Author's Notes:

I own the rights to none of the characters in this story, even the characters that I created. If Disney wants to film this story and show it every year at Christmas, they have my permission.

Greetings, again. One or two folks have asked for a sequel to Knight in Shining Armor, so this is my blundering attempt. This adventure is rated M for mature story elements, M for some naughty language, and most of all, M because KISA, which is pretty much required reading for this story, was also rated M, and if you can't read KISA, you probably won't understand much of what's going on here.

So, we'll take a short break here, to give you the chance to go over there and read Knight in Shining Armor. We'll still be here.

Okay, once again, no sweating body parts here (but now, at least, I can tell you where to find them-just zip me an email).

By the time you finish the first chapter or two, I'm confident you'll be thinking "Cliché." In fact, you may be thinking it already. All I can ask is that you give me the opportunity to show that I can avoid the cliché. I may fail, but we won't know until the end. And if I do fail, the least I can do is try to write the cliché well.

This is only a preview of the first chapter. Look at it as kind of like the blurb on the back cover of a paperback book. My goal is to go without sleep, and have the full chapter up by Thanksgiving weekend. Thanks, everyone, for all the encouragement during the last eighteen months.

Miranda's World
Chapter 1

Larry Tudgeman once told me that all excellent stories require closure, and by that, he meant "happy endings." Personally, I think Larry's read too many fairy tales, but I knew better than to engage in the philosophical debate with him. I recognized that for every story I could name that didn't provide us with "closure", his likely response would be, "And therefore, it is, by definition, not an excellent story." So I simply bit the inside of my lower lip, and nodded thoughtfully.

Now, I told you that to tell you this. Regardless of the imaginary requirements of the excellent story, real life feels no such burden. In life, sometimes the endings are happy. Sometimes they're not. Life makes no promises, and neither can I. And yet, while real life never truly begins or ends, stories do, and mine begins during spring break, in our junior year of high school.

We were cruising down Navarro Boulevard, on the way to the Galleria. Lizzie had just regained her driving privileges, after being grounded for two weeks, due to a…a misunderstanding on her last Chemistry test, and with Coldplay pounding through her mom's SUV, she was chauffeuring Miranda and me. Well, more Miranda, I guess, than me.

Lizzie and I had found…well, we call them jobs…in the past couple of months, Lizzie as a part-time receptionist/gopher at a multi-specialty medical group, and I was an intern at a medium-sized advertising agency. Miranda was operating on a different frequency: she was in the midst of starting her own band.

And Dark Journey was well on its way. She had a lead guitar, a bassist, keyboards, and backup vocals. She was, of course, lead singer, but she could also fill in on any of those other instruments, if the song required it. She had Peavey speakers and a sound board that her parents had given her for Christmas. She had her own on-stage outfit (and trust me on this: no one looked better in tight black leather than Miranda Sanchez), and she even had four original songs, two written by her, and even one with lyrics provided by Lizzie. She had it all. Well, there was the teensy little dilemma of a missing drummer, which was causing Miranda all kinds of stress. That was part of the reason for this little shopping vacation.

I had abandoned the front seat to the two girls, satisfied with spreading out alone in the back, reading an article on Ray Harryhausen in Cinemafantastique, when Lizzie hit a pothole that, had I not been buckled in, would have propelled me into the front seat, upside down between her and Miranda. "Lizzie!" I complained. "You know, you can take the time to go around some of these potholes. The Galleria hasn't even opened yet."

Miranda paused from scanning Lizzie's CD case to study me. "Gordo," she sighed at me, as if she were trying to explain something to a three-year-old. A very stupid three-year-old.

Lizzie held up her hand, with her palm to Miranda, signalling that she would handle this. "Gordo," she took over, her eyes never leaving the road in front of her. "You saw today's paper, right?" She weaved constantly and expertly between lanes of traffic.

"Yeah," I replied. After a pause, I continued, "So?"

She gave me her own remorseful sigh, as if thinking she shouldn't have to explain this. "Sooooo. Aeropostale has that crochet tie front cardigan for only twelve ninety-nine, and there's no way Brittany Novak is getting there before me."

"You know, you have a VISA," I reminded her. "You could try--" I was interrupted by the undercarriage taking a pounding as it was jarred by another pothole. "Ho ho, McGuire! Good job! Thought you might miss that one, for a second."

"Grrrrr," she growled at me from behind the wheel, her attention focused on the road ahead.

