At six, I set up downstairs, quickly showered, then dressed in a pair of Audrey Hepburn-style black slacks and tailored white shirt—both saved from the antique wardrobe in the basement.

The woman in the mirror could be a CEO. She could be anything she wanted.

“Strength from within,” I told Lai Fa. “The power comes from me.”

I grabbed my printouts from the office, then the doorbell rang, and I hurried to let in my potential investors. I’d been carrying Lai Fa up and down the stairs, but this time, before I could pick her up, she went for it, flapping her wings. “Hey, your feathers are growing!”

We opened the door together. Bram, his grandfather, and his cousin filed in.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Hope you don’t mind that I tagged along.” Sergei flashed that charming smile of his that made it impossible to mind anything he did. “The antique trade can be fickle. One year, antiques are trendy, the next, all the designers want handmade, fair-trade folk-art pieces from overseas. I try to invest a little away from my own business when I can.”

Bram picked up Lai Fa and settled her into the crook of his arm. “Sergei told us you got a chicken. My aunt in Jersey keeps half a dozen for eggs.”

“Her name is Lai Fa.” Because he was a lawyer holding my chicken, the legalities of poultry in the city occurred to me for the first time. “Does New York have livestock restrictions?”

“Chickens are legal in all the districts, as long as they are hens. No roosters.”

“Blatant discrimination,” said Sergei.

Bram patted Lai Fa’s fuzzy head. “Strena here? I saw her van up front.”

“Upstairs.”

Then I thought Why didn’t I invite her?

“Take a seat,” I told my potential investors. “I’ll be right back.”

I invited Strena and the models. The models declined. Strena said, “I’ll be down in a few minutes. We’re in the cleanup stage.”

I hurried back downstairs and distributed the handouts, then I served coffee with my impulse-purchase chocolate chip cookies I still had from my first grocery trip. Better someone else ate them. I wanted to wear the Mondrian dress at least one more time before I inevitably gained my lost pounds back.

Sergei was telling Bram Sr. about Daniel Muller, the artist who’d carved the horses for the carousel. Bram was giving Lai Fa a drink in a water bottle cap. I was glad and grateful for every single person in the room, but my gaze kept returning to Bram.