rolls and silverware.
“’Evening, Mrs. Faraday, Mellie. Sir.” Carefully, the boy set the bread on the table. “Look out, Mellie, here comes your knife and fork.”
Valetta shifted her daughter’s coloring book although Mellie held fast to her precious box of crayons. “Good evening, Cory. This is Mr. Cameron, an old family friend. He’ll be joining us for dinner.”
“I figured,” Cory said, as he laid the table for three. “Glad to meet you, sir.” Solemnly, he took their order, although since there was only one dinner special on any given night, the choice was only out of politeness. Everyone in Longacre knew this. The real choice lay in what to drink. Mellie asked for a cherry Coke and Valetta ordered an iced tea, no sugar. The young man waited patiently for Lincoln to decide, not surprised when he, too, opted for the iced tea.
“Sorry for the invasion of your privacy,” Valetta said to Lincoln as Cory walked back toward the kitchen. “I thought I had better explain who you were before the rumors started. Everyone Cory serves tonight is going to ask.”
Lincoln was amused. “Do you think that calling me an old family friend is sufficient to stop rumors from spreading?”
“Not really.” Valetta smiled faintly. “It will be interesting to see who everyone decides you are, by the end of the night. It’s like that child’s game, Telephone.”
“Oh, I love that game!” Mellie said, absorbing every word the adults spoke even as she colored a page of monkeys pink.
“I know you do, sweetie. Do you remember how to play, Lincoln? You whisper a sentence in the first person’s ear and send it down the line until the last person repeats the sentence aloud—usually a totally garbled mess and complete corruption of the original.”
“Something like my job,” he said with a faint smile.
“Well, yes, that’s true, isn’t it?” Valetta agreed, unable to resist a small chuckle.
“Why? What do you do, Mr. Cameron?” Mellie wanted to know, all ears, although she continued her coloring.
“I’m a newspaper reporter.”
“Like my mom?”
“Something like, or so I’ve heard. Alexis did tell me a little of what you’ve been up to,” he said, answering Valetta’s curious look.
Valetta shook her head, her white hair waving. “Don’t let him fool you, Mellie. Mr. Cameron is a whole lot more than a reporter. Mr. Cameron runs the L.A. Connection, a really big newspaper out in California. He’s the editor in chief.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t do the actual reporting, anymore, but I used to.”
Mellie was confused. “Then what do you do?”
“The easy part. I boss the reporters around and go to luncheons and parties and accept awards,” Lincoln explained. “Hey, that can be work, too.” He laughed.
“Parties aren’t work,” Mellie said, disbelieving.
“I suppose that the parties you go to aren’t, but the kind of parties I attend can sometimes be a good deal of labor.”
Amazed, Mellie shook her head. “Maybe you should come to some of ours. My mom and I have great parties, especially pajama parties. They’re the best. My mom bakes brownies and lets me and my friends build tents in the living room and stay up as late as we want, while she goes to sleep.”
“I would be honored.”
“Oh, but I forgot. You can’t. They’re for girls only.”
“Ah, well, another time, perhaps. When your parents have a grown-up party.”
“We don’t have that kind. I don’t have a father,” Mellie solemnly confided.
Now it was Lincoln’s turn to be shocked, a fact which did not pass the young girl by. “If you’re my mom’s friend, how come you don’t know that?”
“A very good question,” Lincoln answered cautiously. “I guess your aunt Alexis neglected to tell me.”
“Oh. Well, my dad’s name was Jack Faraday and he was a doctor and he died before I was born,” the little girl offered, proud to impart such grown-up information.
Although his gentle words were directed at Mellie, Lincoln’s eyes fastened on Valetta. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I didn’t know him,” Mellie confessed. “He died in a car accident. That’s why my mom has white hair. The minute he died, her hair turned white, and nobody knows why,” she said with a dramatic shake of her head, “not even the doctors.”
Lincoln looked at Valetta’s silky white hair with something akin to sorrow. “It used to be a reddish- brown, a sort of coppery color, right?”
Uncomfortable under such scrutiny, Valetta would have liked to change the conversation, but Mellie was oblivious. “Yup! Just like mine,” she said proudly. “But she’s still pretty, don’t you think?”
Lincoln looked directly into Valetta’s gray eyes. “I have always thought so,” he said quietly.
Blushing profusely, Valetta fumbled with the bread basket. “Lincoln, would you like a roll? They’re fresh. Jerome bakes them every afternoon.”
Valetta’s voice was a low plea to change the topic and Lincoln nodded as he reached for the bread basket. He had so many questions, now that he realized how much Alexis had not told him, and he would have answers. But it didn’t have to be right then.
Mulligan Stew was not his usual fare, but as Cory arrived with their plates, Lincoln decided that if it was hot, he wouldn’t complain. Cautiously, he lifted his fork. “This looks pretty good,” he said politely.
“Everyone says that Jerome is the best cook in Longacre,” Mellie confided, setting aside her coloring book.
“That’s because he’s the only cook in Longacre.” Valetta smiled as she speared a green pea.
“No, Mom, there’s Randy’s Café. Did you forget?”
“No, I didn’t forget, Mellie, but with Randy’s leg broken in two places, who knows when she’ll reopen. Ordinarily, she takes the burden off Jerome serving all these people,” Valetta explained to Lincoln. “Unfortunately, she fell last month, sledding with her youngest.”
“And me! I was there, too!” Mellie said importantly. “I saw the whole thing and ran for help. She didn’t even cry! I would have cried,” she confided.
“Well, Jerome Crater’s Mulligan Stew suits me just fine,” Lincoln said over another forkful of beef. “This really is good, in fact, it’s terrific! And I haven’t had a Parker House roll in years. And here he was, talking as if he were some local yokel short-order cook. This meal makes him a chef, as far as I’m concerned. Now that I think about it, I wonder if he was making fun of me!”
“When was this?”
“When I arrived, this afternoon.”
Valetta was amused. “Did you treat him like a local yokel? Because if you did—”
“I did nothing of the kind!” Lincoln said indignantly.
But privately, Valetta thought that could happen without Lincoln intending it. The way he talked, the way he held himself, the expensive clothes probably purchased on Rodeo Drive, perhaps even in Italy. Valetta glanced across the table at the fine silk of his shirt. Yes, definitely handmade in Italy. It all bespoke a lifestyle that was alien to this small town.
And speaking