Table For Five

“Upstairs. I told them there’s probably some mix-up in the plans. The girls are watching a video and Cameron’s watching them.”

Or more likely, thought Lily, he was watching instant messages on the Internet. Clearly this man knew nothing about children.

“Any word from Crystal or Derek?” She finished polishing her glasses and put them back on.

“None.” He shot a glance at the stairs. “Let’s go in the kitchen.”

That was all. No “thanks for coming.” He was worried, she conceded. So was she.

As Lily followed him, she couldn’t help but notice the absolute perfection of his butt. Crystal had mentioned his golf career was on the skids. With that butt, he could always turn into a Levi’s model.

A moment later, she realized he’d turned around and caught her staring. Mortified, she shifted her gaze to a stack of three pizza boxes on the cluttered table.

“Want some?” he asked.

For a moment she felt disoriented and a bit flustered. “No, no thanks.”

“So here’s a rundown,” he said, hooking his thumbs into his rear pockets and pacing. “Derek’s fiancée, Jane, has no idea where he is.”

“She’s his fiancée?” Lily felt her stomach lurch. Crystal didn’t know that. If she did, Lily would have been the first to hear of it. Actually, the whole town probably would have heard the screams.

“I guess. As of last weekend, they made it official.”

“When was he planning to tell Crystal?” Lily sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar. She eyed the pizza boxes again, but felt too nervous to eat. Especially pizza. She hadn’t eaten pizza in ages. It was a nutritional nightmare, and stuffing herself with carbs and fats wouldn’t help anything.

Over the years, she’d spent countless hours in this kitchen, sipping herbal tea with organic honey and a slice of orange, savoring the company of her best friend. It felt weird being here with a stranger, speculating.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I bet he told her today. Maybe that’s why they didn’t come home.”

“Why would they disappear with their cell phones turned off?”

“They probably drove somewhere out of range.”

He turned and looked at her, one eyebrow lowered in skepticism. How did he do that with just one? she wondered.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

He wouldn’t.

“Think about it. If Derek remarries, these kids’ lives are going to change drastically. Crystal and Derek have got a lot to talk about.” She didn’t elaborate. Maybe Maguire knew more about the situation, maybe he didn’t. Lily didn’t see it as her place to enlighten him.

“I can’t believe they’d just take off without checking in with the kids,” he said quietly, as though talking to himself.

She drummed her fingers on the counter. An unexplained disappearance wasn’t impossible. In the final years of their marriage, Derek and Crystal had been known as the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of the PGA, with a reputation for partying, passion and public rows. They had a way of focusing on each other with total absorption, letting the world fall away as they went at each other. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine them so caught up that they temporarily forgot the kids.

Love did strange things to people, Lily reflected, then shivered with the next thought. Had they harmed each other?

She forced herself to ask the hardest question of the night. “Have you called the police?”

He winced. “Yes. I told them the make and model of both cars. There hasn’t been any report of an accident from the highway patrol.”

A small measure of relief seeped through her. “I’m glad to hear that. So are they out searching?”

He shook his head. “No. Once they established that Derek and Crystal are adults with no medical conditions, they put me off. Twenty-four hours seems to be the magic number.”

“This is not going to take twenty-four hours,” Lily said, pushing her hand into her pocket to keep from biting her nail.

“So now what?” Sean asked.

Before she could reply, a crash sounded upstairs, followed by a loud, angry cry from Ashley.

Both Sean and Lily ran to the stairs. He took them two at a time and she followed close behind.

Crystal had remodeled the upstairs some years ago, creating a common playroom for the kids’ toys, plus a nook for a TV and their own computer. Now Lily found Ashley sitting beside a broken bean-pot lamp and howling while Charlie looked on with a tight-lipped disapproval that eerily resembled Crystal. At the computer, Cameron ignored them both as colorful instant-messaging boxes cluttered the screen. They didn’t completely manage to mask the browser window with the ominous title, “Porn Ponies.”

Lily took this all in with a glance. She reached down and scooped Ashley into her arms. She’d always felt proprietary toward Crystal’s children. “Hiya, sweetie,” she said in a soothing whisper. “Are you all right?”

The child’s sobbing subsided. Then she looked at Sean and howled again. “Don’t like you,” she wailed.

He turned his hands palms up. “I never did a thing to her,” he said.

“I like you, Uncle Sean,” Charlie said, climbing him like a tree. “Hello, Lily.” Outside of school, she was allowed to call her teacher Lily. She hung upside down on Sean’s arm and offered a gap-toothed grin.

“How’s my big girl?” Lily patted the baby’s back.

“We’re waiting for Mom,” Charlie said.

“I know.” Lily sidled over to Cameron. “Lose the Porn Ponies,” she murmured. “Now.”

“Porn Ponies?” Sean scowled. “You were looking at porn on the Internet?”

“He always looks at porn,” Charlie said, dropping to the floor.

“Do not,” Cameron said.

“Do so.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “You look at it so much, I bet your pornograph machine’s going to break.”

“Moron.” He clicked the mouse and the screen went black. Ashley stopped crying and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Note to self, thought Lily. Check parental controls on the computer.

“What are you doing here, Lily?” Charlie asked. “If you came to see my mom, she’s not home yet.”

“Tell you what,” Lily said. “You and Cameron get that lamp cleaned up. Your uncle will help you. I’m going to get our little friend here ready for bed.”

Ashley’s mouth made a popping sound as she removed her thumb. “No bed,” she said, and put her thumb back.

“You’re right. You need a bath first, you smelly little thing.”