Calculated Risk (9 page)

Good thing her waitress training in a high-class restaurant during two college summers would prove her worthy of the daughter-in-law designation—of course, without committing herself to the son.

After Ellie explained the seating arrangement and returned to the kitchen, Cisney took inventory of the exquisite china, crystal, and silver flatware on the side table. Silver place card holders in the shape of turkeys sat in a clump behind the plates. Cute. Name cards, with names penned in perfect calligraphy, were secured in the turkeys' fanned tails. Twelve would dine in the LeCrone home today.

Cisney lifted three dinner plates and examined the subtle flower details on the top plate. Someday she'd have table finery and invite family and friends for Thanksgiving dinners.

“If you're thinking of stealing the family treasures, I'm afraid I'll have to wrestle you to the floor.”

The barefoot man with dark curls and the open shirt who'd chased Nick and her to the lake stood in the doorway, now fully dressed.

She laughed. “I don't think you'd chance breaking three plates.”

He crossed the room and extended his hand. “I'm cousin Tony.”

She placed the plates on the table and shook his hand. “I'm colleague Cisney.”

He nodded toward the sideboard. “So, you're going to put all this mess back together.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers and rocked forward on his loafers. “I told Mom she should give Aunt Ellie the tablecloth after Thanksgiving because Aunt Ellie always has the table set by the time we arrive.”

“Ellie seems thrilled to display it this year.” Using the length from the tip of her thumb to her first knuckle as a guide, Cisney placed the rim of a plate that distance from the edge of the table. “By the way, I like your socks.” She stifled a giggle. Grandpa's argyle socks had nearly foiled her covert flight to her room.

“You're not the first they've impressed. I need to invest in a few pairs.”

Tony hefted the stack of remaining dinner plates and followed her around the table while she carefully positioned each plate. She wanted the table to be perfect for Ellie's guests.

“How'd you meet Nick?” he said.

“We attend a lot of the same meetings. I got to know Nick better when the chief actuary assigned him as a consultant to my team's marketing projects.”

“Lucky Nick.”

She lifted a plate from his stack. “I don't think he feels particularly lucky, although sometimes I wonder if he enjoys wielding his power over marketing people in the name of company financial stability.”

“You only work with an actuary. I have to live with one. My mother thinks in statistics and risks. Take sitting with her in a movie. Before the show starts, she's graphing the demographics of the audience in her head and calculating the probability she'll like the movie.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“No, I'm not. She does that.”

The plates positioned, Cisney set the turkey card holders on his upturned palms. “Does her calculation work?”

He followed her for a second trip around the table, craning his neck to scrutinize the name cards she positioned at each place setting. “Either her method has high accuracy, or she fits her viewing pleasure to her prediction.”

Finished with the card holders, Cisney turned from the sideboard with a handful of knives. Tony was stretched across the table. He lifted a silver turkey and then switched it with one on their side.

“No-no.” Scurrying between the misplaced turkeys, Cisney returned them to their proper spots. “Ellie told me where she wants people to sit.”

Cisney handed him the knives and scooped up the spoons. Tony had reassigned himself next to her and put Nick next to Fannie. She'd have to watch Cousin Tony, or fail the daughter-in-law test.

Tony eyed his card holder. “I don't want to sit next to my sister.”

“You can talk to Nancy on your other side.”

“I'd much rather talk to you.”

“I'm flattered, but Ellie rules.”

While she positioned knives to the right of plates, Tony followed her around the table and handed her spoons. How many times could she get him to follow her like a puppy dog around the table? After her faux pas with Nick about her challenge belt, maybe it was best to lay low on contests for now.

Tony leaned close to her. “What shampoo do you use? It smells really good.”

“Are you hitting on me, Cousin Tony?”

“No reason why I shouldn't, is there?”

Cisney made the circuit with the forks, Tony still in tow. The card in Nick's turkey once again read, Tony. She flashed him her face-scrunching scowl. “You scamp!” Holding onto the back of a chair, she reached across the table and snatched Nick's card holder, then thumped Tony's back in its place. “And I actually thought you cared about my shampoo.” She shook Nick's turkey at him as if he were a naughty puppy. “Do not touch the turkeys, or I'm going to find a rolled-up newspaper.”

