“Welcome. I’m so happy you’re here.” Samantha leaned down and kissed both of Frankie’s cheeks. “Do you know my dear friend Jil Taillou?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Frankie replied.

“Jil worked for years at Sotheby’s, and I was just showing him our renovations.”

“It’s a wonderful apartment. So calm. And I love the view,” Frankie said, looking out at the Sixty-sixth Street transverse and the lights of Central Park South. “Did Pippa Rose design it?”

Jil put down his Grey Goose on the rocks. “Pippa Rose! You must be joking!” he said with a slight European accent. “She couldn’t do anything as elegant as this. She’s a chintzaholic!”

Samantha and Jil shared a laugh and sat down. Frankie followed them while silently sizing up her fellow guest. She hated herself for so easily categorizing people, but she was after all a scientist, and methodology had to start somewhere. As Jil Taillou reached for an olive, Frankie decided he was definitely gay, on the board of City Opera, well read, and actually from Brooklyn. Nobody’s real name is Jil Taillou, especially if they worked at Sotheby’s. Plus anyone with that kind of untraceable Middle European accent most likely studied French at Midwood High in Brooklyn.

At this point in her life, Frankie wished all her hosts would stop inviting an extra man to dinner for her. She frankly would prefer not having the illusion of an escort. Besides, these men were always decidedly unavailable but full of opinions, gossip, and connections. But every hostess she knew insisted on an even number of boy-girl seating. Frankie looked forward to a time when she’d be too old for anyone to bother.

“So there I was in Rome with Beatrice.” Jil made the point of using the Italian pronunciation. “And we are supposed to fly to Beirut the next day for Amir’s engagement party. And you know Mrs. Ouiss had organized the most fabulous party. But we can’t go because the entire country is on strike.”

“Oh, the Italians are always on strike.” Samantha lit a cigarette.

“No, but here’s the best part. We had the party in the Vatican instead.”

“No!” Samantha seemed riveted.

“Really?” Frankie attempted to dive in.

“Beatrice is related somehow to the captain of the guards who gives private tours to Barbra Streisand and Sting in the pope’s closet.”

Samantha grinned. “I love this!”

“So they had the engagement party in the pope’s closet. Dona nobis pacem, darling. If you think your Gucci pants are a great brocade, you haven’t seen the pontiff’s evening wear!”

Samantha was now convulsively laughing with her hand in Jil’s lap as he continued. “Oh my God! Of course I had to try something on! His Holiness is a little shorter than I am but I look a lot nicer in a high collar. And this is the best! I told them anytime they want to have a Vatican sale, I’d do the auction.”

“Whose auction?” a middle-aged man in black corduroys and a dark blue shirt asked as he walked into the room. “You guys are having entirely too much fun in here.”