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shopping for the dress neither one of them could really afford. But now it all seemed worthwhile.
    “Right, Anthony Giovanni,” Serena repeated, obviously not getting the bigger picture. “I guess he’s the one getting the award tonight. Do you know him?”
    David stared at her. She didn’t understand. He turned back toward Giovanni. Now David had to crane his neck to catch a glimpse of the man, as he had almost vanished in a swirl of fawning sycophants. David recognized many of the faces bobbing in and out of his line of sight: Rudy Giuliani, of course. The police commissioner as well. A few heads of banks, a few CEOs—all fawning over Giovanni like he was royalty. And in truth, the man cut a royal figure. Midfifties, more than six feet tall, slick dark hair just barely graying at the edges, chiseled features—hell, he looked like a movie star. And he moved through the crowd around him like a rock star—shaking hands, kissingcheeks, sending ripples of admiration outward in concentric wavelets all the way across the hall.
    “I don’t know him,” David said. “I want to be him.”
    David had never been more certain of anything in his life. In twenty years, he wanted to be sitting at that head table, right up against the stage. He wanted to be the man at the center of those waves. He had no idea how he was going to get there—but now at least he had a real flesh-and-blood goal. Before, he had read about Giovanni, even written a paper about him back at Oxford. But now, seeing the man real and alive for the first time, David was having an epiphany.
    An epiphany with a side of cannoli, that is. He took a bite of the pastry, making sure the mascarpone didn’t run down the lapels of his tux or ruin his tie. Though Serena wouldn’t have minded if the entire pastry had ended up on the crimson strip of material; she had only tolerated it because he had bribed her with the dress she was wearing.
    “So go over and talk to him,” Serena said.
    David rolled his eyes at her, exasperated. Seeing the man in the flesh was one thing. You didn’t just go up and talk to Anthony Giovanni. The guy had more money than God. He was one of the richest Italian Americans in the country. He had made a fortune on Wall Street, then gone on to create a real estate empire. He owned restaurants, golf courses, movie theaters, whole fucking neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Currently, he was chairman of something called the New York Mercantile Exchange, some sort of stock market for energy futures that David had read about in business school. David wasn’t exactly sure what the Mercantile Exchange was all about, but if Anthony Giovanni was involved, it had to be something important.
    “Yeah, right.” David glanced across the table at the other four couples relegated to the Siberia-like seating as far away from the stage as was geographically possible. Rented tuxes, a fair amount of hair spray, economical shoes and purses that reminded David of his aunts and cousins in Staten Island. It seemed like theWaldorf-Astoria ballroom had boroughs just like the city outside.
    “Seriously, David. I’m sure he’d be happy to offer you some advice. Just start off by asking him what he thought of your speech.”
    David shook his head grimly. He had given a short speech to a small crowd gathered in one of the tearooms of the hotel during the cocktail hour, well before the real dinner had begun, and he certainly would have noticed if Anthony Giovanni had been in the audience. As far as he could tell, Giovanni had only just arrived, considering the swarm of well-wishers that had swamped him over the past few minutes. The truth was, David was actually kind of glad Giovanni hadn’t been there at the cocktail party to hear David’s take on what it was like being a kid from his background at Oxford and HBS. David had read Giovanni’s bio many times before; Giovanni had gone to the Citadel, spent time in the Navy, then returned to New York to