Alien Diplomacy

could toss out this simple phrase in French. I knew I had to get away from these people before I stopped channeling the Washington Wife class and went back to good old me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been lovely chatting with you, but I need to powder my nose.” Per Lockwood, this one still worked as the universal signal for “I gotta pee.”
    Lockwood appeared to be right, since the others had disappointed looks on their faces, but no one tried too hard to keep me around. Nathalie looked up from her phone again, though. “Oh, I do, too. I’ll go with you.” She linked her arm through mine before I could say anything, and we sailed off.
    “It was very kind of you to share the name of your designer,” shesaid as we wended our way through the crowd in search of a bathroom.
    “Was it?”
    She laughed. “Oh, yes. You’ve nothing to fear from me, I’m still dressed by Dior.”
    “That’s nice. You look great,” I added. I hadn’t really paid attention, but she did look good.
    “Thank you. You must be very confident, not that I can blame you. I heard there was a huge scramble from the design community to be the ones to get the chance to dress the American Centaurion Embassy.”
    I was lost, and this didn’t seem assassination related. “I’m sorry, but what am I supposed to be confident about?”
    “Why, that your designer won’t move to Marcia the moment the ball is over. Because, believe me, that’s going to be Marcia’s first call tomorrow.” Considering what I knew was coming, I doubted that, but now wasn’t the time to express those sentiments.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Not that I believe you have any worries. Your Embassy has many women in it, meaning your designer has more opportunities to show off her skills. If she moved to Marcia, she’d only have the one client of note, and, between you and me, Marcia doesn’t have the same prestige that designing for an entire Embassy does.”
    “You’re serious?”
    “Oh, yes.” We found the bathroom, which was quite crowded. “I believe there’s another nearby. Do you want to try that one?”
    I actually wanted to ditch Nathalie. “No, I’ll wait. The way my luck goes, if I leave the line, the next bathroom’s line will be longer.”
    She smiled. “My luck doesn’t run like that. I’m going to give it a try. See you back inside.” Nathalie left the bathroom. As she did, I realized we’d just had the longest and most pleasant conversation of our entire relationship.
    I didn’t want to raise suspicions or try to leave only to have Nathalie return because the other line really was longer, so I waited. The line was indeed long, and I didn’t feel like chatting because I didn’t want to waste whatever little diplomatic chitchat I had left on ladies waiting to relieve themselves. But I was prepared. I pulled out the paper and read the article on Titan and Marling in full.
    It might have been in the business section, but it was really a human interest piece. In addition to the personal info about how he lost his wife and children—“tragic accident” was the sum total ofthe description—it was revealed that he loved world travel, was fluent in several languages, loved word puzzles and anagrams and considered himself a Scrabble pro, was a huge supporter of gay rights and gay marriage, provided funding to an extraordinary number of orphanages in countries devastated by wars, was an animal activist, and had an African Gray Parrot he adored named, of all things, Rybelleclies. Apparently, the name was an anagram of his wife’s name, but to me, that was taking quirkiness to a new level. A second picture showed him kissing the bird on its beak. Clearly, he was the Bird Man of D.C.
    It was weird to read this article and see the good the man had done in some significant areas that mattered to me, while also knowing he’d hired a very professional assassin to kill me and was also involved in a plot to kill who knew who else here tonight. I realized if I’d read the article and met Marling before any of this had started going down, I’d probably have liked him and considered his flirty French line to be fun and flattering. Especially if I hadn’t heard it from Bryce first.
    Bathroom visit finally done, I folded up the newspaper and put it back into my clutch. I pulled out the strap while I was at it, and petted Harlie and Poofikins, who were both snoozing. The clutch looked just as good as a shoulder bag. I trotted out of the bathroom,