“It’s a little late to be saying that now,” he grumbled as they went back downstairs and headed toward the front door. When they opened it, they stepped out into an icy blast, and Annie pulled the fur hood up over her blond hair. Both Ebersohls had already commented to each other how pretty she was, and that she apparently was good at what she did too, from everything they’d heard.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Annie said easily, as she walked them to their car with the plans under her arm.

“Our kids are coming home tonight.” Alicia smiled. Annie knew that both of them were in college, one at Princeton, and the other one at Dartmouth, a girl and a boy.

“So are mine.” Annie smiled happily. She couldn’t wait. All three had promised to stay with her over Thanksgiving, as they always did. Her favorite times were when they came home.

“I didn’t know you had children.” Alicia looked surprised as Annie nodded. She never talked about her personal life, just the job. She was the consummate professional in every way, which was why they had hired her. The information that she had children startled both Ebersohls.

“I have three. Actually, they’re my nieces and nephew. My sister died in an accident sixteen years ago, and I inherited her kids. They’re grown up now. The oldest is an editor at Vogue, my nephew is in his second year at law school, and the youngest is in college. I miss them like crazy, so it’s a treat for me when they come home.” Annie was smiling as she said it, and the Ebersohls looked amazed.

“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.

“It was crazy but fun. I ran around for four days. We spent the weekend in Venice, which is dismal in the winter. And I spent a day in Paris on the way back. I picked out some great pieces for the shoot I’m doing next week.” If possible, she worked even harder than Annie, or just as hard. “Can I bring Jean-Louis tomorrow?” she asked Annie, and knew she would say yes. The question was just a formality, out of respect. Annie had welcomed their friends and significant others for all the years they’d lived together and since. “I didn’t know he was coming. He just flew in today. He has a shoot here this weekend.” They had met while working together in Paris, and Jean-Louis kept a loft in New York for his frequent visits. He was a successful photographer and almost identical to all the men Lizzie had had in her life. They were either photographers or male models, always handsome, never too deep, and Liz never got too attached. Annie often wondered if losing her parents had made Liz gun-shy about getting too close to anyone. Her romances never lasted long. She was surprised that Jean-Louis had been around for a while. Lizzie had been going out with him for six months.

“Of course you can bring him.” Annie had only met him once. He seemed nice enough, but she hadn’t been too impressed.

“What time should we come?”

“Same as every year. Come at noon, lunch at one. Or you can come home tonight if you want. Ted and Katie are spending the weekend.”

“I promised Jean-Louis I’d stay with him,” Liz said, sounding apologetic. “I’m going to help him with his shoot, unofficially. I’m pulling some jewelry for him today.”

“He’s a lucky guy,” Annie said, and meant it, and not just because Liz was helping him with his work. Liz always gave better than she got. The men she got involved with were always selfish and spoiled, and Annie worried that she sold herself short. She was a beautiful, talented, intelligent young woman. It shocked Annie sometimes when she realized that at twenty-eight, Liz was two years older than she had been when she inherited all of them. And in some ways Liz seemed so young. And she never seemed to think about marriage or settling down. Annie realized that she hadn’t set them much of an example on that score, since all she did herself was work, and take care of them when they were young. They had rarely if ever seen her with a date. She had kept the few men in her life well away from them, and there hadn’t been many anyway, and none she had cared about seriously. The last man she had been crazy about had been Seth, sixteen years before. She had run into him once a few years ago—he was married, lived in Connecticut, and had four kids. He had tried to explain to her how bad he felt that he hadn’t stepped up to the plate for her when her sister died, and she had laughed and brushed it off and told him she was fine. But it had given her a little flutter to see him. He was as handsome as he’d been before, and she had told Whitney about it. It all seemed like ancient history now.

Liz was in the process of apologizing to Annie that Jean-Louis hadn’t brought decent clothes with him, since he’d be working, and Annie assured her it didn’t matter. None of the men in Liz’s life ever owned a suit. Whether successful photographers or famous models, they always showed up in ragged clothes, with long hair and beards. It was the look she seemed to like, or the one most prevalent in her milieu. Annie had grown used to it over the years, although she would have loved to see her with a decently dressed guy with a haircut, just once.

In contrast, Liz was always stylish beyond belief and gave Annie fashion tips and even occasionally brought her clothes. It was always fun to see what Liz would wear. Annie’s style was simpler and more practical than hers. She felt too old now for wild clothes, and she had to wear things she could get around her job sites in without freezing or falling on her face in stiletto heels. Liz was tall, like her late mother and her aunt, and never wore anything less than six-inch heels. They were considered running shoes at the magazines where she had worked.

