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"What's the sense in it?"

Marie threw up her hands in exasperation " `What's the sense in it?' For one thing, sweetie, you're the girl of the hour In case you haven't noticed, the phone has been ringing off the hook for the past three days Every woazine in the country wants your exclusive story, and I've taken at least eight requests for you to appear on nationally televised talk shows Like it or not, you're big news Don't you think it's about tiht head-on?"

"What's there to say? So I was the only wo deal"

"You almost died out there in the ocean and you treat the whole episode as though it were just another cruise down the Nile on Cleopatra's barge Having all those one to your head"

If only Marie knew the whole truth But Dana and everyone on board had been sworn to secrecy by Warren Nicholson The atteotten by everyone But she took a perverse sort of satisfaction in knowing that her perforer in the minds of the men ere present for the rest of their lives

"Too hed "I'm not the same person any more"

"So what does that mean?"

"To begin with, I' out papers to divorce Gene"

"It's come to that?"

"It's co to take a leave of absence fro as I' to make it pay The personal stories, the TV appearances-they're going to enable irl yearns to do all her life"

"Which is?"

"Spendit"

Marie shook her head sadly "I' to feel like I've helped create a monster"

Dana took her gently by the hand "Not you, dear friend It took a brush with death for me to learn that I had condemned myself to an existence that led nowhere

"It began, I suppose, with my childhood-" Dana's voice trailed off as the terrible htmare, and I've carried its effects with e with its sickness Gene recognized the symptoly, he treated me more as a father than as a lover