One Fifth Avenue

The deposition was held in a conference room in the offices of the Brewers’ law firm. Sandy wasn’t there, but Connie was sitting between two members of the Brewers’ legal team. At the head of the table was the counsel for the state. Connie looked frightened and wan.

“Let’s begin, Mrs. Rice,” said the state counsel. He wore a misshapen suit and had boils on his skin. “Did you ever see the Cross of Bloody Mary?”

Annalisa looked over at Connie, who was staring down at her hands. “I don’t know,” Annalisa replied.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Connie showed me a cross, yes. But I can’t say if it was the Cross of Bloody Mary or not.”

“How did she describe it?”

“She said it belonged to a queen. But it might have come from anywhere. I thought it was costume jewelry.”

“Did you ever have a discussion with Billy Litchfield about the cross?”

“No, I did not,” Annalisa said firmly, lying. Billy had died for the stupid cross. Wasn’t that enough?

The questioning continued for another hour, and then Annalisa was dismissed. Connie walked with her to the elevator. “Thank you for doing this,” Connie murmured.

“Oh, Connie,” Annalisa said, and hugged her. “It’s the least I can do. How are you? Can’t we have lunch?”

“Maybe,” Connie said hesitantly. “When all this is over.”

“It’ll be over soon. And everything will be okay.”

?

?I don’t know about that,” Connie said. “The FCC has barred Sandy from trading because he’s under investigation, so we have no money coming in. I’ve put our apartment on the market. The lawyers’ fees are huge. Even if Sandy does get off, I’m not sure I want to live in New York anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Annalisa said.

Connie shrugged. “It’s just a place. I’m thinking we should move to a state where no one knows us. Like Montana.”

That evening when Paul got home, Annalisa tried to tell him about her day. Going into his office, she found him standing before his giant aquarium, staring at his fish. “Connie says they’re going to have to sell their apartment,” she said.

“Really?” Paul said. “What do they want for it?”

She looked at him in astonishment. “I didn’t ask. For some reason, it didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Maybe we could buy it,” Paul said. “It’s bigger than this place. And they’re desperate, so we could probably get it for a good price. Real estate is going down. They’ll have to sell quickly.”

Annalisa stared at Paul, the knot in her stomach tightening in fear. “Paul,” she said cautiously. “I don’t want to move.”

“Maybe not,” Paul said, keeping his eyes on his fish. “But I’m the one with the money. Ultimately, it’s my decision.”

Annalisa stiffened. Moving slowly, as if Paul were unbalanced and could no longer be trusted to react like a normal person, she edged toward the door. She paused and said softly, “Whatever you say, Paul,” quietly closing the heavy double doors behind her.

The next morning, Lola Fabrikant woke at noon, groggy and slightly hungover. She wrenched herself out of bed, took a painkiller, then went into the tiny bathroom to examine her face. Despite the amount of alcohol she’d consumed the night before at a birthday party for a famous rapper, her skin looked as fresh as if she’d just returned from a spa. In the last couple of months, she’d learned that no matter what she put in her body, or what she subjected it to, the effects never showed on her face.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of her apartment. The tiny bathroom was grimy, scattered with makeup and various creams and potions; a bra and panty set from La Perla was crumpled on the floor next to the toilet, where she’d tossed them as a reminder to hand-wash. But she never seemed to get around to domestic chores these days, and so her apartment was becoming, as James Gooch said, a pigsty. “Find me a cleaning woman, then,” she’d retorted, adding that the condition of her apartment didn’t seem to prevent him from wanting to be there.

She stepped into the plastic-molded shower, which was so small she banged her elbow reaching up to shampoo her hair, reminding her again of how much she hated the place. Even Thayer Core had managed to get a bigger apartment in a better location, which he never ceased to point out. Ever since he’d taken the job with Mindy Gooch, Thayer had become a bore and was obsessed with getting ahead, even though he was only, as Lola pointed out, a glorified assistant, despite the fact that he had a business card claiming he was an associate. She still saw him but only late at night. After a long evening of clubbing, she’d realize she was going home to an empty apartment and, feeling unbearably lonely, would call him, insisting that he let her spend the night. He usually did but made her leave with him at eight-thirty in the morning, claiming he no longer trusted her alone in his apartment, and now that he had a decent place, he wanted to keep it that way.

Running conditioner through her hair, she bolstered herself with the thought that soon she, too, would have a larger apartment. That afternoon, she had an audition for a reality show. The Sex and the City movie had been a huge success, and now some producers wanted to do a reality-show version. They’d read her sex column and, contacting her through her Facebook page, asked her to audition, saying she’d be a perfect real-life Samantha. Lola agreed and couldn’t imagine how she wouldn’t get the part. For the past week, she’d been envisioning herself on the cover of Star magazine, like one of those girls from The Hills. She’d be more famous than Schiffer Diamond—and wouldn’t that show Philip and Enid Merle? The first thing she’d do with her money would be to buy an apartment in One Fifth. Even if it was a tiny one-bedroom, it wouldn’t matter. She’d haunt Philip and Enid and Schiffer Diamond for the rest of their lives.

The audition was at two, giving her plenty of time to buy a new outfit and get ready. Wrapping herself in a towel, she extracted a shoe box from under the bed and counted up her cash. It had taken her a couple of days to recover from Enid’s attack on her in the newspaper, but she had recovered, and when she did, she’d pointed out to Marquee that she was now genuinely famous and he needed to pay her more money. She asked for five thousand dollars, which sent him into hysterics, but he agreed to up her payment to two thousand. So far, that had added up to eight thousand dollars; then there was the ten thousand Philip Oakland had given her and the two thousand dollars she got regularly from James Gooch. With James paying her rent and utilities, she’d been able to save twelve thousand dollars. Now she extracted three thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, which she planned to spend on something outrageous at Alexander McQueen.

Going into the boutique on Fourteenth Street, she immediately spotted a pair of suede over-the-thigh boots with buckles up the sides. As she tried them on, the saleswoman cooed about how only she could wear them, which was all Lola needed to make up her mind. She purchased the boots, which were two thousand dollars, and carried them home in an enormous box. She zipped up the boots and pulled on the Hervé Léger bandage dress she had, in fact, bought a few weeks ago. The effect was startling. “Gorgeous,” Lola said aloud.