Nina couldn't help it: She laughed. "Oh, honey," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorrier," Ashley replied. "But it really is getting to be rather comical, isn't it? I wonder if 'three strikes and you're out' applies to situations like this?"

"I think you just haven't met the right man," Nina, a widow, said cheerfully.

"I've got eighteen months," Ashley said softly, "or I really will be out. Out on the street. Damn! I will not lose everything to an organization called SSEXL, even if I have to marry a monkey in the zoo!"

"Speaking of monkeys, Lila Peabody came in today to pick up her new bras," Nina murmured. "That boob job she got looks great. And at her age, too. She said she was just seventy."

"Seventy-five," Ashley corrected. "Perky boobs, and a face like a leather satchel. She has the money. Why she didn't do the face too, I don't know. I suppose it's because her skin is so damaged from her constant tanning."

"Rumor has it she has a new beau," Nina said.

"I heard. Old Paul Hilton," Ashley replied.

"No fool like an old fool," Nina remarked.

"Do you ever think of remarrying?" Ashley asked her assistant.

"No. I don't want to break another one in, thanks. Besides, who needs a man when you have the Channel, my dear? I can't thank you enough for introducing me to it. I can have sex anytime, and any way I want it, and at four a.m. I'm back in my own bed. It's just too perfect."

Ashley laughed. "TMI," she told Nina, who just chuckled.

"Do you want me to call Mr. Devlin and tell him his order is in?" Nina asked.

"Yes, please," Ashley said.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Two more brides-to-be came in to purchase items for their trousseaux. One of them was a girl Ashley remembered being the little sister of a schoolmate. She almost winced when the girl glowingly told Nina that Ashley and her sister used to babysit her when they were in their teens. Then Ashley made the mistake of asking after the girl's older sister.