Alien Tango

been harmed. It was a cheerful cooking moment.
    I got back to the dining room in time to hear Lucinda ask Martini why he wasn’t finishing his food. He was playing with it, just staring at the plate. I walked over, kissed his head, took his old plate, put his new plate down, and went back into the kitchen. I ate his meat loaf in there, then came back out. I mean, it was really delicious and I wasn’t sure when I’d see another meal again on this trip.
    Returned to the dining room and sat down. The omelet was almost done. “You want another one?”
    He grinned at me. “No, this is great.”
    I looked over at Lucinda. “He really hates meat loaf. Not just yours, everyone’s. And, if I made it, which I don’t, he’d hate mine, too. He hates my mother’s. The thing is . . . my mother, having made it once and discovering Jeff hates it, has never made it again when he’s been over. If, for some reason, there is a meat loaf on our table, she has something else for Jeff as well.”
    “That’s catering to whims,” one of the older men said. He was sitting with Sylvia, but I couldn’t remember his name.
    “Yeah. What’s your point?”
    Sylvia rolled her eyes. “As if I don’t cater to you.”
    “Maybe I was raised wrong. My mother caters to my father. He caters to her, too. It’s part of how they show they love each other.” I wasn’t sure if this was a great line in front of Martini’s entire family, but it didn’t get the outrage it might have an hour earlier.
    “It’s everyone else’s favorite,” Lucinda said.
    “Yes, I can see why. It’s great. Caviar is great, too. So’s sushi. But not everyone likes them. He’s thirty, not three. He’s not going to like it, ever.” I looked down at Kimmie. “Just remember, you should always try things, but if you don’t like them, for real, then you shouldn’t have to eat them when you get bigger.”
    “I hate potatoes,” she said.
    “Well, sometimes your tastes change. It’s worth it to try things again, every once in a while, just in case.” Me, I loved potatoes, but I was also of the “more for me” mind-set.
    The other children took this as an opportunity. “I hate peas.” “I hate mangos.” “I hate beets.” Soon the room was ringing with food hatred. I snagged another roll.
    “You like these rolls?” I asked Martini.
    “Yeah.”
    “Can you make them?”
    “Yep.”
    “Good. Plan on it. My parents will think you’re a culinary god. No one makes decent rolls in our family, and these are to die for.”
    Martini put his arm around the back of my chair. “This is possibly the best family dinner I’ve ever had.” The listing of hated foods had gotten the adults caught up. Everyone was sharing what they didn’t like to eat. I even caught a couple mentions of “meat loaf” in there.
    I was feeling full, finally, but still took another roll, just in case. I was ready to suggest going to the hotel, wherever it was, when my phone rang.
    Dug it out, but not a number I recognized, again. “Hello?”
    “You’ve started something you can’t win.” It was a man’s voice, muffled, but menacing all the same. “You’re going to end up with bullets in your brain, just like your friend.”
    “Did you kill Karl Smith?”
    “Stay out of my business, or you’ll find out.” The phone went dead.
    All our team were sitting near me, or near enough. They’d all stopped talking and were looking at me. “Kitty, who was that?” Christopher asked quietly.
    “Someone in charge of things.”
    “How do you know?” Martini asked, his voice taut.
    “He said ‘my business.’”I looked at Reader. “Ten to one I just got a call from Howard Taft or Leventhal Reid.”
    “Give me the phone,” Kevin said. I passed it down the table to him. “Not a Kennedy number.” He pulled his phone out and called someone. “I need a trace on a number, stat.”
    “I’d really hoped to nap before we had to roll again,” I told Martini.
    “You have your little stalker friend to deal with, too.”
    “I think she should just pass on that one,” Reader said. “Seems like the least of our worries.”
    “No, Psycho Chick’s got skills. She could cause problems or kill us. I mean, she almost did already.”
    “Nothing much on the number,” Kevin said. He sounded frustrated as my phone moved back to me. “More than we got on Serene’s cell phone, but only just. It’s a payphone in Miami.”
    “Not exactly next door.”
    “Not that far, in