"Not even half a carat," Crimm remembered one of them whispering. Of course, voices carry across the water, and Crimm, who was sitting on the diving board, heard the tasteless remark.

"It's the quality, not the size," he replied. "And how hard it is."

"All diamonds are hard," said another man, who ran a Fortune 500 company that later relocated to Charlotte.

Crimm discovered in the ladies' room that all diamonds are not hard. Maude's birthmark had caused a bad result. Her bottom looked like she had sat in a puddle of ink. It was hideously stained, and Crimm was afraid to touch it.

"What happened?" he asked as he recoiled and tucked his diamond back into his trousers.

"Nothing happened," Maude said from her position flat against the cold tile wall. "If the lights are out, you can't even see it. Some people find it attractive."

Maude flipped off the light and kissed him hungrily. She mined for his diamond until she could find it again. "Talk vulgar to me," she whispered in the dark restroom. "No one ever has, and I've always wanted to hear lurid things about what people, especially men, want to do to me. Be careful, the wall is hard when you bang me up against it like that. No, don't pull me down on the hard filthy floor instead. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this in here. I'm going to have bruises."

"We could go into one of the stalls." Crimm could scarcely speak. "Then if people walk in, they won't see us. If we make noise, we can cover it up by flushing the toilet repeatedly."

Those amorous days had ended after the wedding. Bedford's eyesight had continually disintegrated, and he had not laid a finger on Maude since Regina was conceived, despite the First Lady's relentless efforts to look desirable, which was for the purpose of teasing and frustrating and camouflaging her true intention of no. Maude hadn't fantasized about yes in a very long time, and as she thought about Andy Brazil, it entered her mind that maybe she should try yes again and mean it. After all, her husband was being so unfair about the trivets, and she spent all of her time these days relocating them throughout the mansion.

Maybe she should give the governor something important to worry about and keep that gorgeous Brazil boy for herself, she resentfully thought. The hell with her daughters. Maybe if Maude seduced Andy, she would feel better about herself and become sufficiently distracted to cut back on her shopping. She applied another coat of thick black mascara to enhance her violently violet eyes. She slashed vivid red lipstick around her mouth, patted on more blush, and frowned, to see how her Botox was holding up.

"Oh, dear," she said to the mirror when she detected a trace of movement in her forehead.

Her collagen was wearing thin, too, and she dreaded a return trip to the maxillary-facial surgeon. It had gotten to where she simply could not endure another needle stick without a heavy hit of Demerol, and for what? Nobody cared. Nobody appreciated her anymore. Maude unhooked her bra and worked her way out of it without taking off her blouse, a trick she had learned at Sweet Briar College.

"Well, that was a wasted effort," she muttered to herself impatiently as her breasts migrated to her waist.

Sighing, she put her bra back on and changed into an attractive sheer cashmere sweater that had been several sizes too small even when she was much thinner.

"There," she announced to the First Dog, Frisky, who was asleep on the bed inside the adjoining master suite. "You have to admit I look pretty damn good for seventy, don't I?"

Frisky didn't stir. He was a very old chocolate Lab and was tired of the First Lady's talking to him endlessly. It had been going on for nine years, and Frisky believed the First Lady had looked pretty overblown from day one. Now she looked especially bad, with her frozen face and swollen lips, and he didn't intend to open his eyes or interrupt his favorite dream of being a ball boy at Wimbledon. He silently prayed that the First Lady, for once, wouldn't wake him up.

"Come, Frisky!" the First Lady called her sleeping dog as she tried unsuccessfully to snap her fingers.

Mrs. Crimm shimmered with body lotion and her fingers were slippery. "Come!" Her fingers snipped rather than snapped. "Let's go down and greet our company."

Seventeen

The blue crabs and the trout were about to have their luck change yet again. Major Trader had volunteered to dump them in the river because he had his own secret, selfish agenda. He figured he could find someone fishing and sell the fresh seafood easily and for a pretty penny, and he was scouting for a good location for the drop-off of the waterproof suitcase full of cash that he expected to get from the pirates soon.

Right this minute, Trader was driving his state car, and the bucket was sloshing around in the trunk. Neither the crabs nor the trout could see a thing in the pitch dark, and they had an ominous feeling about the trip as Trader sped and jerked the car into curves and made sudden stops at lights.

"Jiminy Criminy, he must not got a GPS," one crab said as it knocked into another one on the bottom of the bucket. "He's lost. I can tell."

"How?" said the trout as he floated above crabs clashing into one another with each hairpin turn and lurching start and stop. "I think he might have engine problems."

"You ever been in a car afore?"

"Can't say I have," the trout replied. "But I've seen them pull up to the dock, from a safe distance, when the watermen get out to fish. All their trucks and golf carts jump around and careen like this."

The crabs tumbled to one side and landed in a pile.

"Ouch!" a crab complained. "That hurt! Get your claw outta my eye or you're gonna catch it!"

"I'm hungry!"

"There's neither rotted fish until we foller the water. Hold on!"

Trader drove over a curb and parked on the sidewalk, where Caesar Fender was fishing and not catching a thing.

"Hey! You just ran over my tackle box, you motherfucker!" Caesar yelled at the state car. "Who you think you are? I ain't doing nothing. I don't even have a car, so you got no right to pull over with your high beams on and run over my tackle box, like I was speeding or something!"

"I got fresh seafood fit for the governor," Trader announced. "Sell it to you for fifty dollars. Bet you got a passel of hungry nidgettes at home. Bet they never had blue crabs before, and fresh trout."

Caesar Fender was shocked by the big fat white man's slurs. "Just 'cause some black folks is short don't mean they're nidgettes," he lashed back. "And you owe me two dollars for the tackle box and another seventy-five cents for all the hooks you bent and bobbers you busted. You step one foot closer and you're gonna knock my can of worms in the water, and then I'm gonna kick your ass!"

"You lay a hand on me and I'll have you arrested and sent to jail!" Trader threatened.

"Pay me what you owe for all my fishing tackle you ruined!"

"Watch your mouth. You're talking to a very important government official," Trader yelled back.

"I don't give a flying fuck who you are!"

While the two men argued and bickered, the crabs quickly put together a plot to save themselves and the trout. "Play dead," someone said.

Trader popped open the trunk and Caesar peered inside, angry but curious about the fresh seafood. The trout was belly-up with its eyes shut, and all the crabs were motionless, their eyes shut, too.

"You cheatin' motherfucker!" Caesar screamed at Trader. "This seafood's dead as a doornail. How long you had it in your trunk? A month? Peeee-yooo." He waved his hand in front of his face as he lifted the bucket out. "You lying white trash. Here's what I think of your fucking fresh seafood."