."Nikki gave me a forced smile and shrugged. "The best thing I ever didwas come out of the closet and tell my father I wasn't going to livelike that ...nymore..." But didn't your dad disown you?" I asked, immediately biting my tongueas I realized I shouldn't have said this.However instead of being offended, Nikki gave me a sad smile. "I neversaid it was the easiest thing I ever did...or without consequences. Butit was the best." Then she suddenly switched gears. "But enough aboutme...this is. We hope you'll never be tempted to go back to that beach again."Cindy remembered that she'd forgotten to bring along her beach towel, but she vowed to forget it. It was better that she lose a beach towel than her immortal soul.How lucky she'd been to be rescued by two such fine and holy young men as Jeff and Bill! She'd lain on that wretched beach for hours, propositioned left and right by lusting males, by old men and young boys--and she'd been tempted to go with them. That was the terrible. A minute later he opened the front door and let us in.Janine came in with me. Mick stayed outside on crowd control. Amy went straight to the fridge and began stuffing her face with some leftover sandwiches. I dashed downstairs to the studio.There was Sheila, still hard at work. She looked up as I burst in, then looked at the clock with apparent surprise that it was already after midnight."How was the dance?" she said."We got a problem, girl." Oh? Again?" Yeah. Unfortunately Charlotte invited a. "Congratulations," Sally Kirkland, her editor at the magazine had said only a few hours before when she had presented Michelle with an advance copy of this week's printing to have as a memento. "Now go out and do something to celebrate, because come Monday morning I'm going to have a new assignment for you and I'm not going to care what you did for me this week." I'm ready to start on it now," Michelle had said in an eagerness that the veteran editor had seen all too often."No," she grinned in.