"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," Frannie said, batting her eyelashes. "Nothing makes a woman feel young and gorgeous like an attentive man. Of course, I guess that doesn't apply to you. You're already young and gorgeous."

"It's the burden I live with," Phoebe quipped, though she was half serious.

"Anyway, if you're not out to jump his bones-"

"I'm just curious, Frannie," Phoebe said with a laugh. Actually, she was interested in Wyatt's romantic potential. But not for herself. One of her best friends, Daisy Redford, who lived on the second floor, had a ticking biological clock. Phoebe and her other best friend, Elise Foster, had pledged to help Daisy find her man. They were leaving no stone unturned-even if it meant going along with some wacky scheme of Frannie's.

Frannie stood at the back of the patio, set the cat down, opened the can of cat treats, and let Igor have a sniff. "Yummy, yummy," she said. Then she took a morsel from the can and lobbed it up toward the third floor-toward Wyatt's balcony.

"You aren't serious!" Phoebe said, laughing. "This won't work!"

"Just watch."

It took her a few tries, but Frannie had an admirable hook shot. Eventually a piece of the treat actually landed on Wyatt's balcony. And the cat, watching carefully, saw it.

Frannie held the cat next to the trunk of a palm tree that grew straight up from her patio to the third floor. Igor immediately got the idea. He sank his claws into the tree and, with his goal firmly in mind, started to climb.

"How did you know he would do that?" Phoebe asked.

"Like I said, Igor loves climbing trees. He also always gets stuck. Now we have a perfect excuse to knock on the mysterious Mr. Madison's door."

Phoebe and Frannie watched long enough to feel certain the sure-footed feline would complete his mission, then scurried up to the third floor themselves, though they chose to use the stairs.