Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

And the first night Tanya was in town, she introduced Evan to her little sister.

“Wow!” Tanya said, later that night, as she was making up the sofa bed. “You didn’t tell me your boyfriend was, like, smoking hot. Seriously, Letty, he’s amazing. And this apartment is so cool! I feel like I’m living in a Friends episode. Tell me again, what is it you exactly do to earn this place?”

Letty was hard put to explain her job.

“I’m the on-site manager. We had six units in this building when I started, but Evan just closed on two more. And he owns ten more units in the neighborhood.”

“Do you happen to have any white wine?” Tanya asked, poking her head in the fridge. “That Italian food we had tonight was soooo salty. I’m parched.”

“There’s a bottle of Sancerre on the door,” Letty said.

Tanya found the bottle and filled a wineglass nearly to the rim with the sixty-dollar-a-bottle wine Letty had splurged on the previous week. She held up the bottle. “There’s like half a glass left. Want some?”

Letty shook her head.

Tanya sat back down on the sofa, her lovely nose wrinkled in disapproval. “So, you’re like Evan’s receptionist? I don’t get it. I thought you moved to New York to act.”

“So did I. But breaking in isn’t easy. In the meantime, like most actors when they get here, I started waiting tables. And then I met Evan. You might say I work in guest relations. All his units are rented out as Airbnb. No long-term tenants. But we’re strictly on the down low, because the co-op board in this building, actually in all our buildings, prohibits short-term rentals. I make things run smoothly. It’s not exactly what I planned to be doing with my life right now, but it’s a living. And I get to live here.”

“Okay, so this dude? He owns all these apartments? And he’s rich?”

“I assume so,” Letty said.

“Super rich? Like, Mr. Big rich?”

“I don’t know,” Letty said. “That’s his business. Not mine.”

“As soon as I start making some serious money, I’m going to get me a place exactly like this!” Tanya said, running her hand over the sofa’s cool leather surface. “How much does an apartment like this cost, in this neighborhood?”

When Letty told her, Tanya flopped backward, pretending to faint. “That much? Seriously? You could put a down payment on a house for that back home.”

“You could buy a house for that, back home,” Letty said. “Or at least a double-wide. Which reminds me. Have you talked to Mama lately? Does she even know you’ve moved up here?”

“No.” Tanya unzipped her jeans and let them drop to the floor. She wriggled out of her bra and added it to the pile of discarded clothes. She gathered her long blond hair into a careless knot on top of her head and fastened it with an elastic band and walked toward the bathroom, dressed only in her T-shirt and a pair of panties. Her legs were long and slim and tanned, and Letty noticed her sister had a new tattoo high on her right hip. A tiny shamrock.

A moment later she popped her head around the doorframe. “Hey, Letty Spaghetti? Do you have any decent skin cream? My face is like sandpaper. I swear, I can feel the zits popping up right this minute.”

“Top shelf in the linen closet,” Letty said. “But you didn’t answer my question. When was the last time you talked to Mama?”

“It’s been a while,” Tanya admitted. “How about you?”

“I’ve lost track. Last I heard, she’d moved out to Lake Tahoe for a ‘new job.’” Letty’s fingers flashed air quotes.

“Yeah. New job is mom code for new boyfriend,” Tanya said. She sighed heavily and started to close the door. “Okay if I take a bath?”

A month later, Letty was asleep when she heard the apartment door click open and softly close. She rolled over and picked up her phone. It was ten ’til three.

“Tanya?” she called.

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.

He was sipping coffee and finishing his toast when she seated herself at their usual booth.

“Am I late, or are you early?” she asked, nodding at the waitress who appeared with her iced tea.

“Neither.” He propped his elbows on the table. “Did Tanya speak to you?”

She cocked her head. “I haven’t seen her. She got in way after midnight and had an early call for some pilot that’s shooting over in Jersey. Seems like Ronnie’s been able to get her plenty of work since she hit town.”

“She’s got a certain look that’s in demand, right now, that’s all,” Evan said. “But you’re keeping busy, right? I mean, with those two new units, I don’t know when you’d have any more time to go on auditions anyway.”

Letty sat up straight in the booth. “What’s this about, Evan? What is it Tanya was supposed to speak to me about?”

He shook his head. “Dammit, this is awkward.”

She thought back to the past few weeks. Ever since Tanya had arrived, she’d had a nagging sense that something was amiss. And now, looking at Evan, as he picked at a morsel of bacon on his plate, she knew exactly what was amiss.