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take her hands and kiss her on both cheeks. Her wrists were encircled in diamond bracelets; there were diamond earclips on her ears. Like so many New York women, Mimi had aged hardly a bit in the ten years or more that Janey had known her, and Janey wondered what she’d had done.
    “What beautiful bracelets,” Janey remarked.
    “Oh darling, they’re nothing, ” Mimi said.
    “Don’t you love the way rich people always act like a million dollars is nothing?” Rupert said.
    “Darling, you know Janey Wilcox, don’t you?” Mimi asked.
    “No, but I think I’d better,” Rupert said. There are two different types of actors, Janey thought—those who aren’t anything like their characters and those who are exactly like them, and Rupert Jackson was definitely the latter. He was as handsome in person as he was in his movies; he had the same crinkly smile and that forelock of brown hair that flopped over his forehead, and he said, “I’ve seen your photograph everywhere, and I’ve always wondered what that girl would be like in real life.
    You must promise to discuss your underwear with me later.” Janey laughed out loud, and Mimi said playfully, “Now Rupert, Janey is the most beautiful woman at the party, but you’re practically engaged, and besides, I’ve already picked out someone else for her.”
    “I’m terribly hurt,” Rupert said. “Who is this lucky man?”
    “Selden Rose,” Mimi said. “The new head of MovieTime. He just arrived by helicopter . . . He got stuck on the Long Island Expressway and we had to send the helicopter to rescue him.”
    “Really? How extraordinary. What sort of man has to be rescued from the Long Island Expressway?” Rupert asked, and with an expression of mock horror on his face, he turned to Janey and winked. Janey had to agree with him—she had yet to meet this Selden Rose, but already he didn’t sound promising.
    “Don’t listen to a word he says,” Mimi said. “Selden’s an old friend of George’s—but don’t worry, he’s not nearly as dull. I can never figure out exactly what George does, you see, other than the fact that he seems to own everything.” Janey and Rupert laughed dutifully, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Comstock Dibble enter the house with his fiancée, Mauve Binchely. This was good—Comstock wouldn’t dare misbehave toward her in front of Mimi. But Mimi was facing away from him and had yet to note his appearance.
    “Sometimes I tell George that he owns me, ” Mimi continued gaily, “and he loves 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 23
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    it.” She had a way of making everything sound like a secret, and leaning toward Janey and touching her arm, she said, “Don’t ever get married, Janey, or at least not before you absolutely have to. It’s too boring. But Selden is different—he’s supposed to be brilliant—in any case, I’ve heard he actually reads books. George doesn’t read a thing, of course, unless it has dollar signs on it. I think he was a literature major at Harvard.”
    Janey could feel Comstock’s eyes boring into her back. Tilting her head to the side and emitting a tinkling peal of laughter—a gesture she had copied from Mimi years ago—she said, “George?”
    “Oh, no, Selden, ” Mimi said. “George did go to Harvard, but sometimes I swear you would never know it . . . just look at him!” She indicated an unremarkable man of medium height, who was holding a lit cigar in one hand while furtively shoving a shrimp cocktail into his mouth with the other. “George!” Mimi called to him from across the room. George looked up guiltily, and taking the proffered napkin from the uniformed waitress who was holding a tray, wiped his mouth and strolled over.
    Seeing him dressed in cream-colored trousers and a navy blue blazer with gold buttons, Janey had to agree that what everybody said about him was true: His appearance was so dull and ordinary that you wondered if you would recognize