WHILE THE SUMMERVILLE FAMILY headed to Southampton, Sheldon elected to leave later, telling everyone she was shopping. Instead of hitting the LIE with her driver, she did what she did every Friday, and popped in at an apartment building on Central Park West. She didn’t like to be recognized, so she wore a short black wig for her visits.

      Central Park West was a discreet building where people lived when they didn’t want to be noticed. It catered to the likes of movie stars, singers, old New York money and world-famous musicians.

      When she knocked on the door at 23C, the others were already assembled in the tastefully decorated room. There was Ling, who was fourteen, Emily who was in her junior year at NYU, Caroline, who was a housewife from the suburbs, and then there was Sheldon, who used the alias Sarah.

      They were all there for one purpose: to practice chamber music with the great instructor Stefan Senarsky. For six years Sheldon had been taking private violin lessons from Stefan, but playing solo limited her music choices, so last year she had switched to the chamber class. Now, she wouldn’t trade her group for the world.

      Music suited her, it soothed her. She loved the solitude and the tranquility that came from the melody, notes that echoed inside her when she played. Some people believed in yoga, Sheldon believed in music. It didn’t care if you were rich, it wouldn’t hit up for a loan for another “worthwhile cause,” it didn’t care who you friends were or weren’t. Music simply was.

      Stefan, was a conductor in the old-world tradition. He ruled with an iron fist and demanded the best of his students. Actually, Sheldon suspected he was a cupcake inside, but she never told him that. He was going on seventy now, with a long gray beard and silver glasses that couldn’t hide the passion in his eyes as he listened to the music.

      “Sarah, you’re late,” barked Stefan.

      “Sorry, sir,” Sheldon said, and pulled her violin case from the Saks shopping bag, where she kept it hidden. Next, she removed her violin and hurried over to sit in her chair next to Emily. Then Sheldon raised the bow, and joined in a rousing rendition of Schubert’s String Quartet in D Minor.

      For a few minutes she was lost in the sound, lost in the back and forth of the melody. Schubert wasn’t her favorite, but it really didn’t matter. Sheldon simply loved to play.

      At the end of the piece, Stefan tapped his conductor’s baton on the music stand. “Sarah, you were flat on the second stanza. You haven’t been practicing. We will begin again.”

      Truthfully, she had practiced a few hours, but restyling one’s image took time out from a busy socialite’s day, so Sheldon had had to cut back some. In fact, she had even delayed seeing Jeff, telling him she would meet him at Central Park after she finished her “shopping.”

      No one knew about her music, not even Cami. It was the only thing that kept her going. She would never be a professional violinist, never be more than moderately good, but it didn’t matter. This was when she was happiest.

      Sheldon smiled to herself, pulled her bow back, and began to play.