Divorced Cuban social worker Válairia Hernández (named for Vladimir Lenin), the outspoken mulatta, who met her first foreigner and solved her first murder in That Time in Havana, comes to New York in 2005 for a brief fiancée visit "but I am not your fiancée", fulfilling a longtime wish to travel.

The story is told through the perspectives of key characters, a gay couple, a divorced professor and single father, a lesbian couple, a couple facing an empty nest, as well as community leaders, but we see New York and them through Laira's Cuban eyes as she encounters and counters U.S. misconceptions about Cuba and shares experiences with her new gay, lesbian, Jewish, and diaspora African-American friends. She also becomes embroiled in the tensions of an upstate New York progressive school that result in murder, and in which she becomes a suspect. Flashbacks to left wing events in the 40s through 60s help to orient the reader who may not be familiar with them or might just enjoy reliving them.