Here, no expense had been spared. The reception area that led into the various offices was calculated to create a very particular impression, one of enormous gravitas and means. At once lavish and understated, the area was carpeted in a taupe material so dense that it dragged at the feet, as if the floor had been dusted with matter from a neutron star. A pair of travertine marble columns upheld a fourteen-foot ceiling from which shafts of indirect lighting tunneled to the floor. Luminist oils hung from the walls within sight of a reception desk that was itself a work of art, a shimmering walnut crescent whose burnished surface glowed amid the blinking diodes of the telephone console. Here and there, some richly-grained leather chairs, a spectacularly tufted Chesterfield couch, a glass-and-brass coffee table with copies of Granta and the Scientific American on its surface.

Slough’s suite was locked, of course, so she put the envelope on the reception desk, and went back to her office for her purse. On the way out, she stuck her head in the cubicle across the hall.

“Hey, Bets—I’m outta here.” Bette was a first-year, too, and, like Adrienne immured in work.

With a wince and a moan, Bette got to her feet. “Jesus,” she said, “I’m seizing-up. I’ve got to remind myself to move once an hour.” She paused, and a hopeful look dawned on her. “What d’you say, Scout? Want to go out for sushi? I’m dying in here.”

Adrienne shook her head. “Got a date with my sister. Our once a month bonding session.”

Bette frowned. “How’s she doing, anyway?”

Adrienne shrugged. “Still crazy. Seeing a shrink, two or three times a week—though, if you want to know the truth, I think he’s as much a part of the problem as the solution. Anyway… she wants to talk. Says it’s importante.”

“Uhhh-oh.”

Adrienne smiled ruefully. “Tell me about it.”

Ordinarily, Adrienne walked or used public transportation—as well she might considering that she was almost seventy-grand in the hole to various institutions of higher learning. But tonight, she was so tired, and late, that she looked for a taxi. And, in this, her inexperience showed; it took almost five minutes before her tentative wave was acknowledged as a summons.

The man behind the wheel was an attacking style driver, and as they rocketed along, Adrienne squeezed her eyes shut for blocks at a time. Then they were there, and the fare was seven bucks, about twice what she’d expected. For a moment, she was inclined to argue with the Nigerian behind the wheel, but there was no point in that. The zonal system that determined cab fares in the District was inscrutable, and meant to be.

As she entered the building, the doorman recognized her—sort of. “Hey—you’re Nico’s sister, right?”

“Adrienne.” She smiled. “Will you buzz her? Let her know I’m on my way up?”

“Sure thing.” He waved her past him toward the elevators, which surprised her by wheezing open as soon as she touched the Up button. But when she got to the apartment, Nikki didn’t answer. Adrienne stood at the door, pushed the doorbell again, and held it down with her thumb, thinking Maybe she’s in the shower… Listening, she thought she could hear Jack barking, faintly, as if he was locked in the kitchen, a steady, distant cadence of woof, woof, woof. But from Nikki, there was nothing. Adrienne looked at her watch: it was almost 8:30.

In a way, she was more relieved than annoyed. She was out the cab fare that she’d spent, but she was looking forward—rainbow forward—to taking a bath and going to bed. Nikki had either forgotten their date or, what was more likely, she’d gone out for cigarettes or something, and gotten hung up.

Whatever she was doing—Adrienne gave the doorbell yet another long push—she’d given Adrienne a way out. As she walked back to the elevator, she could imagine the telephone conversation that they’d have in the morning.

But I was there—ask your doorman!

I was only gone ten minutes!

I rang and rang!

I ran out of butter!

How was I supposed to know? You didn’t leave a note.

Her sister. As much as Adrienne loved her, the truth was that she was never comfortable in her company. She was always waiting for the conversation to take a wrong turn—as it inevitably did in the course of an evening. Being with Nikki was like driving on a tire that had a flat. It worked okay for a little while, however nervous the driver might be, but then everything would start to wobble and… you had to pull off the road. Not that she wasn’t sympathetic. She was as tender and caring as she could be, and she would have been happy to humor Nikki if her sister’s delusions had taken any other form. But the sexual abuse she imagined was so bizarre and theatrical, so patently crazy, that it was impossible to play along. Especially for someone who was supposed to have been victimized by the same unspeakable acts.

If a guy in a hood had screwed me when I was five, Adrienne thought, I think I’d remember it. The elevator doors slid open, and she stepped inside, then pressed the button for the ground floor.

The subject was more or less verboten now, a thing between Nikki and her therapist. Adrienne couldn’t talk to her about it without losing her temper, a circumstance that was not lost on Nikki. According to her, Adrienne was “in denial.” She’d “repressed” it all. And as bad as that was for Adrienne (or so the argument went), it was at least as bad for Nikki. Where was her “validation”?

Gimme a break…

Then again, even this craziness wouldn’t have been so bad if Nikki had seemed—more like herself. But the Nikki who lived in the Watermill wasn’t the glam’ and funny sister that Adrienne would have done anything for. This Nikki was spacy, and getting more so, day by day.

Because of Berlin, Adrienne thought, because of what happened there.

There was a time, just after her sister graduated from high school, when everything was okay with Nikki, even though Adrienne hardly ever saw her. Against Deck and Marlena’s advice, Nikki had taken a bus to New York with the dream of becoming a model. Deck said she’d be back in a month, but to everyone’s surprise (except Nikki’s own), she was successful almost immediately. Within a year of turning nineteen, she had a contract with the Marrakesh Agency and a five-room apartment in Soho. She sent postcards to Adrienne from places like Jamaica, and called every week, where the sound of her voice—Hey, A! riding on a quiet giggle—made her little sister’s day.

It seemed to Adrienne, then, that Nikki was living the good life, and so she was, but it was a fast life, too. Returning from a shoot in the Cayman Islands, her bags were searched at JFK. A couple of Thai sticks tumbled out, and that was that: two hundred hours of community service, a thousand-dollar fine and no more work with Marrakesh.

Nikki could have stuck it out, of course, but she didn’t. She hit the road and kept on going, saying she was “on an adventure.” Adrienne got postcards and calls from just about everywhere. In fact, the first thing she asked whenever her sister called was, “Where are you?” She used to pull out the Atlas to see where she was and read up about it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, imagining Austin, Vancouver, and Telluride. Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Berlin.

Then—nothing. Adrienne was a sophomore at the University of Delaware when her sister stopped writing and calling. Deck and Marlena did their best to find her, but there wasn’t much they could do, really. They made calls, placed ads, and hired a private investigator—all to no avail. Then Marlena died. Adrienne went to law school, and not long after, Deck, too, passed away. For the first time, Adrienne was truly alone in the world.