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stark walls. It also had outdoor, rooftop space, but considering I was 0 for 2, with rooftops in the past year, that wasn't much of a sell-
ing point for me. Besides, it was November. Who wanted to mingle on a rooftop in New York in November?
"We've already been through this. There's no way we're having it there," I told her, getting up and whipping my navy blue dress out
of the closet. "Move on already." Noelle paused with her lip gloss wand on her bottom lip. She shot me an annoyed look in the mirror,
then slowly closed the tube, put it down, and turned to face me. "Okay, that's it," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. In the
mirror, her dress shifted enough so that I actually could see her butt crack. If Dash's mother was anywhere near as uptight as her rep-
utation indicated, she was just going to love that dress. "What is your problem today?"
"I don't have a problem," I said, yanking my sweater off over my head. "You're the one with the problem. We're supposed to be
making money on this thing, remember? Raising five million dollars? We can't spend five million if we want to make five million." I
shoved my jeans to the floor and stepped into the dress, zipping it up the side. Then I went over to the full-length mirror, subtly nudg-
ing Noelle aside, and started brushing through my hair like I was trying to bald myself. Sabine returned from the bathroom, looking
simply elegant in a dark gray sheath. "Everything okay?" she asked me. "Fine," I said through my teeth. "Reed, I thought I was here to
help you make the right decision. I think we can all agree I know more about these things than you do." Noelle walked over to her
dresser and selected a pair of diamond earrings from her small Herve Leger bag. "You don't have to insult her," Sabine said, irked.
"I wasn't. I was merely stating a fact," Noelle replied. Sabine squared her shoulders and turned toward Noelle. "It sounded like an
insult to me." And to me. But I didn't say so. London got up and quietly slipped from the room, while Vienna continued to battle it out
on the phone, oblivious to the rising tension. "Reed, haven't you ever heard that old adage, 'You have to spend money to make mon-
ey'?" Noelle asked, ignoring Sabine and training her attention on me. "Or is there so little cash where you come from, the phrase never
happened to trickle down?" "See! Another insult!" Sabine pointed out, lifting her hand. My face was burning at this point, but I was
used to that. I was used to Noelle's barbs. I knew they didn't really mean anything. It was just her way. Still, the fact that Sabine was
so offended on my behalf made them sting a bit more than usual. "We don't have any money to spend, Noelle," I said, dropping my
brush on the vanity with a clatter. "I say we go with the St. Sebastian. It was a beautiful space and much more traditional. The older
alumni will appreciate it." The St. Sebastian was this ancient, converted church with an arcing ceiling and beautiful stained glass win-
dows looking down from above. When the proprietor showed us photos of the many ways they had transformed the space for wed-
dings, album launches, and fund-raisers, I was sold. Plus it was reasonable. As reasonable as one could get in NYC. Noelle, of course,
thought it had been done. "Fine. We'll do it your way," Noelle said. She spritzed a cloud of perfume, then stepped through it. "But
we're going to spend more money dressing that place up than we would if we simply went with Loft Blanc."
At that moment the doorbell to our suite rang. My heart all but stopped. "I'll get it!" London shouted from her bedroom on the op-
posite side of the sunken living room. "Dash is here," Noelle said, grabbing her clutch purse and a sheer silver cardigan off the vanity.
"We can talk more about this later." Dash was here. Dash was here. Dash was here. The moment Noelle was out of the room, I dou-
