Pressures were severe at home. Mother, usually so loving, had attacks of irritability – due to her dangerous illness – that were often directed at Cherie herself. And that sweet, devoted woman had been reluctant to let her teenage daughter go away for these two weekends and the five days in between, leaving her to shift for herself. Mother had complained that Cherie would not be going to church as always, way up there in the mountains. Cherie had promised in turn to bring her Bible – but she had forgotten it at the last minute.

Cherie opened the door to her room and walked in to begin immediately getting ready for bed. It had been a long day, full of work. She had taken more shorthand, transcribed more cassette tapes, and typed more letters than she cared to think about. They had spent most of the day sitting around the huge conference table in a large room on the first floor of the house, she and two other secretaries taking orders from the eight male – and one female, Allison Cooper – executives.

Cherie had been lucky to be able to come along this time and have the opportunity to show the execs what she could do. She could easily have had to wait years to get this chance, so when the usual girl for the junket – a stunning, slender redhead named Sally – had come to her and asked her to take her place for the nine-day stint, Cherie readily accepted. When Cherie asked why Sally did not want to go, the older secretary was vague as she expressed her distaste, stating that she had already been on three of them and that it just wasn't her kind of the thing, now that she was engaged to be married to a lawyer. Cherie had no idea why her engagement should get in the way of work, but she had no intention of protesting the opportunity that had just been laid in her lap.