“Thank you so much for visiting Amy & May’s. I heard this was your first visit.” She’s taken off her cap and stuffed it into the chest pocket of her coat, the strings hang out the top. I focus on them as they dangle. Her long, thick hair is pulled back in its usual tight bun, but a few wisps frame her face. It’s probably just the lighting but right now she glows.

“Unfortunately, it will also be your last. We don’t tolerate the abuse of our staff. No matter who you’re related to.”

He glares and for a moment, everything inside me clenches. As I look around, our guests have made a show of going back to their meals, but the quick glances and hushed whispers verify that everyone is staring. The entire restaurant has stopped what it’s doing to watch me be reamed out by my father, like a little girl. I’ve never wanted to throw up from mortification before. I couldn’t even have the good luck of being humiliated in front of a full house.

Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.

But Dad does the thing he always does when confronted by someone braver than him. He retreats. “We were leaving anyway,” he says, snooty.

None of his friends make eye contact as they leave. One throws a handful of bills on the table. Sophie smiles a plastic, customer service version at them. Chefs hardly ever have to use a customer service face at all. They get to stay behind their stove, scare coworkers away with their knives, and leave the front of the house to deal with people. This smile on her is unbearably strange.

“Drew, can you finish clearing this table?” Sophie asks. “We’ve got another table waiting.”

Without her having to ask, I follow her through the restaurant. I keep my head up, but only to stare at the back of her head and the twist of her hair. To study all the different colors that auburn can actually be.

She turns into the office and rolls the chair toward me. “Sit down.”

I sit.

“What were you doing before he got here?”

I blink around my office. Paperwork? No. Accounting. “I was doing...something.”

She nods. “Don’t come back out unless I come get you.”

I scowl at the realization that she’s grounding me for the rest of the night. “I’m not a child.”

She reaches over the desk, like she’s going to touch me, but pulls her hand back, making a fist at her side. “Amy, you’re white as a sheet and you let that sad excuse for a father walk all over you. Let someone else protect you for once, okay?” She turns on the heel of her sensible shoes and leaves me lost in a cloud of her lemon scented shampoo. I should go after her and tell her all the reasons I don’t deserve this, but now that I’m sitting, this evening, all the tens of thousands of worries it’s brought with it, is suddenly too heavy.