Now she began to pack, placing a bathing suit and khaki shorts and three button-down shirts into a navy blue canvas roller bag. At the last minute, she tossed in a plain black sleeveless shift and a pair of black pumps with a sensible two-inch heel in case there was a fancy dinner. The dress wasn’t summery but would have to do. She put on a white T-shirt, jeans, and yellow Converse sneakers; then she went downstairs again and waited in line for a taxi, arriving at the Twenty-third Street heliport at four-thirty, half an hour early. She was early to nearly everything these days and seemed to spend a lot of her time waiting. The heliport was located under the FDR Drive. The air was dense with the heat of July and the exhaust from the cars stalled on the highway and the stench of the East River. Annalisa walked to the edge of the dock and peered into the murky brown water, watching a plastic bottle lapping at the wood as a condom floated by.

She checked her watch again. Paul would be neither early nor late but exactly on time, arriving at 4:55, as he’d said he would. Indeed, at 4:55, a Town Car pulled in through the chain-link fencing, and Paul got out, leaning into the backseat of the car to take out his briefcase and a small hard-sided Louis Vuitton case covered in black goatskin. Until recently, Annalisa had no idea Paul cared for such things. He bought something pricey nearly every week now. Last week it had been a cigar box from Asprey, although Paul did not smoke.

He loped toward her, talking on his cell phone. Paul was tall and had the slight stoop of those accustomed to minding their heads. He managed to stay on his phone while waving to the pilot of the seaplane and overseeing the stowage of their luggage while a steward helped Annalisa from the dock into the plane. The interior held eight seats done up in plush pale yellow suede, and while Paul and Annalisa were the only passengers, Paul elected to sit in the row in front of her. He finally got off his call, and she said, hesitantly and a little bit hurt, “Paul?”

Paul wore glasses, and his soft, dark curling hair was always a bit unkempt. He was nearly handsome but for his hooded eyes and the slight gaps between his teeth. He was a mathematical genius, one of the youngest Ph.D.s at Georgetown ever, and there was always talk of him winning the Nobel Prize someday. But six months ago, he had taken a job with Sandy Brewer and, in two days, relocated to New York City at a small hotel on East Fifty-sixth Street. When they decided the move was permanent, Annalisa had joined him, but they’d lived long-distance for five months, and the residual effects were still there.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit together?” Annalisa asked. She hated having to beg.

“These cabins are so small,” he said. “Why be crowded? We’re together the whole weekend anyway.”

“You’re right,” she said. It was pointless pushing Paul on the small issues. Annalisa looked out the window. A middle-aged man was hurrying breathlessly toward the seaplane. Annalisa’s first impression was of a man freckled and nearly hairless, like an exotic species of cat. The man was wearing spectator shoes and a white linen suit with a navy silk pocket square; in one hand was a woven hat. He gave his bag to the pilot and came up into the cabin, taking a seat in the row behind Annalisa. “Hello,” he said, extending his hand over the top of the seats. “I’m Billy Litchfield.”

“Annalisa Rice.”

“I assume you’re going to the Brewers’ for the weekend. Are you a friend of Connie’s?”

“My husband works for Sandy Brewer.”

“Ah,” Billy Litchfield said. “So you’re an unknown element.”

Annalisa smiled. “Yes.”

“And that gentleman is your husband?”

Paul was reading something on his iPhone. “Paul,” she said. He looked up briefly. “This is Billy Litchfield.”

Paul gave Billy a curt smile and went back to his iPhone. He was never interested in strangers, and as usual, Annalisa tried to cover it up by being excessively friendly.

“Are you a friend of Connie’s?” she asked.

“I’m a friend of both Brewers now. But yes, in answer to your question, Connie and I go way back.”

There was a pause. Annalisa suddenly didn’t know what to say, but Billy Litchfield smiled at her. “Have you been to the house before?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You’re in for a treat. It’s magnificent, designed by Peter Cook. Peter can be over the top, but the Brewers’ house is one of the best examples of his work.”

“I see.”

“You know who Peter Cook is, don’t you?” he asked.

“Actually, I don’t. I’m a lawyer, and...”

“Ah,” Billy said, as if this explained everything. “Peter Cook is an architect. Some people say he ruined the East End with his McMansions, but eventually, they’ve all come round to him. Everyone uses him — he won’t do a house for under ten million these days.” The pilot started up the engines. “I love this moment of the week, don’t you?” Billy said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Taking off for greener pastures. Even if it is just for the weekend.” He looked her over. “Do you live in New York?”

