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made her reconsider her normal behavior and defense mechanisms? Or was there an attraction -- albeit dormant -- causing this static electricity in her brain? True, he was not bad-looking, rather handsome in a non-conventional way. His face and body were dark and strong like a lumberjack on a lite beer commercial. His green eyes were warm and friendly, his thick hair groomed short. Actually, he was quite attractive, more natural and real-looking than the supposedly gorgeous male models she used to work with.
    But even if Baskin wasn't a typical, self-centered, immature jock, he was nonetheless a jock, hero-worshipped by adolescents of all ages, a man who played a child's game as a career. Undoubtedly, he was playboy-athlete, surrounded by airy bimbos who sought the spotlight and wanted to get on television with the other wives in the stands. And Laura wanted nothing less than to be considered another bimbo, another conquest by the immortal Celtic great. Clearly, David Baskin was the very antithesis of what she would want in a man, if indeed she had been interested in a relationship at all. Right now, there was no room for a man. Svengali was her ambition, her life-long dream and partner.
    Laura tilted her chair back and put her feet on her desk. Her right leg shook as it always did when she was somehow uptight or in deep thought. Her father had the same annoying habit. They both drove people crazy because the movement was no mere quiver -- it was a full-fledged shake. When she or her dad really got that right leg going, the chair, the desk, the very room would vibrate under the leg's tenacious assault. For those in the area, it was an unnerving spectacle, one that Laura had tried unsuccessfully to stop herself from doing.
    The vibrations her leg caused eventually knocked her pencil-holder off the desk, but she did not stop to pick it up. After a few more minutes of leg shaking, Laura managed to dismiss the basketball player from her mind as Marty Tribble, her Director of Marketing, entered her office with a large smile.
    Marty Tribble was not a man who smiled all that often during working hours. Laura watched him confidently stroll into her office, his hand pushing away the few strands of gray hair that had lasted the five decades of his life, his face beaming like a Little Leaguer after his first homerun.
    'We've just made the advertising coup of the year,' Marty exclaimed.
    Laura had never seen him act like this before. Marty Tribble had worked with Laura from Svengali's conception. He was a serious-faced executive, a down-to-earth conservative in a rather liberal, flighty business. His sense of humor was famous around the office only because no one believed he had one. Crack a joke in front of ol' Marty and you'd see the same reaction if you tickled a file cabinet. He was the office rock, not a man who became excited over trivialities.
    'Which product?' she asked.
    'Our new line.'
    'The casual walking shoes and sport sneakers?'
    'The same.'
    Her eyes met his and she smiled. 'Sit down and start talking.'
    The plodding Marty (he wanted to be called Martin but everyone called him Marty for that very reason) practically leaped into the chair, his legs showing a spry-ness not yet seen in the downtown Svengali headquarters.
    'We're going to run a national advertising campaign on television starting this fall. We'll introduce the entire line to the public.'
    Laura waited for him to say more, but he didn't. He just continued to smile, looking like a game-show host who was trying to build suspense by not revealing the answer until after the last commercial. 'Marty, that's hardly an earth-shattering announcement.'
    He leaned forward and spoke slowly. 'It is when your spokesman is the sport's idol of the decade. It becomes even more earth-shattering when that sport's idol has never endorsed a product before.'
    'Who?'
    'David Baskin, alias White Lightning, the Boston Celtics superstar and three-time league MVP.'
    His name struck her