"Oh my god...." Maria stared in shock at the little plastic ... things decorating every available surface in the backroom of the Crashdown Café. "Are those what I think they are?"

Liz snickered, and Maria shifted her shocked stare to her best friend. "Did you just snicker?" she demanded. "Elizabeth Ann Evans, you have never *snickered* in your entire life. Oh my god. This is so ... so ... I need to sit down," Maria announced and sat down abruptly. "So. Those *are* what I think they are, aren’t they?"

"Yup," Liz laughed. "Aren’t they great?"

"Aren’t they great?!" Maria repeated, looking at the ... things again. There were little ones decorating the ends of drinking straws, and there were chocolate ones on a plate. "Oh my god," Maria moaned as the cheesy horror of it all hit home. "This is a joke, right?"

Liz shook her head, and Maria moaned in pain.

"Maria. Calm down," Isabel soothed. "This is what we’re supposed to do for a bachelorette party."

"We’re supposed to do something with those ... *things*?!"

"You’ve seen them before. You can say it."

Maria stared at both of her best friends. "Who are you people?" she asked in complete seriousness. "And what have you done with my best friends?"

Liz and Isabel just laughed.

Maria picked up one of the chocolate ... things, turning it over in her hands as if it could magically turn into something respectable, something that it obviously wasn’t, if she just looked at it long enough, then gave Liz a fierce look. "This is so incredibly cheesy. It’s so ... so ... so *not* you, Liz. And you, Isabel." Maria put the ... thing down and pointed an accusing finger at the taller girl. "I expected better from you. Especially since you haven’t had your brains scrambled by wedded bliss and motherhood hormones like that one." Maria waved a dismissive hand in Liz’s direction. Suddenly she stopped and peered at both Liz and Isabel. "This is a joke, right?" she asked hopefully.

"It’s not a joke, Maria," Liz said, laughing again. "This is our night of girl bonding."

"Girl bonding," Maria repeated.

"I told Michael that it was girl bondage," Liz said with a sly smile.

Maria moaned softly. "You didn’t."

Isabel nodded. "Liz’s verbal delivery was perfect. You should have seen Michael’s face."

"I bet. Did he have a heart attack?"

"He took it better than Max did. Max nearly dropped Claudia."

Maria closed her eyes. "Oh my god."

"And Alex turned beat-red," Isabel added. "Right up to his ears."

There was a long silence. Then a snort of laughter escaped Maria. Then she was doubled over, laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks. "You girls are *so* bad."

"That’s the point." Liz hooked her arm through Maria’s. "C’mon. Let’s go upstairs."

When they got to Liz’s bedroom, Maria stopped at the threshold in renewed shock. "You decorated the room with them too?! I can’t believe you guys. Liz ... you’re ... these are *so* *not* you, and Iz ... ah.... Those are--"

Isabel smiled. "I can’t believe Maria DeLuca is practically speechless. I didn’t think it was possible."

Liz touched Maria’s arm reassuringly. "It’s okay, Maria. Czechoslovakians have them too, if that’s what you’re worried about."

Both Maria and Isabel stared at her. Liz blushed a little.

Then Maria laughed. It was so obvious to her sometimes that Max’s occasionally weird sense of humor seemed to be rubbing off on Liz. She looped an arm around Liz’s shoulders and kept a straight-face as she told her: "I, um, know."

"Argh!" Isabel clapped her hands over her ears. "There are so many reasons that I don’t want to have this conversation. I can’t handle hearing this about either of my brothers. Some things are better understood than known, you know. Let’s switch topics," she commanded.

Maria and Liz exchanged a smile at the re-emergence of Princess Isabel.

Then Maria plunked herself on Liz’s old bed. "So," she began, "what else do you have planned, besides shocking me into silence?"

