Alien in the Family

and we know we have time. You gonna finish that Kiev?”
    “Yes, but have it anyway.” He speared it quickly, and it disappeared from his plate almost as fast. Martini rarely used hyperspeed to eat; all the A-Cs were trained to do “human” things slowly from birth, so I knew he was starving. Well, we had been amazingly active for hours on end. I put my last cabbage roll onto his plate.
    Chuckie grinned, wandered off, came back with another loaded plate. He put it down in the middle of the table. “Group feeding trough.” This food disappeared quickly, and Chuckie waved someone down. A waiter managed to get near us. “Can I get more of the main dishes over here?”
    “Yes, sir.” The waiter hustled off.
    “Nice to have them at your beck and call,” Reader said in between mouthfuls.
    “Pay to have a place closed for your own private party, tell the chef to pull out all the stops, the only goal being all the good food and drink that the guests can eat be available and coming nonstop, and add that money is no object—you get treated right.” Chuckie beat me to the last cabbage roll on the group plate. “More’s coming, and I’m bigger than you,” he said with a laugh.
    “Where’s Kevin? Bet he’d like to know what I think’s coming.”
    “He’s with your parents,” Chuckie told me. “And we’re all fascinated. I’m wondering how you’re missing the part where we’re surrounded by your relatives and at your engagement party, though.”
    “My surprise engagement party.”
    He grinned. “Pontifex White, Mister Martini, Senior, and I thought it was appropriate. And, again, it’s a great cover. Your mother felt it would make her job easier, too, so we’re approved up to the Presidential level.”
    I would have been impressed by our importance, but the waiter arrived with four laden plates and I was too busy trying to get food to care about it. The men cleared them to their own plates before he could set them down. I managed to snag a couple of cabbage rolls before they were all gone but got stuck with a lot of potatoes and goulash.
    I looked at Martini. “Did you know about this?”
    “No. You eating that goulash?”
    “Go for it.” I wolfed down my cabbage rolls and eyed the ice bar with a touch of nostalgia. It was exactly that, a bar made out of ice, to keep your vodka martinis nice and frosty. Chuckie and I had come here every day when we were in Vegas.
    “Hate your line of thought,” Martini muttered as he snagged some potatoes off my plate.
    “Just occasionally miss having a drink.”
    “So have one.”
    “Right. Like I want to risk killing you? Or, worse, not being able to kiss you?”
    He grinned. “Okay, love this line of thought.” He kissed me, then finished the rest of my potatoes.
    I looked around some more. “Chuckie, how did my entire family get out here? I mean, my cousins are all here, not just my aunts and uncles and grandparents. The only ones missing are the kids under eighteen, ’cause I see the older ones. At the bar. Drinking.” Lucky things. I wanted to give the ones under twenty-one a severe talking-to, but they’d know it was because I wasn’t having a drink myself, so I let it pass.
    He shrugged. “I think your grandparents called them. Apparently it wasn’t sitting well with anyone that they hadn’t met any of Martini’s family. Once they did and could confirm that Alfred and Lucinda seemed to believe you two were really getting married, it snowballed. The more of your side that came out, the more of Martini’s side Lucinda called in, basically.”
    “Huh.” Most of my family lived in the West, so it wasn’t a long flight or even drive to get here for most of them. But some of them had come from farther away. “What day is it?”
    “Thursday.” Chuckie gave me a long look. “You slept last, when?”
    “No idea.” My brain was whirring. “I think I know the rest of the plot.”
    “Great. Is there anything for dessert?” Martini had finished everything on my plate and his.
    “Yeah.” Chuckie made some signals and two waiters appeared, laden with dessert plates, teacakes, and some other things. I couldn’t identify the other things because the men devoured them before I got a good glimpse. Fine. I liked teacakes. I took a few and clutched my dessert plate to my bosom.
    “No one cares what I think,” I muttered to my teacake.
    “We care. You gonna eat that other one?”
    “No, Jeff, I took it for you.” He ignored my sarcasm