“We just moved.”

“Upper East Side?” Billy asked.

“Nowhere, really.”

“My dear,” Billy said. “You and that magnificent husband of yours who is sporting a two-thousand-dollar Paul Smith shirt cannot be living in a cardboard box on the street.”

“We’re in the Waldorf. Until we find an apartment. Or a town house.”

“Why the Waldorf?” Billy asked.

“I always used to stay there on business.”

“Aha,” Billy said.

Annalisa felt self-conscious, pinned under Billy’s gaze. She was used to attention, having stood out all her life, with her auburn hair and her wide cheekbones and her light gray eyes. Men had a propensity to fall in love with her — foolishly — and she’d learned to ignore the undercurrents of male attraction. But with Billy, it was different. He seemed to be studying her as if she were a piece of fine china. Embarrassed, she turned away, leaving Billy to examine her profile. She’s not a classic beauty, Billy thought, but a unique one. Having once seen her face, you wouldn’t forget her. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Confident girl, he thought, to be so unadorned, save for the platinum-and-diamond Chopard watch on her wrist. That was a nice touch. He turned his attention to the husband, who was less interesting physically. Billy had already heard from Connie Brewer that Paul Rice was a mathematical genius. If he worked with Sandy Brewer, he was rich, and that was all that was required of a man in New York society — that he have money. It was the wives who mattered. As the seaplane taxied across the choppy waters of the East River, Billy sat back in his seat, satisfied. Annalisa and Paul Rice intrigued him.

It would be an interesting weekend after all.

Picking up speed, the seaplane lifted off the water. They flew over Queens, over endless rows of tiny houses, and then straight up the middle of Long Island Sound, which sparkled as brightly as the diamonds on Annalisa’s watch. They turned south over the rocky white lip of the North Fork, past the green pastures and cornfields. Then they were over water again, and the plane was descending into an inlet.

Billy Litchfield tapped Annalisa on the shoulder. “This is a patch of paradise,” he said. “I’ve been everywhere, and it’s as beautiful here as it is in Saint-Tropez or Capri or any other place you can think of. It’s why the Hamptons will never be over, no matter what anyone says.”

The plane taxied to a pristine white dock. A lawn as perfectly manicured as a golf course sloped up a long hill, at the top of which sat an enormous shingled house with turrets that appeared to be made of pink stone. On the lawn next to the dock sat two golf carts.

Sandy Brewer met them on the dock. His most distinct feature was his name; without his name, he was disturbingly indistinct, with hair of no particular color and nondescript features. “Connie said to have you go straight up to the house,” Sandy said to Billy. “She’s having some problem with the dessert. I thought I’d take Paul and Annalisa on a tour of the property.”

Billy was driven away in one of the golf carts with the luggage.

Annalisa got into the back of the second golf cart. Paul sat in the front with Sandy. Sandy drove casually, turning back to talk to her. “Have you ever been to the Hamptons before?” he asked.

“I haven’t, actually,” Annalisa said.

“We’ve got fifty acres here,” Sandy said. “It’s an enormous amount of land. Connie and I just bought a ranch in Montana with a thousand acres, but Montana’s different. If you don’t have a thousand acres in Montana, you’re a loser. In the Hamptons, you can have five acres and it’s perfectly acceptable — you might even be a member of the Bath and Tennis in Southampton. But Connie and I don’t like those kinds of places. We like to be private. When we’re here, nobody knows it.”

An hour later, after they were shown the two pools (one Olympic, one shaped like a pond with a waterfall), the guesthouse, the private zoo and aviary, the greenhouse where Sandy oversaw the cultivation of rare species of tulips, the miniature horse and goat barn, the three tennis courts complete with bleachers, the baseball diamond and basketball court, the children’s Victorian summerhouse, the indoor squash court, the winery with state-of-the-art concrete casks, the five-acre vineyard, the orchard and vegetable garden and koi pond, Sandy ushered them into the house. Two grand staircases flanked the foyer. Paul went off with Sandy to talk business. A Guatemalan woman motioned for Annalisa to follow her up the stairs. They passed an upstairs sitting room and several closed doors. Annalisa was led into a room with an enormous four-poster bed and two bathrooms. French windows opened onto a balcony overlooking the lawn and the ocean. Her suitcase had been unpacked; her paltry supply of clothing for the weekend looked incongruous in the enormous cedar closet. Annalisa stepped inside, inhaling the odor of the wood. I’ve got to tell Paul about this, she thought, and went downstairs to find him.