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think."

    Theo tipped back the remaining sip of his martini. "You're something else. Didn't your great-great-grandfather get in on the ground floor of that whole 'railroad' idea?"

    "You know your history," Cornelia said, secretly delighted. "Why?"

    "A music career can be grueling. Besides requiring talent , it can exhaust even the hungriest girls. You know, girls whose plan B involves a hairnet or a stripper pole. Where'd you go to college?"

    She didn't like the direction he was heading. "Yale."

    "Yale. Rich girls who go to Yale don't become pop stars. Buy a house with twenty showers to sing in. That's my professional advice, sweetheart."

    Theo made as though to leave, but Cornelia grabbed his arm. Enough was enough. "Sweetheart, your father's company went public for five billion dollars ." She kept her voice calm, so as not to make a scene, but she was pissed. Nobody spoke so condescendingly to Cornelia, especially not some Armani-clad runt who'd once dated Jennifer Love Hewitt. "You of all people understand that ambition has nothing to do with what you have in the bank. I'm going to have a music career. I was asking for help, not permission."

    Theo didn't say anything for a moment. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and produced a shiny black business card. "I can see why Dad was into you. You're cut from the same cloth."

    "I'll call you," said Cornelia triumphantly as she slipped his card into her tiny beaded purse.

    Mission accomplished, she thought, bestowing a few quick but effusive goodbyes to Mallory and other key people, and making her way upstairs to Fifth Avenue. She had two more events to hit: a book party uptown, zzzzz , and Parker Lewis's holiday bash in Tribeca, which wouldn't be much better. After the cocktail-hour high of being the center of attention, everything else tonight would be a letdown--but at least most people she saw would know she was the toast of Townhouse . That gave the other parties more promise.

    As she strode out onto the street, Cornelia felt two things: rain, steady and cold, and a spasm of wistfulness. It was too bad Wyatt wasn't with her to enjoy her success. That would make it perfect.

    But hell, it was still success. She'd call him first thing in the morning.

    She scanned the street for her jet-black Town Car. Not seeing it, she phoned the driver. "Where are you?" she demanded when he picked up.

    "Just ten blocks, but there's traffic," the driver answered.

    Cornelia hung up immediately, fuming mad. She'd fire him tomorrow. It was her strict policy never to blow up at her staff in public; that just looked bad. Cornelia stepped out onto the street, raising her hand to snag a cab. She was nothing if not resourceful in the face of adversity.

    Lucy Jo wouldn't allow herself to cry until she got home. That was the deal. She ran toward 68th Street, chomping on her cheek to distract herself from the real pain. Her humiliation at Nola's show was terrible enough--she didn't need to follow it up by sobbing on the subway.

    When she reached the station, Lucy Jo was thwarted by a heavy current of people exiting onto the street. "Flooded," an old man in a Mets cap told her. "Trains aren't running. Don't bother."

    Lucy Jo had barely noticed the pelting rain, since it seemed like such a natural extension of her mental anguish. Humiliated, unemployed, and now forced to fight for a cab. She'd never mastered the bus routes, and during a torrential downpour on the worst night of her life didn't seem like the time to try. The street was crowded with cab competition, so Lucy Jo decided she'd have better luck heading north and over to Fifth Avenue, a straight shot home to Murray Hill. She flipped up the hood of her parka.

    By the time she reached Fifth and then made her way down to 60th, she looked like she'd jumped into a swimming pool fully dressed, and she'd still had no luck. She'd almost given up hope when she saw a dim light in the distance moving down Fifth toward her. The number on