After putting Lolly to bed, Steven found his sister in the chef’s-grade kitchen, sitting on the pantry floor, stabbing at a five-gallon tub of strawberry ice cream with an oversized spoon. It hadn’t taken him long to find her in the enormous house, because he knew exactly where to look. Many times, he had found his sister sitting in the pantry of their own house, eating a snack. She did this out of necessity, unable to enjoy her food while two drooling dogs stared at her. She would find a small space with a door where she could hide and eat without distraction. The pantry door in their Greenwich house had been painted twice to remove the scratch marks.

Anna, no longer wearing her platinum blond wig, looked up at Steven expectantly, as though she had been waiting for him the whole time. The pantry was bigger than most Manhattan studio apartments and could easily fit a bedroom set. He entered and closed the door behind him, joining Anna on the floor. She reached over and handed her brother a second spoon, which confirmed she had been expecting him.

Steven, wired from all the coke he had done, seized the spoon and dug in. “Lolly’s passed out. She’s going to freak when she finds out what she did. By accident, of course.”

“Don’t say anything,” Anna told him. “It wasn’t her fault. I only have myself to blame. Well, and Eleanor.”

Steven agreed. As much as he wasn’t a fan of Anna’s boyfriend, he despised Eleanor’s self-righteous brand of brattiness even more. It was spoiled whiny girls like her that gave rich kids a bad name. He had once witnessed Eleanor pitch a fit at a country club Sunday brunch when they hired a new pastry chef who added raisins to the carrot cake. “Who fucking shows up like that? Normally party crashers come to have fun, but they were more like party crushers.”

“She was worried we’d get snowed in and I’d miss her stupid birthday dinner tomorrow night.” Anna didn’t see the point in telling her brother that her boyfriend had also felt Steven would impede her punctuality, as Steven was forever running late.

“It’s snowing now,” Steven reported. “But we’re only supposed to get a few inches.”

Anna nodded distractedly.

“I heard from Bea that Alexander left right after your talk?” he said, fishing for more information, but not wanting to press her.

“You mean after our fight?” Anna corrected. “How dare he show up here to retrieve me like I’m some child? Though in his defense, I’m sure he wouldn’t have come if Eleanor hadn’t pushed him.”