My proof: That night, with Kate working late and the boys in bed, I came up with some lame excuse to call Anna. But when her voice mail answered, instead of mentioning my reason for calling, I quickly hung up the phone. This felt rude. So I called back and listened to her recorded greeting.

Hi. Leave a message . . .

I loved the warmth in her hi, as if she were genuinely happy I'd called.

for Philip, Sophie . . .

She said Philip's name with an almost mock seriousness and Sophie's with warmth. Maybe she didn't love her husband. Surely she loved her daughter more.

Or . . . me.

Curious, the pause before me and the long pause after. The pause before suggested she was contemplating whether she should call herself me or Anna. And the long pause after? Either Anna Brody couldn't figure out how to work the machine, or she was comfortable with pauses, or she wanted to give callers a moment to compose themselves, gather their thoughts, and therefore speak sincerely.

I hung up mid-beep. Then, to my surprise, I dialed again.

That time I noticed something I hadn't heard before-it sounded as if she was about to laugh while saying me, so I hung up, waited for a dial tone, and pushed redial.

Early on that mid-November Friday night, I dialed I don't know how many times. Her voice became a kind of fix. Finally, I set the receiver in the cradle. Enough for one night, I thought, when the phone rang.

BEA MYERLY.

"h.e.l.lO, MR. WELCH?"

"Yes?"

"Is something wrong?"

"Who is this?"

"Bea Myerly, Mr. Welch."

"Why, uhm, uhm, Bea?"

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Welch."

He paused. "What can I do for you?"

"What can I do for you?"

"Well, Bea, I can't think of a thing. I'm just sitting here working on my dissertation."

"That's funny. Didn't you just call?"

"No, no, why would I call you?"

"You realize that Mr. and Mrs. Ashworth have caller ID."

"Oh?"

"And the reason I'm calling is that someone with your phone number just called seven times." I paused for effect. "Would you like me to pa.s.s on a message?"

"How do you know my number?"

I felt sorry for him. "The box displays the listing Welch, T. Shall I say that you called?"

"I'd, uhm, rather you didn't."

"You know what, Mr. Welch? They'll know anyway, because the readout lists the last ten calls. Seven of which . . ." I neglected to say that Mr. Ashworth would be away for the next week and that Mrs. Ashworth never checked the readout.

Mr. Welch didn't say anything. Then he laughed nervously and said, "I'm kind of confused right now."

Duh.

"I mean, Bea, what are you doing there, anyway?"

I explained, but Mr. Welch didn't seem to understand. So I said it again, slowly, as if speaking to a four-year-old. "I'm their babysitter."

KATE.

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY THAT YEAR.

On the first Wednesday in December, while we slept, the heavens dumped nineteen inches of snow. Like other families, we woke to a changed world. ("Not since the blizzard of '47" my historian of a husband kept saying, with such cert.i.tude that one would believe he'd actually been alive to survive the blizzard of '47.) For the next three days, there would be no work, all schools would be closed, airports backed up, and the city, for the most part, shut down.

Of all the extreme weather possibilities, snow had become my favorite, especially here in the Heights, where, in those early hours after it stopped falling, everything was white and the cars were all covered. A Volvo could be parked next to a Volkswagen, and you'd have no way of knowing, which was what I loved most about it: Snow made us all equal.

I was working from home when Anna called.

"Am I interrupting you?"

"Yes, but it's good you are," I said. "Tim and the boys are expecting me." I explained that they'd taken the toboggan and gone over to the park near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. "It has the best hill for sledding."

"So you're going there now?"

"Yes, as soon as I get dressed."

"Oh."

"What is it?"

"I have a favor to ask of you. Could you stop over on your way?"

I promised I would stop by.

One of the housekeepers opened the door. She looked at me with an annoyed curiosity. Maybe she couldn't recognize me under the stocking cap and ski goggles. And yes, admittedly, my bright purple snowsuit was a tad enthusiastic, but I was dressed for the hills.

"May I tell Mrs. Ashworth your name?"

"It's Kate. She's expecting me."

I did my best not to track in snow. I stood in the vestibule for at least five minutes and had begun to sweat from being indoors. When Anna finally appeared, she said, "Take all that off." Then, disappearing up the stairs, she said, "There's something I want you to try on."

I struggled to unlace and pull off my boots.

Anna called from somewhere on the second floor, her voice an eerie, faint echo: "Hey, Kate-we're pretty much the same size, aren't we?"

"Yes," I shouted, although I'd never thought of us that way.

Then she peered over the stair rail and said, like a teenager to her best friend during an all-night sleepover, "Don't be shy. We're the only ones here."

Just us and the housekeeper and who knows what other members of the staff . . .

"Okay," I said as I stepped out of my snowsuit.

I found Anna upstairs as she emerged from her changing room. She smiled at how I was dressed-long underwear and thermal socks-and she said, "Try this on." She was holding a bright red chiffon dress, which I soon realized was vintage Valentino. She led me into the master bedroom and hung the dress on the bra.s.s hook on the back of the door. "Let's hope it fits."

Alone in the room, I stripped down to my ratty bra and tired old underwear. I quickly slipped into the dress. The silk lining felt like a softer, smoother second skin.

"Ready," I said.

Anna came in the room, and we both looked at me in the mirror. It was, without a doubt, the nicest dress I'd ever worn. Even so, something about it was too loud, too garish.

"Do you like it?" Anna asked.

"Uhm. It depends, I guess, on what it would be for." I was hoping for some sort of clue as to Anna's intentions.

