Her bedroom door opened and Tanya appeared. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep.”

“Where’ve you been?” Letty asked, sitting up.

Evan had taken the sisters to a new restaurant on the Upper East Side. They’d just started on the calamari when Letty’s phone pinged with a text. She looked up at Evan and shrugged. “It’s the guest at Houston Street. Three-F says the doorman won’t let him in.”

“That’s not possible.” Evan frowned. “Wait. Didn’t you tell me Dontae was going on vacation this week? Did you talk to the new guy?”

“No,” Letty said. “I thought you were going to take care of him. You know I don’t keep that kind of cash.”

“Dammit!” His lips tightened and he took his own phone from the inner breast pocket of his linen blazer. “I’ll text Dontae and tell him to talk to the guy. Let him know the deal. In the meantime, you better get over there. I don’t want that busybody on the third floor making any more trouble for us.

“Here.” He pulled a bundle of bills from his pocket and peeled off five hundreds. “Tell him it’s a retainer.”

By the time Letty arrived at the building, smoothed things over with Enrique, the substitute doorman, and spirited their guest inside and up to the apartment, it was past nine o’clock. She texted Evan that she was going home, picked up take-out ramen at the corner bodega, and was in bed by eleven.

“The service at that place was super slow,” Tanya said, sitting on the edge of Letty’s bed. She rubbed her fingers back and forth over the comforter’s satin binding. “We were just about to leave, and an old friend of his stopped by the table. When Evan told him I was new in town, and a model, the guy invited us to this new club he’s invested in. Like, insisted. Because he said I’d meet a lot of important people there. Evan says it’s all about networking.”

“And did you? Meet anybody important?”

Tanya giggled. “Who knows? I drank a lot of champagne. Like, a lot! I don’t really remember anybody’s name. But I had the most incredible time. And it’s all because of you, because you invited me to come to New York.” Tanya bent down and brushed her lips across her sister’s cheek. Letty caught the scent of a familiar men’s cologne. “Love you, Letty Spaghetti.”

Letty felt funny going back to the Lazy Daizy after she’d quit working there. The other girls refused to meet her eyes. Zoey told Letty they thought she was stuck-up, now that she no longer waited tables. Instead, she’d begun meeting Evan for Friday breakfast at the Tip Top, a diner across the street from Letty’s new apartment.