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a maraschino cherry.

Whenever she sat at the bar, she took tiny sips from her drink to make
it last while she gazed down through the glass top at a lighted replica
of the sea complete with little ships she could move with magnets. The
footrests of the bar stools were polished whales' teeth, which she
could just touch with the toes of her tiny handmade Italian sandals,
and the upholstery of the seats felt silky soft on the backs of her
thighs. She remembered one time when her mother had screamed with
laughter because Uncle Ari had told her they were all sitting on the
foreskin of a whale's penis. Francesca had laughed, too, and told Uncle
Ari that he was silly— didn't he mean
an elephant's peanuts?

The Christina held nine
suites, each with its own elaborately decorated
living and bedroom areas as well as a pink marble bath that Chloe
pronounced "so opulent it borders on the tacky." The suites were all
named after different Greek islands, the shapes of which were outlined
in gold leaf on a medallion fastened to the door. Sir Winston Churchill
and his wife Clementine, frequent visitors on board the Christina , had
already retired for the night in their suite, Corfu. Francesca passed
it, then looked for the outline of her particular island—Lesbos. Chloe
had laughed when they were put in Lesbos, telling Francesca that
several dozen men would most definitely disagree with the choice. When
Francesca had asked why, Chloe had said she was too young to understand.

Francesca hated it when Chloe answered her questions like that, so she
had hidden the blue plastic case containing her mother's diaphragm, an
object Chloe had once told her was her most precious possession,
although Francesca couldn't really see why. She hadn't given it back,
either—at least not until Giancarlo Morandi had pulled her from her
lessons when Chloe wasn't watching and threatened to throw her
overboard and let the sharks eat out her eyeballs unless she told him
what she'd done with it.. Francesca hated Giancarlo Morandi now and
tried to stay far away from him.

Just as she reached Lesbos, Francesca heard the door of Rhodes opening.
She looked up to see Evan Varian walk out into the corridor, and she
smiled in his direction, letting him see her pretty, straight teeth and
the matching pair of dimples that indented her cheeks.

"Hello, princess," he said, speaking in the full, liquid tones he used
whether playing the rogue counterintelligence officer John Bullett in
the recently released and phenomenally successful Bullett spy film, or
appearing as Hamlet at the Old Vic. Despite his background as the son
of an Irish schoolteacher and a Welsh bricklayer, Varian had the sharp
features of an English aristocrat and the casually long haircut of an
Oxford don. He wore a lavender polo shirt with a paisley ascot and
white duck trousers.
But most important to
Francesca, he carried a pipe—a wonderful brown daddy's pipe with a
marbled wooden bowl. "Aren't you up a little late?" he inquired.

"I stay up this late all the
time," she replied, with a small shake of
her curls and all the self-importance
she could muster. "Only babies go
to bed early."

"Oh, I see. And you most definitely aren't a baby. Are you sneaking out
to meet a gentleman admirer, perhaps?"

"No, silly. Mummy woke me up to do the caviar trick."

"Ah, yes, the caviar trick." He tamped the tobacco in the bowl of his
pipe with his thumb. "Did she blindfold you for the taste test this
time, or was it a simple sight identification?"

"Just by sight. She doesn't ask me to do the blindfold trick anymore
because the last time we did it, I started to gag." She saw that he was
getting ready to move on, and she acted quickly. "Don't vou think
Mummy's looking awfully pretty tonight?"

"Your mummy always looks pretty." He cupped a match in his palm and
held it over the bowl.

"Cecil Beaton says that she's one of the most beautiful women in
Europe. Her figure's nearly perfect,
and of course she's a