“See you tomorrow,” Lizzie said, as Annie arrived at the address on Fifth Avenue and took the elevator up to the top floor where Jim Watson was waiting for her, looking slightly dazed. He was suddenly terrified that the place was too big for him, and he said he had no idea how to decorate it without his ex-wife’s help. Annie assured him she would take care of everything for him, and she took some sketches out of her briefcase, and as he looked at them, he smiled. Annie had imagined the perfect bachelor pad for him, even before he knew what he wanted himself. He was thrilled. And she walked through each room describing it to him, and bringing her ideas to life.

“You’re amazing!” he said happily, and unlike Harry Ebersohl, he wasn’t worried about the cost. He just wanted something that would impress his friends and the women he wanted to date. And better than that, Annie was going to give him a home. She promised him a delivery date of nine months. And they stood on the terrace together looking out at Central Park as it started to snow.

He was forty-five years old, and one of the richest men in New York. He was looking at Annie with interest, as she talked to him about the apartment. She was completely oblivious to the way he was looking at her. Any other single woman her age would have been doing her best to charm him, but she was always professional with her clients. All he was to her was a job. It made no difference to her whatsoever that he had a yacht in St. Barts and his own plane. She was interested in the apartment, not the man. Annie was friendly but totally businesslike in her manner. He suspected that she had a husband or boyfriend, but he didn’t dare ask.

Annie left an hour after she arrived. She promised to send him plans within two weeks and wished him a happy Thanksgiving. She was totally clear on what he wanted and what she was going to do for him. He told her he was leaving for Aspen that night, to spend the holiday with friends. And he stood at the window, watching the snow fall on Central Park after she left.

The apartment was silent and empty when Annie got home, just as it was every night. It was so different now than when the children still lived there. There were none of Kate’s clothes on the floor, strewn around the living room. Ted’s TV wasn’t on. Liz wasn’t dashing in and out, brandishing a curling iron, late for whatever she was doing, with no time to eat. The fridge wasn’t full. Kate’s briefly vegan meals weren’t left all over the sink. The music wasn’t on. Their friends weren’t there. The phone didn’t ring. The house was empty, neat, and clean, and Annie still wasn’t used to it, even three years after Kate had left for college. Annie suspected that it was a void she would never be able to fill. Her sister had given her the greatest gift in life, and time had slowly taken it from her. She knew that it was right for them to grow up and leave, but she hated it anyway, and nothing made her happier than when they came home.

She went out to the kitchen and started organizing things for the next day. She had just stacked the good plates on the kitchen counter, getting ready to set the table, when she heard the front door slam and what sounded like a load of bricks being dumped in her front hall. She gave a start at the wall-shuddering sound and stuck her head out the kitchen door, as Kate dumped her backpack on the floor where her books lay. She had an enormous artist’s portfolio in one hand and stood grinning at Annie in a black miniskirt, a black hooded sweatshirt with a shocking pink skull on it, and silver combat boots that Annie knew she had found at a garage sale somewhere. She was wearing black-and white-striped tights that made her look like a punk Raggedy Ann, and her short jet-black hair stood up all over her head. What saved the whole look was her exquisite face. She came bounding across the living room and threw her arms around Annie’s neck. The two women hugged as Annie beamed. This was what she had lived for, for sixteen years.

“Hi, Annie,” Kate said happily, then planted a kiss on her cheek and bounded toward the fridge. The look of bliss on her aunt’s face said it all.

“Am I happy to see you! Are you vegan this week?” Annie teased her.

“No, I gave it up. I missed meat too much.” She helped herself to a banana, sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, and smiled lovingly at her aunt. “Where’s everyone?” she asked as she peeled the banana and stuffed a chunk of it into her mouth. The way she did it made her look about five years old instead of twenty-one.

“Ted should be here any minute. And Lizzie is coming tomorrow. She’s bringing Jean-Louis.” Katie looked unimpressed, went to get a CD out of her backpack, and put it in the machine that had been silent since the last time she’d been there. It was one by the Killers, which sounded like the rest of her music to Annie.

“I got a new tattoo, wanna see?” she asked proudly as Annie groaned.

“Can I still ground you at twenty-one?” Annie asked as Katie pulled up her sleeve to show off a colored Tweety Bird on her forearm. “You should get one too,” Kate teased her. She knew how much her aunt hated them. “I designed it myself. I did some designs for the tattoo parlor, and they gave me this one for free.”

“I’d have paid you double not to do it. How are you going to feel about having Tweety Bird on your arm when you’re fifty?”