A waitress at the Betsy Ross Diner in Waterbury, Connecticut, Elsie hopes her nickel-and-dime tips will add up to a new life. Then she meets Bashkim, who is at once both worldly and naive, a married man who left Albania to chase his dreams-- and wound up working as a line cook in Waterbury, Connecticut. When Elsie she learns that she's pregnant, she wonders what he'll do about the wife he left behind. Seventeen years later, headstrong and independent Luljeta is stuck in Connecticut with her mother, Elsie--a fate she refuses to accept. Believing the key to her future is unlocking the secrets of the past, Lulu decides to find out what exactly her mother has been hiding about the father she never knew-- $c Adapted from dust jacket.