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lovely.”
    And for once Penny actually believed she might.
    In the next instant, his hand lashed out. As if to slap her face, he leaned forward, swinging his arm so fast it blurred. She winced.
    When she opened her eyes, his fist filled her vision, huge, hanging there, his knuckles so close they almost touched the tip of her nose.
    “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said, “but I think I caught him.” Opening his fingers, Corny Maxwell showed her the crushed little corpse of a black housefly.
    The next morning, Penny was standing outside the locked doors of Bonwit Teller for a half hour before they opened. She couldn’t afford even a day’s credit card interest on what the evening gown had cost. Even if this made her late for work, she had to return the dress right away.
    The fairy tales never showed Cinderella getting up at dawn to return her gown and her shoes, terrified that some wary sales-clerkwould notice a flaw and refuse to credit her account with a full refund.
    Despite the extraordinary food and wine, dinner had been less than magical. The stares had never let up. It was impossible to relax and have fun in a fishbowl. Maxwell wasn’t the problem. He’d been attentive, almost too attentive, hanging on her every word. Several times, he’d even opened his notebook and written a few words in a quick, spidery shorthand, as if he were taking dictation. It felt less like a romantic tryst than a pleasant job interview. He’d volunteered almost no information about himself, nothing she didn’t already know from gossip columns. In her nervousness, Penny had chattered without taking a breath. Desperate to fill any possible silence, she’d told him about her parents, Myrtle and Arthur, and their suburban life. She’d reminisced about the long hours in law school. She’d rambled on about the love of her life, her Scotch terrier, Dimples, and how he’d died the year previous.
    Throughout her monologue, Maxwell had smiled calmly. Thank goodness the waiters had occasionally arrived, giving her a moment to shut up and catch her breath.
    “If madam will allow…,” a waiter said with a white-gloved flourish of his hand, “the kobashira sushi is a house specialty.”
    Penny smiled winningly. “That sounds delish.”
    Max shot her a questioning look. “You do know that’s raw aoyagi scallops, don’t you?”
    She didn’t. In fact, Maxwell might well have just saved her life. Unknown to him she had a severe shellfish allergy. One succulent bite and she would’ve slumped to the floor, swollen and lifeless. Penny’s alarm must’ve shown on her face, because he’d immediately revised her order, saying, “The lady will have the Chicken Divan.”
    Thank God that someone was paying attention. Her runaway mouth resumed its nervous monologue.
    She knew she sounded pathetic. Still, Penny couldn’t stop herself. No one here had ever expressed any interest in her, not in New York City. She’d gone from being her parents’ little miracle to being miserable and invisible. Most nights she’d force herself to walk around the streets until the neighborhood fell quiet and she felt exhausted enough to go to bed. She’d wander around the Upper East Side, alone except for the doormen who stood behind glass in the elegant lobby of each building and watched her pass. These stately town houses and sumptuous co-op apartments, these were what everyone aspired to. In some way she was trying to train herself to want them also. The truth was: She didn’t. Penny only pretended to want the jewelry in the windows at Cartier and the furs at Bloomingdale’s.
    She didn’t want merely the trappings of success. Penny craved actual power. Even to her own ears she sounded
crazy
ambitious.
    Above all, Penny didn’t want what other women professed to want. They seemed possessed, the way they swarmed to the same mundane things. And that worried her; she felt shut out of some hive. If she didn’t crave the correct movie heartthrobs and