Hungry girl

Anna insists that she nonetheless managed to perform for Howard what she called her "wife duty." When he expired in August 1995, at the age of 90, he was by all accounts a happily married man.

Anna, as she has said, entered a prolonged period of despair. She tried to fill the void in her life with food. She ate Twinkies and Ho-Hos and Dream Pies, and "everything," she told one magazine, "that wasn't trying to eat me." She overdosed a couple of times. She called Oliver Stone a "fucking asshole," waggled a naked breast at Bruce Willis, and threw up at Dolly Parton's feet. Her weight went to well over 200 pounds, and from her Guess? contract, she went to Lane Bryant, and from there, she wound up making a lesbian porno movie. Anna consumed virtually everything she had, except a half-billion-dollar claim to Howard's estate. When she filed for bankruptcy, it became the business of the court to determine her wealth.

She arrived in the Los Angeles courtroom last month looking every bit the beautiful victim of grief. She was slimmer than she had recently been, and her breasts had been restrained behind a conservative blue suit. Hobbled by a back injury, she leaned on her lawyers and dabbed her eyes. Pierce's side seemed at a loss. They tried to portray the widow as a gold digger, but she either wept at their questions or professed not to understand. On several points, she was clear. No, she had not retrieved the old man's ashes; cremation was "really disgusting." Yes, she was faithful to Pawpaw. And though she couldn't remember which day she was married, she was sure it was one of the most important ones in her life.

"I believed when I married my husband that I was entitled to half of what he had," Anna Nicole testified.

There were charges that Pierce had altered documents to save the fortune. There was testimony that Howard was very happy with Anna and very angry with Pierce for his intrusion. The argument, in essence, was that a deal was a deal. He was rich and she was pretty, and their marriage was no different from many high-society marriages. The rich guy was a lot richer, and the trophy wife was more stacked, that's all. It is for the judge to decide now how much it is worth to be probed by 90-year-old appendages.

Anna Nicole put on her dark glasses and walked out of the courthouse, past the gathered reporters. Until the judge rules, lawyers wanted to keep her as quiet as possible and wouldn't let her discuss Sandi Powledge. Back in Winnsboro, though, Sandi can tell things are going to be OK for Anna. She used to hope that Anna would come back and get a job like hers -- "butt-wiper" in a nursing home -- and they could live together like a regular lesbian couple. As Sandi admits now, "that'll probably never happen."

Additional reporting for this story was provided by Aisha Mori of Los Angeles New Times.