At a corner table, in an ugly web of cables laid across the floor, two men in blue jeans and workshirts were aiming a portable searchlight and a shoulder-carried minicam at a fat man and a garishly overmadeup woman. The man and woman wore full evening dress; a heavy diamond-and-gold necklace lay across the woman’s half-exposed bosom, and heavy emeralds dangled from her ears. A third man in jeans was holding a microphone over the vichyssoise, catching their conversation.

“What in the world is that?” Babe asked.

“They’re probably filming a segment of Life-Styles of the Rich and Famous,” Ash said.

“During lunch? Don’t the customers object?”

“Object?” A bubble of laughter broke from Ash’s throat. “Half the people here would kill to get on that show.”

Babe was puzzled, and Ash seemed amused by the look on her face.

“This is what’s in,” Ash said, “so get used to it: Shrill Is Beautiful.”

Ash explained that the maître d’ seated all the right people in the front room; climbers and nonentities were put in the rear dining room, affectionately dubbed Managua by those who didn’t have to sit there.

“Some have offered bribes of a thousand dollars to be seated in front. Over there by the pillar is the royal box. That’s where Nancy sits when she’s in town. And Jackie, and Liz.”

The waiter brought champagne. A moment later he brought another Manhattan that Babe had not seen Ash order. Ash didn’t seem to notice it wasn’t the same drink she had just put down.

“To us.”

Ash lifted her champagne glass to Babe’s. They clinked.

They began laughing and talking about things, remembering things, wandering down familiar paths.

“Lasagna of shrimp, scallops, and spinach in saffron sauce?” Ash peeped at Babe over the top of her menu.

“I think cold poached salmon for me,” Babe said.

Fifty-five minutes later a tall handsome woman stopped at their table. “Is everything satisfactory?” She had deep-set eyes and black curly hair that came to her shoulders.

Ash, poking dubiously at her shrimp, raised a glance at the newcomer and smiled. “Faith—look who I’ve brought you.”

The woman stood there in her dove gray crepe de chine dress looking at Babe. Expression left her eyes and was replaced with guardedness.

“Babe,” Ash said, “it’s dear old Mrs. Banks.”

For a moment Babe’s breath stuck in her throat. She told herself it couldn’t be: the woman was too poised, authority emanated from her like a perfume, Mrs. Banks would be in her sixties by now. But then she saw the faint erasures on the face, the surgical blankness around the eyes and chin and forehead. She realized this ice statue was her old friend and servant.

“Sit with us,” Ash pleaded. “Do have a glass of champagne. This is auld lang syne.”

Mrs. Banks gave just a nod of her head. The deep red ruby on her brooch was the size of an acorn. She pulled out a chair and sat and Ash poured an inch of champagne into a water glass and pushed it toward her.

“You’re looking well, Mrs. Devens.” The tone of Mrs. Banks’s words fell in an emotional dead center, without a trace of remembering or affection.

“You have a lovely restaurant,” Babe said.

“God’s been good to me. So have the columnists. But then, that’s what I pay a press agent for.”

“Could we meet sometime?” Babe said. “Have tea and talk?”

Mrs. Banks fixed her with a stare. “I don’t talk about the past.”

“It’s true,” Ash said. “A publisher offered Faith a fortune to do the book on you and she turned him down.”

“Enjoy your meals,” Mrs. Banks said.

And without touching her champagne she had gone on to another table.

“Isn’t it too divinely much?” Ash said. “Mousy old Mrs. Banks! Everyone calls her Faith now and she gets interviewed and invited everywhere.”

Babe watched her former servant greeting patrons, moving through the tables in a pattern that was planned and intricate and swift. She was so caught up in the transformation of Mrs. Banks that she didn’t pay attention to the relaxed, good-looking, vaguely aristocratic man who had approached the table. He tapped Ash on the shoulder.

Ash turned, saw him, and whooped. “Dobbsie, you devil, where have you been?”

She offered her face and he kissed her.

“I’ve been holding poor dear Jeannie Astor’s hand. Her poodle died.”

“Well, tell her not to overeat. She always stuffs when she’s depressed. Dobbsie, this is Babe Vanderwalk. Whoops, Babe Devens. She knows all my secrets, so you can be as dreadful as you normally are.”

Dobbsie’s dark eyes met Babe’s. “How do you do?”

Babe held out her hand. “How do you do?”

He took the hand lightly. “Gordon Dobbs. Better known as Dobbsie.”

“Dobbsie and I go way back,” Ash said. “It was love at first sight.” She tapped an empty chair. “Sit,” she commanded.

Dobbsie drew out the chair and sat, taking a moment to adjust the crease in his gray cotton slacks. He looked at Babe, his gaze interested and curious, and he smiled a half smile. She saw that his receding brown hair was going gray at the temples.

“Babe is my absolutely oldest chum in the world,” Ash said.

“And the two of you were hellraisers at Miss Spence’s,” Dobbsie said, “smoking cigarettes in the back of study hall.”

“You only know that because I told you,” Ash said. “Tell him about the school uniforms we had to wear, Babe. Tell him.”

“They were gray flannel skirts,” Babe said. “With green woolen blazers.”

“Not the skirts,” Ash said, “tell Dobbsie about the socks.”

“They were gray too,” Babe said.

“Scottish wool from Abercrombie’s,” Ash said. “Our family chauffeurs took turns driving us to school together—and in the back seat of the limo we’d scrunch down—”

“And undress,” Dobbsie said.

“And exchange left socks,” Ash said. “And on laundry day my fraulein and Babe’s mademoiselle went out of their respective skulls trying to solve the mystery of the socks that wouldn’t pair off!”

“You two were quite the lost generation,” Dobbsie said.

“Well, we were almost not confirmed,” Ash said. “Really. We used my father’s CBS passes to get into Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan show and we passed Elvis’s autograph around confirmation class.”

“And Reverend Endicott Lewes phoned our mothers,” Babe said.

Ash imitated Lucia. “‘Where did you get hold of such a terrible thing?’”

“I don’t see that Elvis was so terrible,” Dobbsie said.

“At the time he was considered a threat to the morals of the republic.” Ash giggled. “He was certainly a threat to mine.”

“Come on, you were only twelve,” Dobbsie said.

“I’d already had the curse.”

“Excuse me.”

“Mr. Lewes didn’t think we were ready to be confirmed into the Episcopal Church,” Babe said.

“Our mothers were terrified we’d have to become Methodists,” Ash said.

“You jest,” Dobbsie said.

“Our fathers had a talk with the bishop,” Ash said. “It cost an entire stained glass window in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine to smooth the whole thing over.”

“And for six months,” Dobbsie said, “you both were punished by not being allowed to have dessert at Sunday supper at the Cosmopolitan Club.”

“How did you know?” Ash cried.

“I have sources,” Dobbsie said.

“Oh, I told you, I know I told you, you wrote it all down the way you’re writing it all down now.”

Babe observed Dobbsie’s hand, half-hidden by the tablecloth, writing on a small notepad on his lap.

“Babe, tell Dobbsie about sneaking off to Arthur Murray’s to learn the twist.”

“We sneaked off to Arthur Murray’s to—”

“And at my big sister Dina’s coming-out, Lancelot and Doonie Farquharson were so impressed with our wild dancing that they took us to the penthouse suite and ordered up martinis from the King Cole Room. And when we got back to the party Lester Lanin was playing “Good Night, Ladies” and everyone was convinced we’d gone all the way with the Farquharson boys right there in the Saint Regis!”