guess that well.'
'I still don't understand….' he began.
'You never will,' I said, with a sigh. 'It's a chick thing.'
'Next time, just tell her it's an old family recipe, and your mother forbids you to give it out.'
'Now that might work,' I said. 'Better yet, I'll confess.'
'That you didn't cook the sauce?'
'No, I'll confess that I lost the copy of the recipe Mother gave me, and was trying to write it down from memory, and that she'll have to get it from Mother. Mother can do the old family recipe bit much better than I ever could.'
'Yes, and Mom would certainly understand your mother not wanting to give her the recipe,' Michael said.
His mother had taken up a post near the center of the party, about ten feet from my mother. The two had their backs to each other, and they were both laughing, talking, and gesturing with practiced gaiety.
Suddenly they both turned and, as if on cue, reacted with visible (though implausible) delight and surprise at seeing each other and managed, despite their enormous panniers, to maneuver themselves close enough to kiss each other carefully on or near the cheek.
I wondered if real colonial grande'dames lost quite so much hair powder over the course of an evening. Mrs. Waterston's shoulders had been speckled with it, like artificial dandruff, and now, when her towering wig and Mother's happened to touch during their choreographed embrace, a small cloud of powder rose, reminding me of the haze of musket smoke that began to cover the reenactors' battlefields after the first volley or two of musket fire.
'I have a bad feeling about this,' I said.
'Maybe I should go round up your dad, so he and I can distract them if necessary,' Michael said.
He kissed me on the cheek and launched himself through the crowd.
'Start looking near the food,' I called after him. I wasn't sure he heard me, but then he knew Dad well enough by now to figure that out on his own.
I wasn't sure what had happened to set them off, but Mother and Mrs. Waterston definitely looked as if they were squaring off for battle, which in their case didn't get beyond polite sarcasm and veiled insults, but I would still rather not see them get into it.
I was about to work my way closer to them, to see if I could do anything to distract them, when I sensed someone coming up behind me. I caught a glimpse, out of the corner of my eye, of one of Mrs. Waterston's ubiquitous blue rental coats.
Not again, I thought.
'So what's the scoop with this Faulkner character?' Wesley Hatcher said stepping a little closer. 'Where have I seen him before?'
'At craft fairs, I suppose,' I said, wincing inwardly. 'He's a nationally known blacksmith.'
'No, that's not it,' he said. 'I don't normally waste a lot of time at these things, but I know I've seen him somewhere.'
Unfortunately, he probably had, in a way. Faulk and his prominent patrician father did have a strong family resemblance, and I could imagine how old Mr. Cates would react if he found his family's private life plastered across the front page of the
'I know there's a story there somewhere,' Wesley mused.
'Wesley, could you interrogate me later?' I said. 'I have a bit of a headache.'
Which was, I realized, not entirely a lie.
'Probably oxygen deprivation,' Wesley said. 'I don't know how you can breathe in that outfit.'
'Wesley – '
'Although, come to think of it, I can see it every time you do breathe.'
'Very funny.'
'Hey, you don't feel a sneeze coming on, do you? I'd love to see that.'
He had, I realized, inched close enough so that he was now staring down the front of my bodice. He must have had enough alcohol to overcome his previous caution.
'Wesley, if you drool on me, you'll be the one with the headache,' I said, taking a giant step away. 'In fact, if you don't go away this minute, I will claim you tried to paw me, and even the people who don't know you will believe it when they see this dress.'
'Spoilsport,' Wesley said, but he knew better than to argue with me. He melted into the crowd, heading toward the bar. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Maybe I shouldn't have chased Wesley away. At least when he was leering at my cleavage, he wasn't pumping anyone else for information on Tad and Faulk. Maybe I should go after him.
But no, someone else had already distracted him. Tony-the-louse, who had been standing by the bar, drinking steadily, greeted Wesley's arrival with a bellow of rage.
'You lousy snoop!' he shouted, and threw his pewter mug at Wesley.
'Hey!' Wesley said, as the mug bounced off his head. 'What do you think you're doing?'
'If you publish that damned article, I'll rip you in two,' Tony said, lurching forward to grab Wesley by the arm.
'Leave me alone,' Wesley said, shaking Tony's grip off while backing away.
'Cheap, shoddy workmanship!' Tony roared. 'Wait till I test one of my pokers on your head! See how shoddy that is!'
Wesley turned and ran. Tony gave chase, and they careened through the party like billiard balls. Conversation stopped until they broke free of the crowd, and then resumed, as Tony, loping slowly but persistently, disappeared in the direction he thought Wesley had taken.
I wondered, briefly, if someone should go after them. Probably unnecessary, I decided. Drunk as he was, I didn't think Tony could catch Wesley, much less do him any harm. And judging by the frown on Mrs. Waterston's face, I had every hope she'd declare each of them persona non grata for the rest of the festival. I closed my eyes again and smiled slightly, contemplating the prospect of Wesley getting kicked out of Yorktown, or at least banned from the craft fair.
'Good job, lady.'
I opened my eyes to see another of Mrs. Waterston's blue rental coats, this one containing Roger Benson. Someone had made the mistake of letting him get his hands on a pewter mug that probably held at least a pint and a half of liquid, and the bartenders had compounded the mistake by filling it with something alcoholic – probably more than once, from the boiled lobster color of bis face, which nearly matched die bloodstains on his shirt.
'It's your doing, I know that,' he said, slurring his words slightly. 'Told that brother of yours to hold out on me. Think you can hold me over the barrel for more money.'
'That's not the idea at all,' I said.
'Crap!' he said, lurching forward and thrusting his face toward mine. Since we were almost the same height, I found myself standing practically nose-to-nose with him – close enough to identify the fumes from his mug as gin and tonic rather than beer. 'You don't mean you really believe I stole some lousy program from that miserable little – '
'It's nothing personal, Mr. Benson,' I said, interrupting him before he could say anything about Tad that would make me really lose my temper. 'But I'm sure you can see that, under the circumstances, it's better for all concerned if we clear up these accusations before proceeding.'
'I can't believe you'd actually listen to that crap from Jackson,' Benson went on. 'You know what they're like – pathological liars, every one of them.'
'I've found most of the programmers I've met are unusually honest,' I said. 'Maybe a little overly literal, but I
