap for fear that they might wonder over to the other's body in some way.

"When do you leave?" I asked, my voice hushed as if the very night was listening.

"Mid-June." She turned to look at me. "I'm going to miss your birthday, Em. I'm sorry. I'll leave about two weeks before." I sighed deeply. Then smiled.

"I know. That is one of the reasons I was upset when you told me." I looked into the water, black as tar without the sun's rays to make it glow. "Pretty bad, huh?"

"No. I nearly said no because of that." My head shot up.

"What? Beth, no. You need to do this. You're so good at acting, and this is only going to make you better!"

"But I'm always there for your birthday. I know how much it means to you, to me." she exclaimed, pained eyes pleading with me.

"I'll survive." I nudged her shoulder with mine. "Besides, we always have yours in October." She smiled at me.

"Will you write me?"

"Of course I will. You don't need to ask that, Beth."

I walked to my home office and plopped down into the comfortable high-backed chair behind the antique desk that Rebecca had given me last Christmas. I leaned my head back and to the side so I could look out the window to my right. Our neighbor, Alison Briggs was raking the leaves up between our two town houses. She and her husband Howard had lived here for seven years, ever since Howard had retired from the Air Force. They were very nice to Rebecca and I, but I always felt that they were not completely comfortable with our relationship, especially Howard. They were just a few years older than my parents. Rebecca thought I was being too sensitive.

I turned my attention back to my office. This room had been one of the reasons why I had wanted this place. My home office was bigger than my office at work. The top half of the walls were painted white, the bottom half rich cherry wood paneling with the same for the woodwork around the door, windows and ceiling. Bookshelves were built into the walls on two sides, the wall behind my desk, and across from it. I had the shelves filled with every type of book from V.C. Andrews, to Stephen King to Nicole Conn to Homer. Behind me were my prized set of leather-bound law books that had been given to me my first year of college.

I looked at the computer before me, it's dark screen mirroring my image in its glossy finish, the vibrant, random geometric lines dancing in strange patterns.. With a sigh I moved the mouse slightly, the screen coming to life. I logged onto the Internet, and found the phone directory, dialed up the airlines. I was about to click on United when the phone rang. I grabbed the cordless that I had brought in with me and clicked it on.

"h.e.l.lo?" I said into the handset that I had balanced on my shoulder as I continued to gauge prices.

"Emmy, honey?"

"Hi, mom. What's up?" My mother sighed on the other end of the line. I closed my eyes as I steadied myself for what I knew would follow.

"You heard about your friend, Beth, honey?"

"Yes. Billy called me at work yesterday and told me."

"He shouldn't have done that! Call you at work to tell you such terrible news. What was he thinking?" I was surprised at how emotional my mother sounded. I decided to go easy on her.

"It was okay, Mom. I was just glad he told me as soon as he did." I left United and clicked on American.

"So you're coming home?" she asked, her voice quiet, yet filled with hope.

"Yes. Rebecca and I are going." I took out a legal pad and a pen and began to jot down the prices of tickets to DIA in Denver.

"Oh, I'm so glad, honey. I wasn't sure if Rebecca would be able to get the time off, or not. That is so wonderful of her to do that, don't you think? She's such a nice girl." I could hear the smile in my mom's voice. She and Rebecca got along just like old friends, much to my initial relief.

"Well, mom, what did you expect? She is my partner, and it would be no different than if dad were to take some time off."

"The difference, honey, is that your father would not have bothered." We both chuckled at the truth in that statement.

"Okay, mom. So get to the point. What's up?" I asked, beginning to get impatient. My mother was not one to call just to chat. She usually had a purpose.

"Well, honey. I, I just wanted to say that I am so sorry. I know how much Beth meant to you.... at one time. I think that maybe your father and I over reacted a bit when you two were girls. Maybe we weren't being fair. You know last year she came back here, and she actually had lunch with me one day? I made her peanut-b.u.t.ter and jelly with the thin sliced bread-"

"Cut in half diagonally?" I asked, not able to keep the grin off my face.

"Of course! Just what kind of hostess do you think I am, anyway?" I chuckled.

"Why on earth did you make her PBJ?"

"Thai's what she asked for." my mother said simply. I dropped my pen and rested my elbow on the arm of my chair, covered my eyes with my fingers. I sighed heavily. "Are you okay, Emmy?" my mother asked, her voice just above a whisper.

"Yeah, yes. I'm okay. You know she came up here right after she had left Pueblo. She told me she saw Monica, but never mentioned you."

"She probably didn't want to upset you, sweetie."