His face was rigid. "Don't say another word."

"You'd be the envy of all the coaches in the league."

"I'm warning you…"

"Will you still be this anxious to marry me if the Stars lose?"

A muscle jumped in his jaw. "What happens in that game on Sunday doesn't have anything to do with the two of us."

"But if you win, I'll never be sure of that, will I? The only way I'll know you're sincere is if you lose and you still want to marry me." Say you love me, Dan. Say you want to marry me because you love me-not because I excite you in bed or you want me to have your children or you covet my football team. Say you love me, and push all this ugliness away.

"I'm winning this football game."

"Then we don't have a chance," she whispered.

"What are you trying to say?"

She was bleeding inside and she wanted the pain to stop. Her throat had squeezed so tightly shut she could no longer speak.

He regarded her with a flat, cold stare. "I'm not throwing the game."

At first she didn't understand what he meant. But as she took in the bleak expression on his face, she felt sick inside.

His voice was hard and furious, and she remembered that he hid all his stronger emotions behind anger. "I've played hard all my life, but I've always played clean, no matter how much temptation I faced. I've been offered money. I've been offered drugs and women. But I don't throw games. Not for anybody. Not even for you."

"I didn't mean…"

His eyes flicked over her with contempt. Then he stalked out of the room.

She was only dimly aware of the passage of time as she sat on the edge of the bed with her hands clasped in her lap. She heard voices in the hallway when Molly took the twins home and then she heard her return a short time later. Pooh scratched at the door, but went away when she didn't open it. She sat in the room and tried to put the pieces of herself back together.

At ten o'clock, she heard water running in Molly's bathroom. She listlessly pulled off her own clothes, then slipped into her oldest bathrobe, finding comfort in its soft, worn fabric. There was a knock at her door.

"Are you all right, Phoebe?"

Under other circumstances, she would have been pleased that Molly had thought to inquire about her wel-fare, but now she merely felt empty. "I've got a headache. I'll see you tomorrow before you leave for school."

She wandered over to the window and pushed back the curtains to look down into the woods that ran behind the house. Tears clouded her eyes.

"Phoebe?"

She hadn't heard Molly come in, and she didn't want her here. Sooner or later she would have to tell her sister they were leaving Chicago, but she couldn't do it tonight. "The door was closed."

"I know. But-Are you sure you're all right." The light in the room went on.

She continued to face the window because she didn't want Molly to see that she'd been crying. She heard the soft padding of Pooh's paws on the carpet. "It's just a headache."

"You and Dan had a fight, didn't you?"

"Dan and I are always fighting."

"You tease each other, but you don't really fight."

"This wasn't teasing, Molly. This was the real thing."

There was a long pause. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know why you would be. You hate my guts, remember?" She knew it wasn't fair to take out her unhappiness on Molly, but she was past caring. Pooh nudged at her ankles, almost as if she were reprimanding her.

"I don't hate you, Phoebe."

Fresh tears clouded her eyes. "I need to be alone, okay?"

"You're crying."

"Just a temporary weakness. I'll get over it."

"Don't cry. Dan would feel bad if he knew he'd made you so sad."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"I think you're in love with him."

She swallowed hard as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'll get over that, too."

She felt a gentle hand on her arm. Her throat closed tight and something seemed to break apart inside her. Without quite knowing how it happened, she was in Molly's arms.

Molly patted her arm and rubbed her back. "Don't cry, Phoebe. Please, don't cry. It'll get better. Really, it will. Don't cry." Molly crooned to her just as she crooned to Pooh. Since she was several inches shorter than Phoebe, their position was awkward, but they held on to each other anyway.

Phoebe had no idea how long they stayed that way, but nothing on earth could have made her let her sister go. When she was finally cried out, Molly pulled away, only to return a few moments later with some tissues she'd fetched from the bathroom.

Phoebe sat down on the side of the bed and blew her nose. "It'll be better tomorrow. I'm just feeling sorry for myself."

The mattress sagged as Molly sat beside her. Several moments of silence ticked by. "Are you pregnant?"

Phoebe looked at her with startled eyes. "Why would you think that?"

"A girl in my ancient history class is pregnant. I know it can happen, even to older people who are supposed to know about birth control and everything. If you are, I'm sure Dan would want to marry you, but if he didn't-The two of us-" She spoke in a rush. "I'd help you take care of the baby. You wouldn't have to have an abortion, or give it away, or raise it by yourself or anything."

As Phoebe took in the intensity of her sister's expression, some of her numbness disappeared, and she gave a watery smile. "I'm not pregnant. But thanks. Thanks a lot."

"You're not going to start crying again, are you?"

Phoebe nodded and blew her nose. "I can't help it. That was the sweetest thing anybody's ever offered to do for me." She gave a small hiccup. "I love you, Mol. I really do."

"You do?"

"Yes." Phoebe wiped at her tears.

"Even though I've been a brat?"

Phoebe smiled weakly. "A real brat."

"Nobody's ever loved me before."

"Your mother did."

"Really?"

"She loved you a lot."

"I don't remember her. Bert said she was a bimbo."

Phoebe gave a choked laugh. "She was. So was my mother. Those were the only kind of women Bert married. He liked them blond, sexy, and not too smart. We got our brains from him, Mol, not from our mothers." She pulled at the tissue in her hands. "But your mother was one of the sweetest women I ever met, and she loved you so much. I ran away when you were just an infant, but I still remember how she'd hold you for hours, even when you were sleeping, just because she couldn't believe she had you."

