MIRELA

Getting ready for what the day would bring was my next order of business. When I was a few miles away from the front door, the cook stepped outside to light a cigarette and saw me. He gasped and put the lighter back in his pocket.

“Smoke all you want; I don’t judge. Just don’t do it in front of the house. We don’t want the first thing people smell when they walk in here to be cigarettes, do we?”

“No, ma’am,” he said and slid the cigarette into his pocket as I walked past him. I placed my shoes under my arm and opened the front door with...