"We’ll show you," Liz said as she knelt beside the bed and pulled out a canvas bag that had been stashed underneath it. She rummaged through the bag until she found a videotape, which she threw on the bed with a flourish. "First, Isabel and I thought we could watch the Spice Girls movie, *the* original good old-fashioned, completely silly girl-power flick. Then--" Liz rummaged through the bag again and this time pulled out a compact disc-- "then we thought we indulge in Ben and Jerry’s and listen to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect,’ the ultimate preparation for life in Michael-Land 24/7. And finally--" Liz rummaged through the bag again and pulled out a piece of paper, which she waved around before letting it float to the bed beside the videotape and the CD-- "and finally, we thought we could begin doing *fun* wedding planning stuff, like figuring out the anti-wedding-song list."

"The anti-what?" Completely bemused, Maria shook her head. "Never mind. I’ll wait to find out what it is."

"All will be revealed," Isabel agreed. "In the meantime, you won’t starve. Liz forgot to mention that in addition to our old friends, Ben and Jerry, we also have chocolate cake and Tabasco sauce and cherry cola--"

"Actually we can have any soda, we just have to go downstairs for it...." Liz hesitated, her cheeks reddening. "But we should probably not take the straws with the, um ... things on them downstairs again. I think my dad was having a bit of a problem with them...."

Maria arched an eyebrow. "The ‘things,’ Liz? *You* can’t even say what they are."

Liz blushed again. "I can. It’s just not, uh, necessary right now. You both know what they are."

Shaking her head, Maria scooped up the videotape and stood up. "Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Let’s start with the Spice Girls saving the world by giving concert tickets to aliens."

"You’ve seen it?" Liz sounded crestfallen.

"Of course I’ve seen it, babe. It’s me, remember? This is the kind of movie my mom and I used to watch on our lame-o Friday nights together." Maria put her arms around both Liz’s and Isabel’s shoulders. "But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t see it again with my two best friends in the whole world. C’mon. Let’s go to the living room."

They watched the video, laughing and chattering the whole time. After the Spice Girls had saved the world, Maria leaned back against the back of the Parkers’ living room sofa and studied Liz thoughtfully. "So what’s it like?" she asked out of the blue.

"What’s what like?" Liz was wrestling with the top of the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream carton and hadn’t paid attention to Maria’s question.

"Being married. Being a mother," Maria clarified.

Liz looked up from the ice cream carton, and a small smile played across her face. "It’s--"

"Wait!" Isabel cried, holding up a hand. "Before you say another word, Liz, I have to tell you that we don’t want any sexual details. I so don’t need to know any of that stuff about my brother."

Liz blinked in surprise. "I wasn’t going to say anything about that anyway. Much as I love you guys, that’s none of your business. I was just going to say that it’s nice."

"Nice?!" Maria folded her arms over her chest in disbelief.

"It’s nice. I like that he’s always there for me, whether it’s to help with paying the bills or putting together a crib or changing a diaper or opening a jar." All of a sudden, Liz got a faraway look in her eyes. "It’s not all romance, you know. But there’s that too. You know Max. He still brings me flowers for no reason...." Maria and Isabel rolled their eyes at each other, which Liz ignored. "Anyway, when you put everything together, it’s nice."

Maria shook her head at Liz. "You *would* say nice. That’s you and Max in a nutshell. *Nice.* That’s not the word for me and Michael, though. Michael is a ... vibrator. When we’re together, it’s like there’s this energy between us. It’s like we produce sparks together."

"Which would explain Michael’s hair," Isabel remarked.

"Ha ha," Maria said sarcastically, feeling suddenly defensive about Michael’s hair. "What about you, Princess Isabel? What’s it like with chessboy?"

Isabel gave her a superior look. "Alex and I are still taking things slow. You know Alex almost as well as I do. He’s always sweet, always funny, always sensitive to what I need. We don’t need to rush things."

"More niceness," Maria said, as if niceness were a distasteful thing.

Liz frowned. "‘Nice’ isn’t bad, Maria."

"No, it’s just not what I want. I need more edginess, more sparks, more...."

"Michael?" Liz and Isabel suggested at exactly the same moment.

Laughing, Maria nodded. "Exactly...." She was about to say something else but was distracted by Liz’s efforts to open the ice cream carton. "You still haven’t gotten that ice cream open yet, Liz? What, is it like glued together?" She held out a hand, wiggling her fingers. "Give it here."

