Margaret Bennett was the type of woman who carried herself as though she owned every room she entered. Widowed young, she’d raised her children with the mantra that appearances mattered more than anything. Designer clothes, the right neighborhoods, the right schools. She never missed a chance to remind me that I came from “modest” roots, a thinly veiled way of saying I wasn’t good enough for her son.
When I quit my job as a receptionist to stay home with Lucas during his early years, she acted as though I’d proven her suspicions true. “Some women just don’t have the drive,” she’d said once, not even bothering to lower her voice.
I avoided her when I could, but she always found ways to insert herself.
And that’s how, three weeks into my secret waitressing job, she walked into the bistro.
