"Hey, Sus," Sam pointed to the food laid out on Susie's desk, "is this for us?"

Susie nodded. "A going away feast."

"Great. I'm starved." Sam picked up a small plate and loaded veggies, crackers, and dip on her plate. She grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler on the floor.

"Hey, guys," Susie gestured for the others to help themselves to the snacks, "did we win the game?"

"Oh, yeah," Lisa said loading her plate with broccoli florets. "They spanked Mohawk."

"We," Sam turned her gray-blue eyes on Lisa.

"What?" Lisa turned to look at Sam, her long black braid swinging behind her.

"Just because you can't play yet, doesn't mean you're not part of the team. You should say, 'We spanked Mohawk.'" Sam crossed her eyes at Lisa.

Christy laughed. "Hey, I don't know what you girls do in your spare time, but I don't want to hear about who spanked who."

Both Sam and Lisa stuck their tongues out at Christy.

"Or what you do with your tongues, either." Christy squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears. "La la la la la la la la la," she singsonged.

"Callate!" Susie pulled Christy's hands off her ears causing Christy to stop la-la-la-ing. "You know we queer girls don't kiss and tell, especially not to straight girls like you and Jeri."

"Yeah," Sam agreed and pulled her girlfriend Lisa into a tight embrace. "We kiss, but don't tell."

Everybody laughed and then settled into filling up their plates with veggies and dip and crackers and her grandmother's mantecaditos cookies, the little butter cookies that Christy loved. Susie's mother hadn't let her drive to Price Chopper to get real party food, so Susie had to raid the kitchen for anything she could find. Getting permission to throw a party for Christy had been a major feat in itself and Susie knew not to push her mother further.

They sat in a circle on the rug on the floor, and Susie was glad she had included her own room in her cleaning assignment the day before. Her friends talked about their slaughter win over the Mohawk All-Stars.

"All-Stars," Christy spat. "Yeah, right."

"Hey," Lisa chimed in, "they have potential."

Christy looked at Sam. "Is she always this optimistic?"

Sam nodded and reached for Lisa's hand.

Susie smiled at the obvious affection between them. "Hey, Lisa, when can you play?"

Lisa held up the hand she'd broken during the spring school season. "I went to the doctor yesterday, and she said I can start throwing next Tuesday. Good news, eh?"

A cheer went up in the room. Marlee's eyes widened, and she sported one of the biggest grins Susie had ever seen.

"I'm getting my catcher back." Marlee looked skyward. "Thank you, Lord."

"It's good to know you missed me." Lisa grinned back at her pitcher.

"More than you know," Marlee said.

"Hey," Lisa's tone turned serious, "I meant to ask you. Who was that girl you were talking to after the game tonight?"

"Oh, that's Bree."

Susie almost choked. Marlee hadn't hesitated. Marlee hadn't asked, "What girl?" or said, "She's nobody." No, Marlee answered right away as if Bree were some kind of old friend, as if they'd known each other for years. Susie tried not to let the alarm bells sounding off in her head get any louder.

Susie cleared her throat and asked, "How'd you pitch today?"

"Oh, good," Marlee began, but Susie half-listened to the words, because in the back of her mind, she wondered if the threat was real, or if she had just imagined Marlee's ease with Bree.

Christy laughed big bringing Susie back to earth. "And here's the ironic thing," Christy said. "You guys were ahead by eight runs, right? So Coach Gellar puts Mary in to pitch. Mary's obviously Marlee's back up this summer, but she'll be the starting pitcher for East Valley next spring."

Sam groaned. "I think we're gonna be in trouble next spring."

"We totally are." Susie looked at Sam. "Does Coach Gellar hate me?"

"Yes." Sam didn't hesitate.

Susie waited for Sam to say she was kidding, but she didn't. "What do you mean?"

Sam exchanged a glance with Marlee, one that Susie couldn't read. "She, uh--oh, you know how she is. She made some snide comment today about being responsible for your actions on and off the field, and how some people didn't do that."

"Meaning me." Susie's heart sank.

Sam and Marlee nodded.

Christy patted Susie on the knee. "Looks like you're Coach Gellar's new target, buddy. Sorry to hand that off to you, but I'll gladly give up my crown."

Susie groaned and fell forward into her circle of friends. "Aay, my life sucks."

"Nah." Sam pulled Susie back up to a sitting position. "You have us."

The others agreed and Susie nodded. "Yeah, you're right. If I can only break out of my cell, then I can hang with you guys."

"Next time I'll bring you a cake with a file baked in it," Marlee offered.

"Sounds good, but make it flan, and you've got a deal."

They talked briefly about the circumstances surrounding Susie's unceremonious firing from the Johnson's and her subsequent prison term, but after a while Susie needed to change the topic. She sat up tall and raised her bottle of water. "Hey, chicas, I want to make a toast." The others raised their respective bottles of water as well. "Christy," she looked at her best friend, "we're gonna miss you when you go to the sunshine state of California, although technically Arizona gets more sunshine than either California or Florida which is called the Sunshine State--"

Sam poked Susie. "Okay, science geek, we get the picture. Get on with it."

Susie playfully scowled at her friend at the interruption, but continued. "We're all going to be thinking of you this winter when we're freezing our asses off here, and you're tra-la-la-ing around the beach with your blond boy-toy."

Christy snorted. "I wish!"

Jeri grabbed Christy's arm. "Take me with you."

Susie raised her water bottle higher. "To Christy."

"To Christy." Everyone held their water bottles up and then tapped them together.

Many toasts and good luck wishes were shared, but all too soon, it was time for Susie's friends to go.

"Don't go," Susie pleaded. "Aay, visiting days in this prison are so freakin' short." She stomped her feet in protest as any mature seventeen-year-old would do.

