It was while she was slathering her rather nice twenty-eight-year-old body with a bar of moisturizing soap that she got the idea for the letter and she started composing it immediately. Not literally, of course-she was after all taking a shower, and writing underwater was a trick she'd never mastered-but figuratively. Figuratively she started immediately.

She'd use her best stationery-the baby blue with the monogram at the top-and she'd write with the special Cross pen her mother had given her for her last birthday and she'd send the letter to Aberdeen, the plump secretary she worked with at the life insurance company-Aberdeen sort of lived vicariously through her. The letter would read:

I don't know if you remember the TV show several seasons back called "High Rise" but I just thought I'd let you know that its handsome star (now host of the game show "Celebrity Circle"), Ken Norris, can rise just as high as you might think (if you get my drift).

Aberdeen, it's my first night on the St. Michael cruise ship, and I'm already in love with a TV star-and I think he's really interested in me, too! More sordid details later!

Then she'd add, as a tease: "But please don't tell anybody!" knowing that with Aberdeen's tendency to blab, she'd probably do everything but announce it over the PA system so that the entire company would hear about it.

Cindy McBain went back to slathering.

Much as she was excited, she was nervous. Right outside her bathroom door sat TV star Ken Norris himself. Waiting. For her. Cindy was staying in what they called a Mode 4 cabin aboard the gigantic superliner, which meant it had the same sort of severe look the motel rooms of her business college years did, which meant that all Ken Norris had to amuse himself with were those glossy but boring magazines they left in every room. Fortunately, he was pretty drunk-he'd sort of been babbling, matter of fact; and maybe he was taking a short nap.