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Chapter One

Jeffrey Blaine gave himself a moment to take it all in. His eyes ran quickly from the bar on his right to the tables that glowed with gold and russet wildflowers all the way to the bandstand at the far end of the room. People were still coming in, the men brushing snow from their shoulders, the women carefully lifting the plastic covers they had put over their hair, the girls gloriously shaking their heads, letting the melting droplets spray anyone lucky enough to be around.

In a minute he would check outside, to make sure the streets were being kept clear. Now he just wanted to take stock.

Judge Borklund and his wife found Jessica and kissed her, offering their congratulations. She glowed in their admiration. Her closest friends, Renée and Amy and Grace, hovered by her bare, smooth shoulder, smiling restlessly, the bored glow of perfect and beautiful girls when a party hasn't yet come alive. In a minute the greetings will be over and the guest of honor won't have to hear again how radiant she is and how splendid the room looks and how utterly unbelievable it is that anyone could actually have her birthday party at a restaurant like Stasny's (as though there were a restaurant like Stasny's), and Does she know bow lucky she is? and Nonsense, dear, she deserves every bit of it, and How did your father ever manage to get this place?

The band would be playing in a few minutes. Their instruments were already on the bandstand, which had been erected for the occasion at the side of the room nearest the kitchen. The musicians weren't in sight, though. They came out, set up, and then withdrew back to the kitchen.

Jeffrey watched his daughter as she luxuriated in the certainty of being, for this moment at least, the center of the known universe. Outside, he knew, the photographers who were kept penned behind police barricades on the other side of the street, who were limited to long-lens shots of Jeffrey Blaine's guests, or Jessica Blaine's guests, as they arrived, would have killed for a picture of the radiant Jessica being kissed by the Jacob Krentses, shaking the hands of the Willard Botins, bending her long Botticelli neck to listen to a whispered confidence from Itzhak Perlman.

A waiter slid up beside Jeffrey with a tray of the braised stuffed mushrooms that were one of Stasny's more celebrated hors d'oeuvres. Jeffrey waved the man off and walked briskly toward the back of the room. He was captured on the way by Ed Wuorinen but hesitated just long enough for a handshake from Ed and a kiss from Ed's wife Thelma. "I'll be right back," he said, apologizing for running off. As he turned to go, his hand was caught by Wilton Maser, who said, "I won't take your time, you must have a million things to do. Your daughter's beautiful, everything's beautiful," and Jeffrey said, "Wilton, since when do you know anything about what's beautiful?" They both laughed.

Jeffrey threaded his way through the busy kitchen toward the office. He had told the band he would want to talk to them before they started, and so they were waiting for him, the four of them, sprawled across the available space in Erill Stasny's private office as though they imagined themselves to be common fixtures one would find in any well-run kitchen. Their names were Johnny Balls, Ted Diddle, Bo Job, and Jake August. They called themselves Falling Rock Zone, and the one named Johnny Balls, who identified himself as the lead singer, had a tattoo of a penis that ran the length of his upper arm. It seemed to Jeffrey that they were nowhere near as young as they wanted to appear. He guessed that Jake August, who said he was the bassist, was at least thirty if not up into his thirties, and the others weren't much younger. A jumble of facial hardware and a lot of streaky black makeup that made them look like demented raccoons were all apparently designed to put them into a much younger bracket.

"You know there's no amplification," Jeffrey reminded them.

"Right, right," Johnny Balls agreed.

"I wanted to ask you about your lyrics."

"Like what about them?"

"Well" -- Jeffrey stumbled, not quite sure how to pose the question -- "what about obscenity?"

"Some."

"Some?"

"You got words you don't want us to say? How about cunt? We won't say cunt. Okay, guys, no cunt."

The others all agreed, each of them repeating "No cunt" like a mantra.

"That isn't exactly what I meant," Jeffrey said.

Johnny Balls raised an eyebrow, waiting. Two rings and a stud raised with it.

"I was more concerned with violence," Jeffrey said.

"For or against?"

Now it was Jeffrey's turn not to answer.

"Sorry, man, just jakin'," the singer said. "You mean like kill pigs and knife the bitch, that kind of shit. That's rap. We don't do rap."

"What do you do?"

"You won't like it," Johnny Balls said, with the first sign of candor he had displayed so far. "But the kids will. That's the point, right?"

"Part of the point."

"Right. You don't want to be getting a lot of shit from a lot of people."

"Now you've got it."

"But it's got to be real, right? 'Cause we can do wedding shit if you want. 'Hava Nagilah.' 'September Song.' Which sucks. You don't want that."

"Right," Jeffrey agreed. "It's got to be real."

Phyllis was talking to Everett Layne, the only surviving direct descendant of either Jacob Layne or Ezra Vaughan Bentley, the long dead founders of Layne Bentley, the investment firm in which her husband was now a partner. Jeffrey came up behind her and slipped his arm...