After dinner while Samantha was occupied helping Jil with his coat, Charlie put his arm around Frankie and walked her to the door.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know until now that you and my wife were in the same class at Spence or we would have gotten together sooner.” Charlie’s almost boyish charm combined with his newfound love of Finnish modernists made him an irresistible balance of Omaha and urbane. “I remember I spoke to you the day I was rejected from the Ivy. I didn’t want to tell any of my friends who were already admitted that I was devastated. But you were the ideal sympathetic stranger. I’ve always been grateful to you.”

Frankie looked into Charlie’s eyes. They were a clear and intelligent light blue. Suddenly everything fell into place. The clean but classic décor, the fifteen rooms on the Park, the marriage to Samantha, the Atgets in the living room. Charlie was a romantic like Gatsby. Only the green light across the sound wasn’t Daisy Buchanan, but this life with Samantha. Frankie altered her earlier diagnosis. Perhaps it was a more equitable relationship. They were probably each other’s Pygmalion and Galatea, mutually filling out the crevices of each other’s lives.

“How much would you say that apartment is worth?” Frankie asked Jil as they shared a cab to the West Side. She was appalled that she actually said it, but then again he had worked at Sotheby’s.

“Let’s put it this way.” He smiled. “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

Francesca laughed.

“At least that’s what my daughter says!” Jil continued.

Francesca looked up at him. He had a daughter? What man named Jil has a daughter? Maybe her name was Bruce.

“My daughter’s at the architecture school at Harvard. Lousy profession right now. I begged Richard Meier and Charlie Gwathmey to tell her not to do it.”

Okay, he’s a well-connected former heterosexual now-everybody’s-favorite-extra-man-at-a-party, Francesca concluded as the taxi pulled up in front of her apartment house.

“I’d like to see you again.” He looked at her warmly. “Maybe we could go to the opera sometime. And if it’s dreadful, we’ll leave after the first act and go to the Lincoln Center Starbucks for a venti mochaccino. That’s one of my favorite things to do in life.”

Frankie kissed his cheek and got out of the cab. She wished he had said “movie” and not “opera.” That was usually a dead giveaway. The last thing she needed was to get involved with an unavailable man. “Great, I’d love to,” she said casually and walked inside her building.

“Good evening, Dr. Weissman.” Her doorman nodded his head.

“Good evening, George.” She chuckled.

Frankie noticed Jil waving good-bye from the taxi window.

·CHAPTER SEVEN·

Judy

Judy knew that Christmas this year would be a hell of a lot easier with a private plane. Under ordinary circumstances the thought of changing flights in Puerto Rico for Anguilla or Nevis was unbearable. But 9/11 made commercial travel close to impossible, even in first class. Of course she knew she could fly directly to Jamaica or St. Martin, but why on earth would she want to go there? Judy was well aware of exclusive pockets in Jamaica, like the gated communities of Round Hill and Tyrell, but the truth was the crowd was too staid. Judy wanted to be where the fun money was, especially this year when everything had been so dreary.