“What a wonderful thing to do. Not everyone would have taken that on. You must have been very young.” She hardly looked thirty now, but they knew her age from her credentials on her website.

“I was very young.” Annie smiled at them. “We all grew up together, and it’s been a great blessing for me. I’m very proud of them.” They chatted for a few more minutes, and then the Ebersohls got in their car and drove away. Harry was still looking worried, but Annie had promised him the work would come in at the price she’d quoted them, and Alicia was talking excitedly about the grand staircase when they left.

Annie glanced at her watch as she hailed a cab. She had five minutes to get to Seventy-ninth and Fifth to meet with a new client. Jim Watson had just bought a co-op and didn’t know exactly what he wanted. All he knew was that he wanted it to be fabulous, and he wanted Annie to make magic with it. She was meeting with him to give him some ideas. Jim was recently divorced and wanted a fantastic bachelor pad. It was a shift of mental gears as she rode uptown, and just before she got there, her cell phone rang. It was Liz. She sounded nervous and rushed. She always was. She had recently become the jewelry editor at Vogue, and she had just gotten back from Milan. She had come home to be with Annie and her siblings for Thanksgiving. It was a sacred date for all four of them. Annie was going to cook the turkey as she did every year.

“How was Milan?” Annie asked her, happy to hear her voice. She worried about her. Liz worked so hard, and she was always so stressed. She never had time to eat and had been much too thin for the past three years. It was the look everyone aspired to at Vogue.