Phoebe whipped off her sunglasses to reveal her exotically tilted amber eyes. "Stay, Pooh! Stay, dammit! Viktor!"

Viktor had already rushed to the opposite side of the casket in an effort to head off the rampaging poodle, but in his haste he knocked over several chairs, which, in turn, flew into another group of floral arrangements, setting off a separate chain reaction.

A Gold Coast socialite, who fancied herself an expert on small dogs since she owned a shiatsu, made a leap for the frenzied poodle only to draw up short when Pooh dropped her tail, bared her teeth,, and snapped at her like a canine Terminator. Although Pooh was generally the most congenial of dogs, the socialite had the misfortune to be wearing Calvin Klein's Eternity, a fragrance Pooh had detested ever since one of Phoebe's friends, who had been drenched in it, had called her a mutt and kicked her under the table.

Phoebe, whose side-slit skirt was showing far too much of her thigh for respectability, shot between two defensive linemen. They watched with open amusement as she gestured toward the poodle. "Pooh! Here, Pooh!"

Molly Somerville, mortified by the spectacle her half sister was making, tried to hide herself in the crowd.

As Phoebe dodged a chair, the heavy gold fig leaf dangling from the links of her belt bumped against the part of her that fig leaves had been designed to shield. She began to grab for it before she was permanently bruised, only to have the slippery leather soles of her pumps hit a batch of wet lilies. Her feet shot out from under her, and, with a whoosh of expelled breath, she fell.