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But Catherine held firm. That was not what she wanted.
    Her family did not attended her graduation ceremony because they were embarrassed by her. They sent no graduation present. Marjorie called to tell Catherine that as soon as she moved out from her dorm, she was to stop by the Park Avenue apartment to collect her belongings.
    “Do you know where you’ll be living?” Marjorie asked.
    “Not yet,” Catherine said.
    “You are an obstinate little fool,” Marjorie told her.
    “I know,” Catherine agreed.
    As she packed in her dorm room, she repeated her grandmother’s words like a charm. “It will come to you.”
    Leslie’s father flew all the way from Japan to watch his only child graduate. Afterward he drove Leslie and Catherine into New York, then took them for a celebratory dinner at the Rainbow Room. An odd, remote, utterly civilized man, Mr. Dunham remained a puzzle to Catherine. She’d met him many times. He was polite, but vague. “He’s always off in the Orient, one way or another,” Leslie said of him fondly, and it was true that when he wasn’t actually in the East on his extended buying trips, he was remembering the Orient or planning his next trip there. But at their graduation dinner Mr. Dunham urged the girls to order whatever they wanted and made an obvious effort to take part in their conversation, for the one and only thing he loved more than the Orient was his daughter.
    “Daddy,” Leslie said over their baked Alaska, “Catherine’s parents have sort of kicked her out since she refuses to go to college. So! I thought since I’m going to be in Paris for a few years, Catherine should stay at our place.”
    Catherine was so surprised, she nearly dropped her fork. Leslie hadn’t said a word about this to her.
    Mr. Dunham took a sip of wine. “Leslie, dear, I’m not sure—”
    “It would actually be a great help to us, Dad!” Leslie interrupted her father in her enthusiasm. “You know our housekeeper wants to visit her son in Florida when we’re not there, and you’ve said you don’t like leaving the apartment empty. You’re always traveling. I’ll be in Paris. It makes perfect sense for Catherine to live in my rooms!”
    Mr. Dunham smiled at his daughter. “Well …”
    “Come on, Dad!” Leslie cajoled, stroking his hand. “Please?”
    “All right. Yes. Of course. Catherine, please feel free to live at our place.”
    Leslie grinned triumphantly across the table at Catherine, then followed up her grin with a swift sharp conspiratorial kick on Catherine’s shin. So easily, it was settled. It had come to her! Catherine thought, smiling.
    The day after her graduation, Catherine stepped off the elevator into a small marble-floored foyer. She knocked on the door to Leslie’s apartment.
    Immediately the door opened and there was Leslie, hugging Catherine, grabbing at her suitcases, and pulling her inside all at once.
    “Come in, come in! You’re really here! This is wonderful! You look awful. Was it awful?”
    Catherine shrugged. “Not really. I mean, no one was home when I went to collect my things. They’re all on the Vineyard. I felt a bit odd, but all the drama was over long ago.”
    “Good! God, they’re such creeps. Let’s take your stuff to your room. Dad flew back to Japan yesterday.”
    Catherine followed Leslie down the long hallway. It was unusually hot for early June, but Catherine was strangely chilled. Walking down the windowless hallway, she shivered. For a few days now everything had seemed a little unreal, or rather she had seemed a little unreal. After the extreme routine and protection of boarding school, the knowledge that she was out on her own was stunning. Things were moving so fast, she felt dizzy.
    This was her new home. She’d been here often before, visiting Leslie, but now she looked at it with a different eye. Just off East Eighty-sixth, the apartment was huge, elegant, even glamorous, full of space and light and Oriental antiques. Leslie’s