She sighed sadly. Maybe I had said something wrong. She left the bedroom. From her dressing room, I could hear the sliding of hangers as she frantically searched her wardrobe.

I thought I did the bold thing by following her.

Anna's dressing room was modest in size, considering. And yet the contents were anything but modest. She didn't own the typical Chanel lace dress, nor did she have an Yves St. Laurent royal purple over-the-top s.e.x dress, nor did she, like Debbie Beebe, have her grandma's Edwardian wedding gown, now tea-dyed. No, her clothes were more elegant, unique, and eclectic, as if she knew herself as I was coming to know her-as a person with many moods.

A different Anna chose the second dress. She seemed chipper, all smiles, saying, "Maybe you'll like this one better."

"It's not that I didn't like-"

"Shhh," she said, "I know." She unzipped the garment bag and lifted out the gown. It was dark copper, of a pleated shiny silk. It was a one-shouldered full-length Grecian-G.o.ddess dress.

I was still wearing her Valentino, hoping, I suppose, that she'd excuse herself while I changed. But she stayed in the room with me, watching. Just as I was about to make a joke about my underwear, I thought of what Tim would say-This is me. This is how I dress. And even though I said nothing, at least I didn't make fun of myself or make some sorry excuse.

Once I had the second dress on, Anna said something about my looking regal, statuesque. I wasn't thinking about how I looked but how I felt, which was great. This is why some people spend millions on clothes. In my mind, I started to accessorize, imagining a gold Cleopatra coil to wear around my wrist, for starters.

Anna tilted her head, thought a bit. "We can do better."

"Why? What for? How can we do better?"

She disappeared into her closet and called out: "The dress. Something about it makes you seem untouchable."

Untouchable? What an odd word choice.

I joked, "All I know is this gown does encourage one to stand tall."

"Let's keep looking."

Each dress that followed seemed to raise the bar. I tried to act as if this were an everyday occurrence. But soon any subtlety on my part was gone. I was intoxicated. And her litany of compliments didn't help! "You have great bones," she said. "You have a great neck." "Clothes look great on you."

I caught myself smiling at my reflection, admiring how different each dress made me look, seduced by my own sense of myself, all the while thinking, How good of me. What a good friend I am. Because wasn't I the one, in actuality, doing her a favor? But what favor was I doing? Finally, unable to stand it anymore, I blurted out, "So you said you needed a favor. Surely this can't be it."

"Oh, but it is."

"Oh, but it's what?"

"Didn't Tim tell you?"

Tim, who's Tim, do I know a Tim? "Oh! No, he told me nothing."

"Well, Philip's out of town-Singapore or somewhere-and he won't be back in time."

"In time for what?"

"The Yuletide Ball. I'm going, and I want the two of you to be my dates."

I didn't tell Anna about my own awkward history with the Yuletide Ball. How, during our first year in the Heights, we hadn't known it was a coveted invitation. We were among the select to receive a handwritten invitation to attend one of several pre-Yuletide Ball dinners in people's homes. Our neighbors down the street had invited us, but Teddy had just been born, and we forgot to RSVP. The next few years we couldn't afford it. The one year I really wanted to go, we had even less money. We both knew the problem wasn't the Yuletide Ball, because it was a great tradition, and it benefited the Kindergarten Society, a most worthy cause. The problem was that we were perpetually broke.

Now, thanks to Bruno, we finally had the funds. But we didn't get an invitation. Claudia called to apologize, saying there had been a mix-up, somehow we'd been left off the list. Her explanation, a lie, was that so many people had fought over us at the organizational meeting. But they hadn't fought over us, not in the way they probably fought over Anna Brody and Philip Ashworth. Claudia had simply forgotten to put us on the list, which didn't really bother me. For once we could afford to go, but at least now I wouldn't have to worry about what to wear. Instead, we made plans to do what we always did-rent a movie and order in Chinese.

Anna was still trying to make sense of it. "He really didn't tell you?"

I shook my head.

"You must've been wondering what this was all about."

"Yes," I said.

"You'd be helping me, and I thought I could help you." She seemed terribly embarra.s.sed. "Kate, I'm sorry, but when Tim said you wouldn't want to come because you had nothing to wear . . ."

I saw white. He'd talked to her about my clothes! I felt dizzy, hot in the face. Anna must have kept talking. I think she even left the room, because the next thing I knew, she was standing in front of me with another dress, which I had no interest in, no f.u.c.king interest in whatsoever until I saw it.

I could name the designer. Mariano Fortuny. I knew his singular style. I'd seen knockoffs in upscale stores. I'd seen the collection of his gowns at the Metropolitan Museum. I'd studied the craftsmanship, the artistry of his designs in my Fashion Trends and Cultural Influences cla.s.s at Berkeley.

This particular gown was cla.s.sic Fortuny, made of hand-blocked silks with a metallic sheen. And the colors! The silver gown was covered in random geometric shapes in two colors, a pale aqua and an ice blue. I'd read that Fortuny dresses were most likely to be in museums and that on rare occasions, they appeared for auction, usually in Italy, for a price equivalent to, at the very least, several teachers' salaries.

Anna helped me into the dress. With her cool hands, she zipped up the back. For her, it was just another outfit, while it was the dress of my dreams.

"You'd be helping me," she said. "I'd hate to go alone. And the truth is, I can only wear one of these dresses at a time . . ."

Everybody has a price. Anna Brody had just named mine.

"Kate, are you upset?"