Really mad. And he did it at the end of her very bad day. His making her mad was the final straw, or so she told herself when she hot-wired that beautiful motorcycle.

If she hadn't been feeling so crazy, so desperate and miserable, she might have been able to be more objective about the whole thing. She might have reminded herself that it wasn't his fault that he had scared her silly. And when he made her mad, well, he was only telling the truth as he saw it.

But she was feeling crazy and desperate and miserable. That day, she was in no mood to be objective about anything.

The very bad day in question? It was April 1. So appropriate. On the day for fools, Marnie knew herself to be the biggest fool of all.

The day before, Wednesday, March 31, her life had imploded when Mark Drury broke up with her. Mark was not only her live-in lover of five years, but he was also her best friend in the world since childhood, her blood brother since the age of nine.

The house they shared in Santa Barbara belonged to him. So when he dumped her, she had nowhere to go and no best friend to talk to. She threw all her things in the back of her old black Camry and got out of there.

She started to go home—home being the tiny town of North Magdalene northeast of Sacramento, in the Sierras. But after about ten minutes behind the wheel, she realized that she simply couldn't do it, couldn't go back there. Couldn't face the worry in her dad's eyes, the tender sympathy her stepmother wo