Smiling sheepishly, Liz handed Maria the carton. "See? This is exactly why it’s nice to have a man around. For when things get stuck."

"No more talk like that," Isabel ordered. "This is supposed to be a feminist night of freedom, a bachelorette party. Someone put on Aretha."

After they had listened to Aretha sing about respect at least ten times (to the despair of Liz’s parents who could hear the living room stereo in their bedroom); and after they had composed a starter list of anti-wedding songs, like "Every Breath You Take" by The Police and "White Wedding" by Billy Idol and just about every song by The Beastie Boys; and after they had finished off the ice cream and the chocolate cake and Isabel had made significant progress on the bottle of Tabasco sauce; after all that, Michael, Alex, Max, and Claudia arrived at the Crashdown.

When they heard the old Jeep drive up, Maria, Isabel, and Liz made their way downstairs from the Parkers’ apartment to greet them.

"So I was thinking," Maria was saying as she led the way down the stairs, "that we could put the garter on Michael’s leg. That’ll turn the tables on an antiquated male-centric tradition. We can strike a blow for feminism." Maria came to a stop at the bottom of stairs directly in front of Michael and smiled up at him wickedly. "What d’you girls think?"

"It’s a great idea," Isabel said, dropping a tiny kiss on Alex’s cheek.

"Absolutely," Liz agreed as she made a bee-line for Max and Claudia.

Michael looked over his shoulder at Max and Alex, his eyes betraying absolute terror. "What are they talking about? And why do they look like that?"

"Like what?" Alex asked, clearly enjoying the feel of Isabel in his arms too much to worry about whatever Michael was worrying about.

Michael ran his hands through his hair, making his trademark paint-streaked spikes stand up even further. "Like what?" he repeated. "Like I dunno ... like they’re up to something."

"I guess they’re up to something," Max said agreeably; he looked happy to have Liz at his side again and didn’t seem too concerned at the prospect.

Looking down at Maria, Michael tried not to think about how kissable her lips were. "That’s what scares me," he muttered.

Smiling up at him, Maria licked her lips, knowing how that little gesture affected him. "So, how did you three men and a baby make out?"

"Fine," Michael scowled, still trying to ignore her lips.

Max laughed. "We *were* fine until Michael decided that he wanted to practice holding a baby. Then he got distracted by the football game we were watching, so when the Cardinals fumbled the ball, he nearly fumbled Claudia." Max glanced down at Liz who was suddenly frantically checking Claudia for cuts and bruises. "Liz. He didn’t. Don’t worry. He recovered just in time." Max tried to stifle another smile. "The Cards did too."

Liz poked him and said sternly, "Don’t joke about that. Our daughter is not a football."

Murmuring an apology, Max pulled Liz into his arms, so that Claudia was comfortably squished between them.

Maria shook her head at Liz and Max’s usual sappiness and turned back to Michael. "Guess you need more practice, spaceboy." Maria jabbed a finger in Michael’s chest to underline the point.

Michael smirked at her. "Don’t worry, cheesehead. I’ll be ready. I can handle anything you can throw at me."

"Oh really?" Maria said skeptically, standing on tiptoe to test Michael’s resolve. She moved closer to kiss him, and her lips were almost touching his, but--

"Oh, god," Isabel exclaimed. "Can you guys not suck face in front of us?" She turned to Max and Liz for support, but as usual they were in their own little world. Frustrated, Isabel turned to Alex, who immediately grabbed her hand.

"We don’t need to watch them, Izzy. Come on. We can go outside. I heard on the radio that the sky is unusually clear tonight ... perfect for stargazing."

"Stargazing, huh?" Isabel smiled almost shyly.

"Yeah," Alex smiled back. "I thought maybe we could head up to Buckley’s Point or some place ... to, um, stargaze. I mean--" Alex glanced at her, trying to guess her reaction to his suggestion-- "I mean, what else do you do in the dark?"

Isabel looked back at Max and Liz, and at Michael and Maria. "Maybe you should tell me, Alex...."

And she smiled when Alex blushed.

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