He laughed. “You can't blame a man for trying. And I do like the scent of your hair.”

He'd followed her eight times around the table by the time she was ready to place the napkins. She'd let pass that he'd switched turkeys on the seventh round. This challenge-savvy woman would outsmart the naughty puppy.

Holding a corner of an autumn-orange napkin, she snapped it like a high-class restaurant's hostess and released it from its three-fold pamphlet shape. Then she fashioned the napkin into a bird of paradise flower and placed it in the center of a dinner plate. With her head cocked, she studied the setting. Perfect.

Tony held up the flower and examined it. “Cool. You're really talented.”

While he was occupied, Cisney pocketed Nick's turkey from Tony's place setting, and then clamped her hands on her hips. “Tony. Put the napkin down before it comes apart.”

He obeyed.

She gave the napkin a tap to center it, and then moved to the next plate. Good. He hadn't noticed the missing turkey. For the moment, anyway.

As she worked her way around the table, Tony strolled behind her feigning attacks on her birds of paradise.

She rolled her eyes. “Be a good cousin and tell me about your job that keeps you at work in the evenings.”

They stood at Nick's place setting, where Tony's turkey rested next to the plate. Cisney shook out a napkin and, in a flourish of folding another flower, switched the turkeys and smuggled Tony's into her pocket.

Tony rested his hand on the table near the replaced card holder. “I man the front desk at a downtown Charlotte hotel during the evening shift, and I'm working on an online degree in hotel management.”

“I imagine you have some good front-desk stories to tell.” And why didn't he tell one now so he'd be distracted when she slipped his turkey back on the table?

“You have no idea.”

She moved to the next plate, but he stayed put, his hand still planted near Nick's card. The way her heart was racing, she'd think she was trafficking diamonds.

He slid his hands into his pockets and closed the gap between them.

Another hurdle cleared. She let out a breath. “So tell me a story.”

“OK. This story isn't from our hotel, but I heard it from a fellow desk clerk. Early one morning, a middle-aged woman entered the lobby dressed in her nightgown. She walked over to the rack where all the sightseeing pamphlets were stored. She pulled several stacks of pamphlets from their slots and arranged them on the front desk, and then proceeded to the hotel restaurant. There, the woman grasped a coffee pot and went from table to table refilling patrons' coffee cups.”

“Was she sleepwalking?”

“That's what the desk clerk thought. She had asked for a first floor room on making her reservation. The manager escorted her to her room, and she went willingly. Later, she checked out like any other guest.”

Laughing, Cisney let her last bird of paradise fall to the floor. As Tony bent to scoop it up, she set Nick's turkey where it belonged. She centered the retrieved napkin on its plate and faced Tony, blocking his view of Nick's place setting.

Tony brightened at her proximity. “The next time you're in Charlotte you should stay at the hotel. I could show you around.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” She inspected the table. Everything sparkled and pleased her trained eye. “Well, we're done here.” She crooked her finger while she moved around him. No way was she leaving him alone to switch turkeys.

He rotated, eyeing her curved finger as if it were a dog biscuit, and followed her to the kitchen.

“Tony, get over here and help me put these pies in the oven,” Nancy said.

“I'm helping Cisney set the table.”

“We're all finished,” Cisney said. “Ellie, will you come and take a look?”

Tony followed Ellie and Cisney to the dining room.

Ellie gushed over the birds of paradise.

“I'm glad you like them.” Cisney captured Tony's gaze. “Have I gotten the seating arrangement right?”

Ellie looped the table. “Yes. Perfect.”

Tony gaped and moved to the card holder at Nick's original spot. He shot Cisney a you-sly-fox look.

“Now, you assigned Nick here, right?” Cisney pointed at Nick's place setting, holding Tony's gaze.

“Yes, next to you.” Ellie smiled as if she were a successful cupid who'd surpassed her quota of matches for the month.

