Amy didn’t reply. She remembered that about Ian and Natalie – they never reacted to something they didn’t want to acknowledge. They just pretended the person hadn’t said it at all. She handed the saleswoman a credit card. “Why don’t you take this? We don’t want to waste time. Just set up an account.”

The saleswoman bit her lip. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said curtly. When she returned, she must have checked out the credit limit of the card, because she was wearing a wide smile.

“Please follow me,” she said graciously. “My name is Greta.”

Greta led them into a private room with plush sofas and a wall of mirrors. An empty rack lined the other wall. She disappeared again, then reappeared with an armload of clothes. Amy gulped. So this was how rich people shopped. They didn’t even have to lift a hanger. They just had things brought to them.

For the next half hour, Amy and Dan almost drowned in silks, featherweight cashmeres, and supple leather shoes. Amy was overwhelmed, but she knew she needed to be efficient. Within thirty minutes they walked out of the store in new, impeccably tailored cashmere jackets, Dan in black and Amy in camel. Underneath she wore a green dress with heeled boots. Dan balked at the ties but chose a black sweater that Amy deemed Ian-worthy. The last thing Amy asked of Greta, now their best friend, was to call up a private car and driver.

“Do you know how much this purse cost?” she whispered to Dan as they sat in the backseat on the way to the auction house. She pointed to the large leather satchel on the floor. “More than a year at a fancy private school!”

“‘Everyone needs a statement bag,’” Dan said, mimicking the saleswoman’s accent.

Amy directed the driver to pull the limo up in front of the auction house. It was a white building that looked like a large manor house.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t get any images of the interior,” Dan said.

The people going inside the heavy brass doors looked so … important. So self-assured.