“They told the server your card was on file.”
I looked down at the black leather folder.
“My card?”
He nodded once.
“They said you arranged the reservation.”
That part was true.
Six weeks earlier, my mother had called me at work just before lunch.
Celeste Hartwell rarely called without knowing exactly what she wanted, but she always spent the first minute making the request sound like affection.
“Maren, darling,” she had said, stretching the word darling until it felt like ribbon around a box I had not agreed to open.
“You’re so good with details.”
I had moved away from my desk because two coworkers were nearby.
“What do you need, Mom?”
“It’s only a small thing.”
Nothing Celeste described as a small thing had ever been small.