“Good. Just checking.” Wearing her I-gotcha grin, Cisney lifted her face and peered up at Tony as she drifted under his nose and followed Ellie into the kitchen.

Tony trailed her, hot on her heels. He bent down and spoke near her ear. “I like your ring.” His voice carried a singsong quality.

Her body tensed.

He kept his volume low. “It looks like it could be an engagement ring.”

She wrenched her head and looked back at him.

He raised his hands palms out in I-wouldn't-squeal-on-you fashion, but his smile said,
Gotcha
.

 

 

 

 

6

 

Nick raised his bowed head. The peacefulness of Dad's blessing turned into a hubbub of chatter and clinking silverware as the family passed serving dishes around the table. Nick held a bowl for Cisney. While she concentrated on transferring sweet potatoes to her plate, he studied her face. Her transformation from the frazzled woman down by the lake into the composed beauty sitting next to him was amazing. The light scent of her exotic perfume mixed with turkey aroma.

He passed the bowl to Mom and took two snowflake rolls from the basket Cisney handed him. “Mom makes these rolls from scratch.” He turned one in his fingers. “To die for.”

Mom shooed him with a flap of her hand. “He knows his life is safe, because I always make snowflake rolls, and plenty of them.”

Nick looked up from buttering his roll. All family members were focused on their meals, their heads bowed over their plates, except Tony.

After each bite, Tony gazed at Cisney while he chewed. And his cousin's interest hadn't gone unnoticed.

Cisney smiled and waggled her fork at Tony, like the two were old friends.

What had he missed while he showered and contemplated how to get out of his bogus engagement?

Grandpa, seated at one end of the table, poured gravy over his mashed potatoes. “Cisney, Nick tells me you're in the marketing department.”

“Yes. Nick is consulting with us on a project.”

“Ah, the actuarial policeman, huh?”

Glancing at Nick, she smiled. “Yes. He watches us closely. Doesn't want the company to skid down the slippery slide of financial ruin.”

Aunt Sandy looked around Uncle Bill at Cisney. “When I was a young actuarial student, the marketing people taught me a valuable lesson.” She sat back and spoke to the group. “I was the only actuarial staff member in a meeting of about five marketing folks and a vice president, who desperately wanted to increase market share in his area of responsibility.

“I sat quietly and marveled at all the information these marketing people eagerly promised the vice president. I bet I heard, ‘We can get you that,' ten times. I was impressed with Marketing's resources. I was too green to voice that I didn't think anyone could get some of the data they were guaranteeing to deliver.” Aunt Sandy took a sip of her iced tea. “When I returned to my cubical, my phone rang. The highest-ranking marketing person who'd attended the meeting said, ‘How soon can you get us the information and the analysis we talked about in today's meeting?' That was the last time Marketing duped me.”

Family members laughed.

Cisney chuckled politely, and then concentrated on buttering her roll. Did she feel ganged up on?

“Yeah,” Dad said, “our marketing people think we have answers for everything. But they're an agreeable bunch.”

“Happily promising executive staff the moon?” Grandpa elicited another laugh. He winked at Cisney. “Don't take us too seriously. It's not often we actuaries can rib a marketing person. We have to grab the opportunity, you know.”

Nick held his turkey-laden fork suspended. “The CEO has awarded Cisney recognition for her creative ideas and running successful marketing campaigns.”

Cisney cocked her head toward him as if she were surprised he'd defended her. She wasn't the only one shocked. His words had tumbled out unbidden. A new, and dangerous, experience for him. Why had he championed her? She could handle herself. Let her see that family tests were involved to break into this family. She couldn't skate in on her performance of “Flight of the Bumblebee” alone.

Cisney's shoulders relaxed, and she smiled good-naturedly. Of course, she'd pass the teasing test that Dana had failed. By now they all believed he and Cisney were engaged. The hole he had to dig his way out of kept getting deeper. But it wasn't Cisney's fault.

“Fran and Fannie,” Mom said, “where did you girls go today?”