Ambition (Private 7)

bills that was so thick it could have been used as a paperweight. I laughed and swigged my champagne. "I hate to be vulgar, but

Cromwell is going to shit." "Can I be there when it happens?" Noelle asked, tucking the money away again. "Absolutely." We both

smiled, enjoying the warmth of the moment. This was going to workout. The fund-raiser, our friendship, everything. It was all going

to work out. "There! Perfection!" Frederica announced as she finished with the anchorwoman. All afternoon this had been her signal

that she was done with a client, and the entire room fell silent at the sound of her pinched, heavily accented voice. Frederica was a

diminutive German woman with platinum blond hair and tiny horn-rimmed glasses, who--even though she couldn't have been taller

than five feet--had a commanding presence. When she spoke, people listened.

"And now, for the organizer of our event," Frederica said. She marched over to me, all bones and black turtleneck and slicked-back

hair, and grabbed my shoulders. "I must do you!" "What? Me? No," I protested. "This event is for our donors--" "Nonsense! None of

them would be here if not for you!" she said, forcibly turning me toward her chair. "And I must work on this flawless face," she

added, tapping my cheeks with her cold hands from behind as we looked in the mirror. 'You cannot say no." "She's right, Reed,"

Noelle said, taking my champagne glass from me. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing to have Frederica work her magic."

My friends and their guests and all the alumni in the salon were either eyeing me enviously for being singled out, or encouraging

me to seize the opportunity. "Sit," Fredericka ordered, forcibly pushing me into the chair. She was stronger than her scrawny body let

on. "We do this now." "All right, then," I said, looking in the mirror at the waiting clientele, the women getting their blowouts and the

others in black smocks, still waiting their turns. "If no one else minds." No one said a word. Apparently, in a room full of luminaries

and debutantes and zillionaires, I was the one person allowed to cut the line. "I'll go refill your champagne," Noelle said, squeezing

my shoulder before disappearing into the crowd. I smiled and settled back in the chair. All day Noelle had been by my side and not

once had she hit me with a derisive comment or a sneer or even a slightly condescending look. And now she was running off to get me

champagne like it was no big deal. Like she didn't covet the position I was in. Like she didn't mind doing things for me at all. Maybe

we really were best friends.

* * *

I had been inside a few Manhattan dwellings in the past two years. The first two--Thomas Pearson's apartment and the Legacy lo-

cale from last October--I didn't remember much about. I had been dizzy with grief and confusion when I'd visited the Pearson home,

and it wasn't as if his parents had given everyone the grand tour during their son's wake. All I recalled was that it seemed large and

cold and overly furnished. The Legacy penthouse was even more of a blur, considering how drunk I'd gotten and how dark it had been.

I remembered thinking it was huge, and that the view of Central Park was amazing. The third, Josh Hollis's downtown brownstone,

was nice. Cozy. Tricked out with all the modern ame

nities, but with a feeling like a real family home. And I didn't want to think about

it any further than that. Noelle's house, however, was astonishing. It was like a full-blown mansion nestled in the middle of an other-