By Thursday morning, I’d made up my mind.
I visited a thrift store on Olive Avenue and bought a faded jacket with a torn pocket, worn jeans, and a pair of battered shoes with the left sole flapping.
I left my expensive watch and my wallet at home.
In the bathroom mirror, I saw a man I might have walked past on the street.
The only valuable item I carried was my cellphone, concealed inside my jacket.
I also brought four dollars in crumpled bills and loose change.
Shortly after noon, I pushed open the glass doors of Graciela’s.
The familiar bell above the entrance rang.
I had personally installed that bell eleven years earlier, standing on a stepladder with a screwdriver in my teeth, while my mother held the ladder and told me I was doing it crooked.
Now I was entering my own restaurant as a stranger.
