BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE

The phalanx of lawyers is preparing for the second round of an international custody battle that pits a Coral Gables foster family against a Cuban farmer.

The governor of Florida won't rule out the possibility that the state will appeal the outcome.

And in the meantime, the little girl at the center of the contentious case has dreamed up a ''protective fantasy,'' imagining that the legal drama swirling around her has already come to an end.

At night, however, she is besieged by nightmares, sleeping fitfully and gnashing her teeth so forcefully she will have to see a dentist.

''She is trying hard to coat herself with Teflon during the day,'' said Miguel Firpi, one of the girl's court-appointed therapists, during a hearing to discuss the child's progress.

Firpi said the 5-year-old girl believes that the judge in charge of the case has decided she will not return to Cuba with her father, and that she will remain in the care of Joe and Maria Cubas, who have adopted her 13-year-old half-brother.

'I told her, `Remember the lady in the black thing still has to decide,' '' said Firpi, addressing Circuit Court Judge Jeri B. Cohen during a hearing last week to gauge the progress of the girl's visitations with her birth father, Rafael Izquierdo.

The regularly scheduled visitation hearing came just moments before Cohen released her ruling in favor of Izquierdo, declaring him a fit father.

Cohen said the state's Department of Children & Families, which is seeking to keep the girl in the Cubas household, failed to prove its case against Izquierdo. But the judge refused a request from Izquierdo's legal team to turn the girl over to her father immediately.

Instead she will go forward with a second round of hearings to determine whether separating her from the Cubas family and her brother will cause her irreparable harm.

PIECE OF FICTION

The judge acknowledged that the girl has already had to navigate difficult waters -- and wondered aloud if it would be better to allow her a piece of fiction to hold on to.

''Is this a bad thing that she has built this protective bubble?'' Cohen said. ``Because it frees her to build relationships. And if the bubble has to be burst, that won't be a bad thing.''

Julio Vigil, another of the the girl's therapists, said the girl was progressing in her attachment to her father -- but said he was still concerned that she was not displaying a ``significant emotional attachment.''

''He's more comfortable with her, more authoritative. She's calling him dad and she's responded in respect to that authority,'' said Vigil, who said the girl has begun to allow Izquierdo to hug and kiss her, something she previously refused.

Vigil agreed that the girl's increased ease with her father may be because she has imagined the judge has decided she will stay in the United States.

''It may be the threat of leaving the Cubases is no longer a present issue in her mind,'' he said. ``That would explain the comfort level.''

But the girl ''still does not respond to her dad in an emotional and affectionate manner,'' Vigil said. ``As far as running up to him exhibiting great joy, I have not seen that. I would have hoped to see that by now.''

Ira Kurzban, one of Izquierdo's attorneys, dismissed Vigil's concerns during a press conference following Thursday's ruling.

''You all have to look at yourselves and ask how many of your children run up to you as soon as you walk in the door,'' he said, addressing reporters gathered on the courthouse steps.

Izquierdo and his common-law-wife, Yanara Alvarez, told the judge that the girl is happy and well-behaved during her visits to the Brickell Avenue condo where they are staying for the duration of the legal proceedings.

''She doesn't have that rebellion like she did before,'' Alvarez said. ``It's a big difference.''

Izquierdo said the girl has questioned him about what would happen if they return to Cuba, and whether she will see her ''other family'' again.

Izquierdo said he has taken pains to share with her picture books of Cuban landscapes and churches. ``I tell her of my mother, her grandmother, and the little animals we have there.''

He said the girl has also bonded with her half-sister, a 7-year-old girl he fathered with Alvarez.

The foursome have enjoyed trips to Parrot Jungle and Chuck E. Cheese's, as well as playing in the pool of the Brickell condo complex.

The girl has a distorted sense of geography, said Firpi, and believes that her father and stepmother return to Cuba after her visits with them. She thinks her half-sister is going to school on the island.

''She believes they go to Cuba and then go back to see her, and that it's right next door,'' Firpi said.

Joe Cubas said that despite a no-news policy at home, the prolonged legal drama is having a noticeable effect on the two children.

He picked up the older brother from school early Thursday, fearful that he would hear news of the ruling second-hand.

`HE'S ANGRY'

''He asked me if they were going to come and take his sister away right now,'' Cubas said. ``He's doing as well as any 13-year-old kid can at his age. But he's angry sometimes, and afraid.''

Cubas said he has not discussed last week's events with the little girl, however.

She nonetheless picked up on a shift in her foster parent's mood. After Cubas and his wife returned from the courthouse Thursday, she came up and worriedly asked if he was sad.

''I just told her I had a headache,'' Cubas said. ``How is a 5-year-old going to understand what is going on?''