"I wish I remembered her."

"She was a nice lady. She used to tell me stories about being a showgirl. So did Cooki, who was Bert's second wife. They were both sweethearts."

Molly was drinking in her every word. "Tell me about them."

She sniffed and dabbed her nose. "Well, Bert found all three of his wives in Las Vegas. None of them started out with anything except good looks, but they were exceptional women. Sometimes I think bimbo is just another word men made up so they could feel superior to women who are better at survival than they are." Pooh jumped up in her lap and she stroked her soft fur. "Instead of feeling sorry for themselves, all of Bert's wives worked hard to make something of their lives. They survived bad men, lousy working conditions, bouts of bronchitis from skimpy costumes, and they did it with a smile. Your mother wasn't bitter, not even when she figured out what kind of man Bert really was." She gave Molly an unsteady smile. "You've got sequins and fishnet tights in your heritage, Mol. Be proud of it."

Her sister, with her solemn face and splendid brain, was clearly entranced with the idea. As Phoebe watched her, a horrible thought flickered through her mind, driving out her own misery.

"You have photographs of her, don't you?"

"No. I asked Bert a couple of times, but he said he didn't have any."

"I can't believe I didn't think to ask you!" Getting up from the bed, Phoebe went into her closet and returned a few moments later with one of the cardboard boxes she'd had sent from New York. While Molly watched, she turned out the contents on the bed to search for what she wanted. "I know it's in here somewhere. Here it is." She drew out the gold dime-store frame with a photo of Lara sitting on a deck chair by the pool holding a newborn Molly in her lap. Lara's blond hair was tied back from her face with a floral scarf and she was smiling down at Molly, who was wrapped in a pink blanket.

She held her breath as she passed the photograph over to her sister.

Molly touched it gingerly, almost as if she were afraid it would dissolve in her hands, and stared down into her mother's face. An expression of awe came over her. "She's beautiful."

"I think you have her eyes," Phoebe said softly.

"I wish I'd known her."

"I wish you had, too."

"Can I have this?"

"Of course you can. I took it with me when I ran away. I used to pretend she was my mother."

Molly stared at her, and then a sob slipped through her lips. This time it was Phoebe who held her.

"I'm sorry I've been so awful. I was so jealous of you because Bert loved you and he hated me."

Phoebe patted her sister's hair. "He didn't hate you, and he didn't love me, either."

"Yes, he did. He was always comparing me to you." She slowly drew back so that Phoebe was looking into her tear-stained face. "He said that I gave him the creeps, and that I looked like I was going to faint every time he talked to me. He told me you always stood up to him."

Phoebe drew her close again. "I didn't stand up to him until I was a grown woman. Believe me, when I was your age, all I tried to do was stay out of his way."

"You're saying that to make me feel better."

"Bert was a bully, Molly. He was a man's man, in the worst way. He had no use for any woman who wasn't either taking care of him or sleeping with him. That left out the two of us."

"I hate him."

"Of course you do. But when you're older, you may learn to pity him instead." As she spoke, she felt something let go inside her and she realized that her father's rejection had finally lost its power over her. "Bert had two of the best daughters in the world, and he didn't even care. I find that sad, don't you?"

Molly seemed to be thinking it over. "Yes, I guess it is."

As the winter moonlight made a pool on the carpet, their fingers met somewhere in the region of Pooh's topknot.

They squeezed tight.

Chapter 23

The pep band struck up "Ain't She Sweet?" and the Star Girl cheerleaders formed a tunnel of blue and gold pom-poms for Phoebe to walk through. As she made her way onto the field for the AFC Championship game, she sparkled in a short velvet jacket encrusted with thousands of sky blue sequins, a matching metallic gold tank top and miniskirt, shimmery stockings, and square-heeled pumps with beaded gold stars twinkling on each toe. The crowd greeted her with wolf whistles and cheers while the Star Girls shook their pom-poms and wiggled their hips.

As she waved and blew kisses, she could feel the tension-charged atmosphere in the mood of the crowd and see it in the players' grim expressions as they huddled on the sideline. She avoided looking at Dan while she made her way to the end of the bench for her pregame rituals. Many of the players believed she brought them good luck, and she had been forced by necessity into a routine of thumping helmets, slapping shoulder pads, and slipping lucky pennies into shoes. Bobby Tom, however, refused to give up his good luck kiss.

"We're gonna do it today, Phoebe." He gave her a resounding smack and set her back down on the ground.

"I know you are. Good luck."

She watched as the Sabers joined the Stars on the field. Their starting quarterback had been reinjured in the last game, making the Stars a narrow favorite, but Ron had warned her that, even injured, the Sabers were a great ball club.

As the kickoff approached, she could no longer avoid looking at Dan. She saw the strained tendons in his neck as he spoke into the headset to the coaches' box and then said a few words to Jim Biederot, who stood at his side. Only when the players were in position for the kickoff did he turn in her direction. Their eyes locked, but his expression was blank, revealing nothing of his feelings. She fumbled for his gum in her jacket pocket as he came toward her.

It hadn't taken the fans long to grow familiar with the Stars' pregame rituals, and the crowd watched for the moment when the kicker would tee the ball and Phoebe would pass over the Wrigley's. As Dan drew up next to her, she tried to sound normal.

"I didn't forget your gum."