“Really? Where is it?”

“You’ll see. It’s in the car. I thought we could take it back to your place so you can try it on.”

“Oh,” Jess said cheerfully, which meant, “I don’t mind that you got me clothes again.”

“You wanted something else,” Emily fretted.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“No! Nothing specific. Maybe a horse. Or a houseboat. That would be nice. And a photographic memory for verb tables.”

“Why are you taking Latin, anyway?”

“Language requirement,” Jess said.

“But you know French.”

“I don’t really know French, and I need an ancient language too.”

Emily shook her head. “That program seems like such a long haul.”

“Compared to going public after two and a half years? It’s true.”

The sisters’ voices were almost identical, laughing mezzos tuned in childhood to the same pitch and timbre. To the ear, they were twins; to the eye, nothing alike. Emily was tall and slender with her hair cropped short. She wore a pinstriped shirt, elegant slacks, tiny, expensive glasses. She was an MBA, not a programmer, and it showed. Magnified by her glasses, her hazel eyes were clever, guarded, and also extremely beautiful. Her features were delicate, her fingers long and tapered. She scarcely allowed her back to touch her chair, while Jess curled up with her legs tucked under her. Jess was small and whimsical. Her face and mouth were wider than Emily’s, her cheeks rounder, her eyes greener and more generous. She had more of the sun and sea in her, more freckles, more gold in her brown hair. She would smile at anyone, and laugh and joke and sing. She wore jeans and sweaters from Mars Mercantile, and her hair … who knew when she’d cut it last? She just pushed the long curls off her face.

Jess leaned forward, elbow on the table, and rested her head on her hand. “So, Emily,” she said. “What’s it like being rich?”