To take her mind off dying, Joey composed a mental list of the things that Chaz didn't like about her:

1. She tended to overcook fowl, particularly chicken, due to a lifelong fear of salmonella.

2. The facial moisturizing cream that she applied at night smelled vaguely like insecticide.

3. Sometimes she dozed off during hockey games, even the play-offs.

4. She refused to go down on him while he was driving on Interstate 95, the Sunshine State Parkway or any surface road where the posted speed limit exceeded fifty miles per hour.

5. She could whip him at tennis whenever she felt like it.

6. She occasionally "misplaced" his favorite George Thorogood CDs.

7. She declined to entertain the possibility of inviting his hairstylist over for a threesome.

8. She belonged to a weekly book group.

9. She had more money than he did.

10. She brushed with baking soda instead of toothpaste…

Come on, Joey thought.

A guy doesn't suddenly decide to murder his wife just because she serves a chewy Cornish hen.

Maybe it's another woman, Joey thought. But then why not just ask me for a divorce?

She didn't have the energy to sort it all out. She'd married a worthless horndog and now he'd heaved her overboard on their anniversary cruise and very soon she would drown and be devoured by sharks. Out here you had the big boys: blacktips, lemons, hammerheads, tigers, makos and bulls…

Please, God, don't let them eat me, Joey thought, until after I've died.

The same warm tingle was starting in her fingertips and soon, she knew, both arms would be as spent and useless as her legs. Her lips had gone raw from the salt, her tongue was swollen like a kielbasa and her eyelids were puffy and crusted. Still, the lights of Florida beckoned like Stardust whenever she reached the top of a wave.

So Joey struggled on, believing she still had a slender chance of survival. If she made it across the Gulf Stream, she'd finally be able to rest; ball up and float until the sun came up.