SHE LOOKED LIKE A MARGOT

She looked like a Margot.

Not that I knew her name—she never offered it, and I never asked—but Margot suited her: old-Hollywood hair, a golden bob that glinted like champagne in the sunlight, and the kind of poise that seemed conjured straight from a 1940s film noir. She had a voice to match, too—dry, direct, and laced with that vintage cadence you might expect from a screen siren or a gumshoe narrator.

We sat side by side at commencement. She talked. I listened. I tried to keep up, wished I were just a bit wittier so I could volley back something clever. She had that rare gift of turning small talk into something charming, something bright. For a few brief minutes, I forgot how alone I felt.

Because, truthfully, I hadn’t even planned on going.

The lead-up to graduation had been muted, and not by chance. In ways both spoken and unspoken, I’d been reminded that my achievement wasn’t something worth celebrating—not to some, anyway. So when I walked across that stage, I carried more than a diploma. I carried disappointment. Grief. A quiet, heavy sense that the moment I had worked so hard for had somehow been diminished.

And then there she was—Margot. Or rather, the woman I decided to name Margot.

She didn’t know she was saving anyone. She didn’t offer comfort or insight or a motivational quote. She simply sat next to me, bright and grounded and real, and talked like we’d always known each other. She filled a silence I hadn’t realized I was drowning in.

To the woman who made my day—Margot, if I may: thank you.

You reminded me that sometimes, the right person doesn’t need to know your whole story to leave a mark on it. That kindness doesn’t always look like a grand gesture. Sometimes, it wears a golden bob and laughs at its own jokes.