Mrs. Cohen had clearly decided she wanted this to be a very special occasion. She had chosen a theme, and even hired a designer who, by the look of things, had brought in an army of decorators, flower arrangers and scenery-makers. And so it was, this evening, that this vast Midtown hotel ballroom had been transformed, as though by magic, into a tropical island. Along the right-hand wall was a sandy beach, fringed with seagrass and even, here and there, a palm tree. On the left side was the dance floor, complete with DJ and professional dancers. There were fairground booths of every kind, offering prizes that you could take away too, in addition to the bag of party favors you’d get at the end. Still more impressive, the whole of the back of the room was filled with a reconstruction of a roller coaster. And in the center of everything, in pride of place and serving now, was a hot-dog stand.

“Wow,” said the boys.

The girls in their Betsey Johnson dresses were already gathering in a big group. Gorham, Jr., Richard and Lee went to join the boys’ group. It was funny how, in seventh and eighth grades, these modern kids still segregated themselves into single-sex groups at parties. One of the jobs of the professional dancers was to try to get them to dance together. By eleventh and twelfth grade that would have changed. Big time. When it came to his daughter, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that. But for now, the girls just danced with each other, pretty much.

What had it cost? Gorham wondered. At least a quarter-million dollars. He’d been to parties that cost more. Over the top, in his opinion. Nothing like the old guard, that was for sure.

Or was it? As he gazed at the splendid scene, it suddenly struck Gorham that he was completely wrong. When the grand old New York plutocrats of the gilded age gave their magnificent parties, like the fellow who had about twenty gentlemen all dine on horseback, were they actually doing anything different? He knew a little history. What about the great parties of Edwardian England, or Versailles, or Elizabethan England, or medieval France, or the Roman Empire? They were all recorded in paintings and in literature. The identical story. Conspicuous consumption and display.

It had always been that way in New York, right back to the days when his ancestors had come here. The people who ran the city, whether they bribed an English governor or raised all the money for good causes, were always the rich. Astors, Vanderbilts, whoever, they all had their turn. He knew a fellow who’d started life driving a truck, and who lived in a thirty-thousand-square-foot mansion in Alpine, New Jersey, now. Gave great parties, too …