They're just a bunch of silly kids, she told herself firmly, but deep inside, the innately honest girl could not deny that she'd been flattered by the young boys' obvious admiration. It seemed so long, so very, very long, since her husband had complimented her on her appearance.

"He was so different before we were married," she thought, her thoughts drifting to the whirlwind courtship which had been the talk of Collinsville, Florida. "Now he just seems to take me for granted… when I see him, that is…"

Her low, plaintive voice echoed eerily in the empty house, and Sandi clamped her lips shut and vowed once again to curtail the bad habit she'd been developing lately of talking to herself. What on earth would people think if they knew that she wandered around babbling to herself like a senile old maid?

"They'd think I'm stark, raving mad!" she murmured, realizing as the words left her lips that she'd broken her vow within seconds of having made it. "Well, maybe I am then!" she shrugged. "And if I am, it's all Verne's fault for leaving me alone like this while he's off with his stupid motorcycles!"

Without bothering to switch on the electricity, the unhappy young woman made her way down the short hallway to the master bedroom. By now it was pitch-black outside, but the street light out on the parkway cast its rays into the small room and illuminated the king-sized bed, brand new dressing table and bureaus with an almost surreal radiance that suited Sandi's morbid mood just perfectly. As she crossed over toward the closet to dig out the wool slacks and sweaters her husband had bought her, her eyes caught the color photograph of Verne that stood in a prominent position on her dressing table. Whenever he was gone for long stretches, the lonely wife always removed the wedding picture from the album and brought it in here so that she could look at it before she went to sleep, a habit that had started one dreadful day when she'd realized she could no longer conjure up an image of his face.