It didn’t take long to figure out where our party was sitting as we stepped into the Italian bistro. The four men were so loud, they were grabbing all the attention in the restaurant. I would have found it annoying, but the other diners seemed to find it amusing, waving in their direction and laughing at the noise they were making. I knew them. Alessandro, Carlo, and Adolfo, plus an older gentleman who must be their dad.I’d never spoken to them in my nearly four years at Yale, and I never planned to. I could quite happily continue avoiding them like the plague and feel good about it. I’m sure I looked just as nervous as Dad as I pulled down on my dress one more time. It was silly, I knew, because the moment I pulled it down, it would ride back up again, yet I’d formed this habit in the space of thirty minutes since I put the dress on and left my dorm room. I felt a wave of jealousy seeing them at the table. They were laughing and talking as if they were all the best of friends. Se

I’d seen Bianca walking around campus as if she was lost, never fitting in after all this time. I’d only ever heard of her dating the one guy, Ben, who broke up with her when she wouldn’t put out, and I’d only seen her with one friend, her roommate Erika, who worked with her at Two Sheets. Unlike Erika, Bianca was far from friendly. It felt like as soon as we stepped into Two Sheets, she headed in the opposite direction. Alessandro says it is because she’s stuck up, the kind of person who thinks she’s better than us. But how would he know if he’d never spoken to her?If anything, Alessandro was the uptight one. If some girl didn’t grovel to him twenty-four seven, he concluded that she wasn’t the kind of girl we should hang out with. He made too many assumptions about people. Sometimes I wondered if we were even related—he was too fucking judgmental.Dad said her dad, Paul, used to go to high school with him. He said he was a mess when they were kids, and it seemed as if things hadn’t

I’d hated him before, and after the way he spoke to me at breakfast, I hated him even more. He always had a way of making me feel insignificant. Yes, I didn’t normally dress in a minidress like I did last night, but I did it because Dad asked me to. This was why whenever Alessandro came to Two Sheets, I made a point to never serve him. I always made sure Erika did the deed. She was more tolerant than I was, always managing to serve everyone, including jocks like Alessandro, with a smile on her face. He would swarm in with his gold card and buy drinks for anyone who gave him any attention. I hated the way he did it, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. He was loaded, and he wanted everyone to know it. I knew some guys on campus were probably as well off as he was, but they didn’t flaunt it like he did with his Rolex, Gucci clothes, and every other designer item under the sun. He made it known everything on him was worth more than I had in my closet and then some. I needed to stay as fa

Two Sheets was quiet, which was the good thing about working the early shift. It was always calm this time of day, never stressful like the night shift. Erika said I was crazy, that there was nothing better than the night and seeing the craziness that went on, that it made work entertaining and the time fly by. I had to admit, she did get tipped a lot more than I did… but then again, she was a lot friendlier than me. I gave each customer their drink or snack and moved on. Erika not only to served them but entertained them at the same time, all while managing somehow to never accumulate a line. I was daydreaming, thinking about Alessandro and wondering why I struggled to focus on a particular topic for my paper.“Maybe he’s right. I’m an imposter,” I mumbled to myself. When I looked up, I saw the last man I wanted to see in my life burst into Two Sheets. “We need to talk, now,” Alessandro barked at me. Then he turned to James, the manager, and said, “Can we use your office for a few

It had been nearly a week, and still nothing from Dad. I tried not to worry. Carlo had promised he would try and do the best he could to find answers. He was right—Dad had done a disappearing act for the better part of five years. When he was ready to come back, then he would do it. I just had to wait until that day.“Why are you getting all dressed up today?” Erika asked teasingly. “Can’t a girl make an effort once in a while?”She shook her head. “Please! You’ve never worn a denim miniskirt or had your hair braided—I didn’t even know you could braid your hair! And you’re wearing a see-through top so everyone can see your boobies!”“Stop it!” I laughed, trying to apply lipstick and failing miserably.“Thank God for Instagram. There’s loads of videos on how to do it, with girls that have the same hair texture as mine. Also, Carlo has a game. I’m going to see him play, and if he wins… well, who knows,” I said flirtatiously.“Look at you!”I sighed. “Do you think there’s something wron