Late that afternoon, on the way back to Miranda's house, we stopped by her church, for her to give confession. She picked up her purse from the floorboard and turned to Lizzie as she opened her door. "You guys want to come in?"

Lizzie was hesitant. "Um….I…uh…I dunno."

"Come on," I encouraged her, actually eager to visit the cathedral again. "I'll go with you."

She inhaled deeply, then let the breath out, and nodded. "Okay," she agreed quietly.

The doors leading to the narthex were twelve feet high and, even though I'm not Catholic, of course, I've never been able to help my feeling of awe, whenever I stepped into the nave of Miranda's cathedral. The architecture was just awesome. Mighty marble columns pointed the way down the length of the vast chamber. Sparkling chandeliers flanked the glistening blue stone, hanging from a ceiling that lifted a hundred and ten feet above us, and drawing the eye to the high altar.

Lizzie and I quietly slipped into a pew in the back, while Miranda continued to the altar rail, alone. She knelt solemnly in front of the altar and bowed her head for a moment, then rose and entered the confessional booth, closing the door behind her. Silence threatened to envelop us, and you had to strain to hear the whoosh of cool air entering the room from vents behind us.

After a moment, I noticed Lizzie fidgeting nervously, twisting the ring on her right index finger. I reached out, took her right hand in mine, and used my finger to draw a heart on the inside of her palm. I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Drawing the heart on the palm was something that Lizzie and I had done for each other since pre-school, only back then, we used crayons, instead of our fingers. It was our secret sign to each other; it meant, "I'm thinking of you."

She repeated the gesture in my palm, but smiled sadly at me when she said, "I think this was a mistake." She stood up and crossed her arms, tugging on the sleeves of her T-shirt as she left the nave and stepped back into the parking lot, those monstrous doors slowly swinging shut behind her. A moment later, after a brief glance to the confessional booth, I followed her.

She had already climbed back into her mom's SUV, and I took Miranda's place, next to her. I propped my elbow on the ledge just inside the closed window and said nothing. After a couple of minutes, she spoke, haltingly. "Gordo? You're supposed to tell everything in confession, right? I mean, you can't hold anything back, or it doesn't do any good, right?"

"I'm no expert," I reminded her. "But, yeah, I think. I mean, about sins…you've committed…and stuff. Yeah."

"And with Catholics, it's not just what you do, it's what you think about doing. Right?"

I struggled with the answer. "I don't know…probably, I guess. Why are you asking this?"

"Do you…?" She wouldn't look at me as she spoke; she just tapped the key ring hanging from the ignition. "Do you think, maybe, Miranda has told her priest about me, last summer?"

"Why would she do that, Lizzie?"

And now, Lizzie looked into my eyes. "She wanted to kill Kate, didn't she?"

I sat there for a moment, unable to think of a response. "I don't think she…" I started, but then faltered. "Yeah." And I couldn't hold Lizzie's gaze. "Yeah. But she was right, Lizzie."

But Lizzie shook her head. "That's not the point. She has to confess that. She has to. Or, she goes to hell."

Her gaze was firmly on me, and I had suddenly developed an overpowering urge to clean my fingernails. I mean, it was just Miranda's…belief system…that said that. But, then, that's what we were talking about, right? Her belief that she'd be condemned, if she didn't confess. "She wouldn't have to mention anything about you," I reminded her, without looking up. "You know that."

"If you were Miranda, how would you explain how you felt about Kate, without mentioning me?" she pressed. "And remember, you can't lie."

As I looked up to turn to face her, I saw Miranda leaving the church, to join us. "Lizzie, you can't blame Miranda."

"I don't blame Miranda," she assured me, her voice barely above a sigh. Both of us were watching Miranda now, as she approached the car. After a tortuous moment of silence, she continued. "I love Miranda. I hate myself. Because I put Miranda in an impossible situation."

I had to swallow my response, as Miranda opened the back door behind me and climbed in, angry and frustrated that I had no chance to set Lizzie straight, without arousing Miranda's suspicions about our discussion.

"Hey, guys!" Miranda chirped. "Why didn't you stick around?"

"I got cold," Lizzie flashed a dazzling smile to the back. "They run the a.c. too hard in there." She looked ahead to the cathedral as she turned the key in the ignition. "But I always thought your church was so…beautiful."

"It's okay, I guess," Miranda shrugged.

I rubbed my forehead. I was getting a headache.

As she pulled out of the parking lot, Lizzie popped a Smashing Pumpkins CD into the player, and we were serenaded by "Tonight, Tonight."