Old-school residents with character and charm. And, of course, purpose. The Tigglemans could rave about both houses she’d sold them—and show Zara that Aspen, unlike Hollywood, didn’t favor youth but was a place where one could age with class and grace. Henry’s childhood friend Kevin and his husband, Jerry, would demonstrate their long-standing connection to the town—and its inclusive, liberal side. And the Alpine Brothers, Jack and Bobby, with their ability to talk for hours about how to curve wood just right or the best temperature to melt steel, would indicate the firm’s expertise, their insistence on working with only the finest contractors.

Claudine could have gone wider with the invitations, but it would have been a mistake to think packing the party with a room full of insipid millionaires was the right move to impress a pop star. The start-up bros who’d been invading town for the past decade brought a unique sense of soullessness and poor taste—the latter slowly destroying the business of Calhoun + Calhoun. Tech geeks who’d spent their entire lives wanting to blend in had no appreciation for Henry’s artistry, the singular vision he brought to every architectural project. He put his heart into each of his houses—or at least had put it into them, until the health scare a few weeks ago. No, the new-money crowd only wanted acceptance and would rather buy a prefab cookie-cutter monstrosity like Steve Gilman specialized in rather than let Claudine sell them a true masterpiece.

She tried not to think about Steve. Though that was hard. These days Aspen was crawling with real estate agents like him. No discretion or discernment. Quick to sell whatever clapboard mansion came available. To think, the two of them were once the only upscale agents in town. (And once briefly—though not briefly enough—more than that.) Now there were dozens. The recession had driven a lot of brokers working mid-tier price points into their section of the market, and things continued to get more crowded thanks to the internet—Zillow, Trulia, Redfin. The only way to survive in this business was to sell big.