“If she should return . . .”

There are moments in every life, I guess . . . moments when you can turn this way or that . . . Whether the direction one turns is determined by inner substance or by circumstance, by fate, I don’t pretend to know . . . Though it’s true, I suppose, that if Isabella had been more gracious with me at the party . . . if Frank Paris hadn’t behaved in such a way . . . if there’d been no yelping dogs on the street that night . . . no strangers casting surly remarks in the piazza . . .

My brother touched my arm.

“Try it on.”

The dress would look good on me, it was true. I undid my blouse and stood a moment in my bra, my brother watching. Then I slipped the dress over my head. Johnny poured some champagne.

I regarded myself in the mirror. It was a modest shift, very simple, that tapered at the waist. I looked a little younger in it, more innocent, boyish.

He took out his jar and laid two crystalline lines by the lamp.

“For you.”

“I don’t want to set a bad example.”

“Then I’ll set one for myself. And I’ll be the bad example.” He did what people do with cocaine.

“Adjust the light,” he said.

I liked the dress. It was a soft material, very thin, and I enjoyed watching myself in the mirror. My brother enjoyed watching me, too. He had used to do the same thing when I dressed in my mother’s outfits. Now he studied me from the door as I sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, posing in the famous dress. I bent over some fresh lines by the lamp and took them up my nose. I lay back on the bed, feeling my body, electric in the warm light. The champagne and the cocaine together made a nice sensation. I felt both inside the moment and outside it at the same time. I felt as if I were glowing there on top of the bed.

My brother came toward me and we sat together, close by, shoulders touching, our backs against the headboard.

“We are orphans,” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s not an enviable position.”

“There are worse.”

“We have to look out for ourselves.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“With Frank Paris?” my brother scoffed. “What makes you think he’ll have anything left in his accounts after he dies?”

“There’s his inheritance.”

“How much do you think will pass to you?”

My brother’s cell buzzed. He glanced at the message screen. “Orsini?” I asked. Johnny didn’t answer. We remained on the bed and listened to the echo of the men above the garden, laughing at cards.

“We can’t allow ourselves to be bullied.”

I didn’t quite know who he meant, but this was something he said on occasion, and I understood the sentiment. We’d grown up in the same household.