could come of a book that began "Captain Studs Poleworthy arose from the bed of the sated Bazinga slave-girl, dabbed lime-flavored eroto-gel from his magnificent chest, and said, 'Sorry to come and go, my dear, but the starfields beckon.' ") While visiting Hawaii to scope out potential real estate buys, both of Edwina's parents had died in a tragic accident. They were touring a poi factory when one of the holding tanks broke and they drowned in the glutinous flood.

Their untimely deaths came just at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, when their daughter was first beginning to scent the cultural changes in the air, to hear the distant beat of a different drum, and to inhale ... her destiny. An only child with no living close relatives, Edwina had mourned the loss of her small family—for family had always been important to her—but then had dealt with her grief in what seemed to be the best available manner, at the time. Having been rendered an orphan, she performed a series of reverse adoptions, for want of a better way to describe matters. Independently wealthy, thanks to her late father's savvy for high finance, and just plain independent on account of the Great Poi Flood of '64, Edwina Godz set out to replace the family she had lost by making herself a part of every ragtag tribe, clan, commune or gaggle of rock band groupies that took her fancy.

Now, settled into comfortable middle age, a rich and respectable businesswoman, Edwina looked back over her wild, freewheeling youth without so much as a blush. And why should she be embarrassed to recall her counterculture odyssey and the many lovers she'd enjoyed en route to Enlightenment? She'd hurt no one by her amorous escapades, and even in the pre-AIDS era she'd had the foresight to take certain precautions that had preserved the robust health of her girlhood from pesky STDs.

Besides, it was thanks to the Summer of Love—which had somehow slipped into the