Lisa hugged her first and then Sam. Sam said she'd stop by the next day to keep her company during her prison work program.

"You're a true friend," Susie whispered and gave Sam another hug.

Jeri gave her a hug next. "I wish you lived closer. My Dad would probably hire you for the restaurant."

"That's okay. Marlee would distract me, anyway."

Marlee hit Susie gently on the arm in protest. "Would not."

"Not intentionally, mi vida, not intentionally." She flashed Marlee a suggestive look.

"Oh, get a room." Christy groaned and then laughed. She grabbed Susie in a big hug. "Keep in touch, okay? You're probably the only thing I'm going to miss around here." Christy pulled out of the hug and reached into her shirt pocket. "Here." It was a picture of Susie and Marlee--the one she'd taken at the ball field the weekend before.

Susie hugged Christy again quickly. "Very cool. Thanks."

"I know how much you mean to each other." Christy spun around and wiped at her eyes. "C'mon, gang, let's wait downstairs and give the lovebirds some private time." She barreled out the door. Sam, Lisa, and Jeri followed.

As soon as the last one was out the door, Marlee flew into Susie's arms. A look of frustration overtook her face. "I wanted tonight to be so much more."

"I know what you mean, Jelly Bean."

Marlee grinned. "You knew what I meant, Jelly Bent?"

Susie nodded and let herself get lost in Marlee's soul-swallowing blue eyes.

Marlee whispered, "I want to continue what we started on Saturday."

Susie raised an eyebrow. "Oh," she said with understanding. "Me, too." She leaned her face down to within an inch of Marlee's. They breathed each other's breath for a moment, enjoying the closeness, until Susie couldn't stand it anymore. She closed the gap and pressed her lips against Marlee's. Marlee groaned and pulled Susie tighter. She rubbed Susie's back, but then let her hands reach lower.

"Ooh," Susie moaned wishing Marlee didn't have to go.

"Susana!" her mother's voice called from the driveway, piercing their quiet moment.

"Shit!" Susie recoiled from Marlee's arms as if scalded.

"Get down here." Her mother's voice was designed to get immediate results.

Susie rushed to the open window. "Okay, Mami." She spun back around to face Marlee. "She knows. Dios mio, she knows you're up here alone with me."

"How does she know?"

"She knows everything." Susie ran to her closet and grabbed the Clarksonville softball sweatshirt that Marlee had given her a while back. "Here, take this and run out with it. Pretend you forgot it up here or something and had to run back up for it." She thrust the sweatshirt into Marlee's hands.

"It's, like, ninety degrees outside. She's not gonna believe I wore a sweatshirt."

"I know, but, uh, you're a pitcher, and pitchers wear sweatshirts sometimes." Susie nudged Marlee toward the door. "It doesn't matter. Just go, go, go!"

Susie paced the floor of her room listening to Marlee run down the steps. She spied out the window and grinned when Marlee said, "I got it." She held up the blue sweatshirt to her teammates assembled on the driveway. "I can't believe I almost forgot it."

"Yeah," Jeri said obviously confused, but apparently understanding that she needed to play along. "Good thing you remembered it."

Susie was about to race down the stairs, but realized she was still holding the picture Christy gave her. She carefully placed it in her top desk drawer and then raced down the stairs at full steam. She couldn't keep her mother waiting any longer. Once she got to the bottom, she waved at her friends pulling away in their cars. Sam and Lisa in Sam's Sebring convertible. Christy in her brand new Jeep Wrangler, a graduation gift from her parents, or, as Christy called it, a going away present from her parents. Marlee and Jeri were last in Jeri's convertible Mustang, also a graduation present.

Susie's mother stood in the driveway with her arms crossed. It looked as if she wanted to scold Susie for something, but stayed silent until the cars were well out of sight. She turned to Susie and said, "Come inside. I have your list for tomorrow." She headed toward the house.

Susie hung her head and slinked behind her mother like a scolded puppy dog.

Chapter Eight.

A Miracle SUSIE CLIMBED THE ladder. "Aay!" She pounded the top rung. "Sam, I forgot the damn sponge."

"I'll get it." Sam pulled the sponge out of the bucket and wrung it out. "I'm tired, too. You must be exhausted."

Susie nodded. "I gotta keep going, though. I have to get this done before Isabella gets home."

Sam nodded. She tossed the sponge toward Susie who caught it deftly with one hand. "What are we on? Our fifteenth window?"

"Yup, something like that." Susie soaped up the second story window, one of the windows in her parents' bedroom. "And get this. I don't even get to rest when we're done, either. I have to drive mi abuela to her friend's house to play cards."

"Wow. No rest for the weary."

"Nope." Susie washed the grime off the window and then tossed the sponge back down to Sam. She then said, "Sprayer," like a surgeon asking for a scalpel. Sam snaked the hose up the ladder, and Susie sprayed the soap off the windows. "Look out below," she called before dropping the sprayer back to Sam. Susie snatched the squeegee from her back pocket and finished off the window. She wiped up a few residual drips with a dry rag. "Screen," she called.

"Okay, hang on." Sam scurried to the garage where the screens lay drying in the late July sun. She grabbed one, ran back over to the ladder, and climbed up a few rungs.

Susie climbed down one rung, grateful she didn't have to climb down all the way. She took the screen and then pressed it securely in place. She trudged down the ladder and moved it to the next dirty window. With a sigh she decided that she just couldn't bring herself to do one more window until she rested. "I call a break." She undid her pony tail and raked her fingers through her hair. "Ugh," she flopped to the ground. "I hate this."

Sam handed Susie a cold bottle of water from the cooler. "Me, too." She sat down next to her and took a swig from her own water bottle.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"No, I mean thanks for wasting a whole freakin' day helping me."