Lisa did not look nearly as hyper as she'd sounded on the phone when Marti found her repotting purple mums on her slate patio. Her brown hair flowed long and straight and she was fabulous in a pair of skinny jeans and a mysteriously non descript white T-shirt. Was it Gucci? Chanel? It was going to drive Marti nuts until she knew, which of course she never would.

Lisa was the kind of woman who refused to wear and tell.

Today, Marti was particularly green with envy because Lisa had a husband and she didn't, at least not one who came home and stayed home. Plus, now that Lisa was on Nomadd, Ty treated her like a goddess, buying her emerald earrings she casually mentioned liking, treating her to surprise weekends in New York City and vacations in Barbados. When they were together, Ty couldn't keep his hands off her, stroking her hair, patting her rear. They'd been married for ten years and acted like it had been ten minutes.

You had to admire her, Marti thought. When it came to finding and keeping a wealthy husband, Lisa nee Obuchowski, the daughter of a foul-mouthed garbage worker from Glendale, had devised a full proof system.

Before meeting Ty, she'd run up her credit cards to acquire the "must haves" for any Hunting Hills wife wannabe: a great body, a designer wardrobe and a job in public relations. Lisa would have preferred hospital fundraising, but it was too competitive. In cities all over America, there are fundraising twinkies: educated, attractive women in their twenties working in the endowment divisions of major medical centers, clawing and scratching for a chance at that double whammy of marital bliss — either a rich doctor or a rich benefactor. Lisa had enough smarts to know she was out of their league.

She ended up landing a gig as a flak for L'Plaza, a small, posh mall in the heart of Cleveland's downtown, and made the most of it, immediately compiling a list of Cleveland's wealthiest bachelors. Most names she gathered by culling business articles in The Cleveland Citizen or society profiles in Cleveland Magazine or simply by asking around. Then she proposed that L'Plaza host a series of charitable events, including a bachelor fashion show and auction featuring clothes from the mall's boutiques. Something for everyone.

Bachelor auctions are standard stuff for Hunting Hills wives wannabes. Hospital fundraising twinkies know all about dressing up in a subtle-but-seductive Adrienne Vittadini suit. About showing up unannounced at the bachelor's office with a seemingly innocent and yet flattering request that he model a Hugo Boss for charity. There is no surer way to get the personal cell number of the hottest guy in town than by asking for it in the war against Chronic Wasting Disease.

Lisa did the hospital twinkies one better.

She researched and discovered that Ty Renfrew, a newbie to the bachelor list, had been recently divorced from his socialite wife Sandra. Of course Ty had not stooped to a messy court divorce. It had all been neatly arranged in his lawyer's office. However, the simple declaration filed in family court had been enough for Lisa who, as luck would have it, showed up at his house a year to the day after the official split.

What happened next could only be described as a wannabe's windfall. Lisa discovered Ty in his garage, in his Lexus with the car running and the door closed. This was no wonder as Sandra had made it a point to tell everyone in Hunting Hills that she'd dumped Ty because, well, because he was not really a man's man. Or, as she so tactfully put it, because he "ran on low test gas."

So deflated had Ty been over his public humiliation, that he'd opted to off himself on the anniversary of his divorce. When Lisa found him half conscious she knew her ship had come in. Pushing the 180-pound businessman aside, she backed the car out to the fresh air, gave him mouth to mouth and called a local doctor who specialized in being discreet. No 911 for her.

A few weeks later, she turned Ty on to a prototype of Viagra and allowed him to impregnate her with on the spot. Never again was a disparaging word spoken in Hunting Hills about Ty Renfrew's virility. He couldn't marry her fast enough.