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definition of busy. The truth--that his career as a biological anthropologist had become as strenuous as his "gentleman's workouts" (five-minute swim, followed by a fifteen-minute steam) at the Racquet Club--made him uncomfortable. Although from time to time he'd publish a small piece (on such arcane topics as male mating effort among the bonobos, or the effect of predation pressure on social systems), Wyatt hadn't broken an intellectual sweat in a long time. Still, he kept up a good act, claiming that all the far-flung safaris he took each year were in the name of "research."

    It was a shame, really. Back in his Ph.D. days at Harvard, Wyatt had been lauded as a star on the rise. His professors and mentors expected an august career to follow his dissertation (subordinate behavior in chimpanzees, in keeping with his childhood crush on Jane Goodall). But it hadn't.

    What happened instead: after working himself into the ground to finish his doctorate, Wyatt figured he deserved some time off. He felt blissfully liberated from academia, freed from the dusty stacks of Widener Library, where he'd spent countless sun-deprived hours. To make up for lost time, he spent that first winter stationed in St. John, importing friends and models to keep him company, windsurfing off Cinnamon Bay Beach and napping in catamarans off Trunk Bay. Then he took up residence in his mother's guest cottage in Southampton, where he could count on three lavish meals prepared daily by her Cordon Bleu-trained chef and served by her staff of twelve, along with more invitations than one man could possibly accept. But accept Wyatt did. It was a charmed existence, dotted with boondoggles and jet-setting long weekends that stretched into weeks if such was his pleasure. Wyatt hit the international social circuit with a vengeance, flitting about the glittering uber world of the rich and beautiful. The months stretched on, quickly becoming a year and then two.

    Not having to earn a living can be an insurmountable challenge to a person's career. The path to tenure at Harvard was too steep; it required years of unappealingly hard labor. Nor did Wyatt dream of teaching at Podunk University (which was every school but Harvard, as far as he was concerned), living in a town where you couldn't find a decent scotch and where sushi was considered as exotic as space travel. Besides, it wasn't like he needed the spending money a teaching job could provide.

    So he'd more or less given up--a fact that he refused to fully admit, even to himself.

    "Busy, huh? Working on anything interesting these days?" Trip asked.

    "I'm thinking about writing a book." It was a bluff with a tiny seed of truth: Dr. Alfred Kipling, the publisher of Harvard University Press, had been after Wyatt to write a book for years. Kipling--a stubborn old gentleman whom Wyatt had met through his Ph.D. adviser--refused to give up hope that the younger scholar could produce something original, provocative, and valuable (or at least worth more than Lehman stock). Wyatt had written a scholarly dissertation, Kipling reasoned--why not a book? So far, Wyatt had only proved these hopes to be misplaced.

    "A book about what?" Trip asked. Then something caught his eye, and he paused for a split second in front of a bus stop. Wyatt stopped alongside him, forgetting the rain. There was Cornelia, staring out from an oversize advertisement for Townhouse , larger than life. Flawlessly beautiful in a mint-colored cocktail dress, Cornelia modeled a plunging neckline accentuated by a rope of diamonds. Her character flaws aside, Wyatt had to admit that she was a 12 out of 10. He couldn't avoid reading the enormous headline: "IT" GIRL CORNELIA ROCKMAN TAKES MANHATTAN.

    It could just make you sick .

    "Hey," Trip said, giving Wyatt a light punch on the arm. "It's a good photo, and she's a hot girl, but you made the right call. She drove you insane, right?"

    "Right," Wyatt repeated, still staring. She looked so smug. So sure