© 2003

Lexie Webster looked at the vast array of purses in the department store display case and sighed. Turning toward her best friend she said, "Darla, I don't need a new purse."

"Of course you don't," Darla agreed, pulling her toward the designer handbags. "I do. What you need is sex."

The sales associate glanced at them, and Lexie shot Darla "the look." "No, what I need is to get back to the resort. I have work to do."

Darla held up a brown leather bag for inspection. "It's Sunday. Your day off."

"I'm booked to teach a private scuba lesson at three o'clock."

Darla set the brown bag back on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. Fashionably dressed in a pale blue pin-striped Ralph Lauren suit, her shoulder-length tawny hair pulled back in a chic chignon, Darla looked, as she always did, as though she'd just stepped off a page from Vogue. Lexie looked down at her own attire and winced. Plain white tank top, faded jeans, and Nikes that had seen better days. It wasn't that she didn't like to dress up-she did. But one hardly wore Ralph Lauren to read the newspaper on the deck, and that's what she'd been doing when Darla had come by after spending the morning with a potential buyer and commandeered her to go shopping.

"That's exactly the problem, Lex," Darla said. "You're working yourself into the ground. You need to take some time for you."

"You worked today," Lexie pointed out.

"I'm a real estate agent. We work on Sundays. Except when we need to have a serious conversation with our best friend. Then we go shopping and talk."

Uh-oh. Based on Darla's earlier "what you need is sex" comment, Lexie had a pretty good idea where this conversation was headed. "Look, Darla, I know you mean well, but-"