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wise unassuming block.
From the outside it looked like a posh apartment building with its grand staircase and big, red door complete with a gold knocker. It
looked large enough to be divided into eight or ten units. But it wasn't. It was one unit. One, huge, gorgeous, pristine, divine unit.
Sabine and I must have looked like awed tourists at Versailles as Noelle led us through the foyer toward the back of the house and
the elevator. We all shed our coats as we went, and handed them to one of three waiting maids, who followed after us silently. I almost
tripped peeking into the rooms that lined the long entryway--a library with more books than the Croton library could ever hope to
own, a conservatory with a grand piano, a sitting room like something out of an Austen novel. This place was sick.
But no one else seemed to notice. Not even Constance. Which made me wonder what their houses were like. Noelle's room, where
we would all be staying that night, was situated on the fourth of five floors. In fact, her room was the fourth floor. It was more of a
suite, with an enormous bedroom, a sitting room with a TV the size of a movie screen, a walk-in closet with rows and rows of clothes,
and a pink-marble bathroom I could have gotten lost in. It also had a mini kitchen stocked with snacks and a state-of-the art espresso
machine, and its own outdoor patio overlooking the park. My whole family could have lived in Noelle's suite comfortably.
"All right, make yourselves pretty!" Noelle announced, tossing her bag and dress on her four-poster bed. "Use whatever you need.
Except the stuff in my special cosmetics cabinet. Oh, but I had a lock put on that anyway. Since I don't trust any of you," she joked.
Everyone laughed and went about unpacking their things. We didn't have much time before the start of the dinner and silent auction,
so we dressed quickly, all sixteen of us in the same room--zipping each other's dresses, clasping necklaces, buckling straps on shoes.
As soon as everyone was clothed, there was a race for the bathroom and dressing rooms with their well-lit mirrors. I stayed behind
with Noelle. My makeup had already been done by a professional.
"Noelle, this place is amazing," I said, walking over to the glass sliders that led to the patio. The short hem of my gold dress
skimmed my thighs and the smooth fabric made me feel decadent. "Not what I would have imagined, though." "No?" she asked, fas-
tening a sparking sapphire necklace around her neck as she joined me. "Why not?" "Because it's not a huge mess," I replied with a
smirk. She smiled in return. "I have my own staff, Reed. Believe me, this place did not look like this when last I left." She turned to an
oak cabinet and slid open the doors. "Music?" Inside was a sleek stereo system surrounded by shelves and shelves of CDs and old-
school records. An iPod was hooked up to the system, but there was also a CD player and a record player standing by. "Wow. I had no
idea you were so into music," I said, running my fingers along the spines of the albums. A lot of my dad's favorite classics were repre-
sented. Everything from the Beatles to the Doors to the Clash to Us and hundreds of bands in between. "It's my obsession," Noelle
said, shrugging. She selected a CD and popped it in. "Concerts are my anti-drug," she said with a wry smile. As music poured through
speakers in every corner and Noelle disappeared into her closet for shoes, I realized there was a lot I didn't know about her. Did she
like to read? If so, what? What did she like to watch on that huge TV screen of hers? And I knew she liked to travel, but where? What
did she and Dash do together for fun? Maybe we weren't as good friends as I had started to believe we were. But I could remedy that.
