Moonlight Masquerade (Edilean 8)

“Are you advertising for a waitperson or a wife?”

“I’m open to opportunity,” he said. “Let’s see what turns up.”

The people who showed up were not what Sophie had in mind to help with the work of a restaurant. Every college kid for fifty miles around who was trying for a degree in some art form answered the ad. Since they recognized Roan’s professor attitude, they were drawn to him and sat down at the tables. Soon all of them were into deep discussions about art and philosophy and the meaning of life.

Sophie was left with the work to do. When Reede showed up at one o’clock she was sitting on the floor with a cookbook open beside her, the manual for the big coffee machine Roan had bought in front of her, and a piece of clay that was beginning to look like a giraffe in her hands. Roan and his “students,” i.e., the job applicants, were taking up all the tables.

Reede made his way through the mess, looked down at Sophie without saying a word, and offered her his hand. Gratefully, she took it and they went outside.

“Looks like you’re getting to know my cousin,” Reede said.

“Oh yeah. He has a quote from

a philosopher for every thought mankind has ever had.”

“Mankind, huh?”

She had the clay in her hands and was moving it about as they spoke. “Another day of this and I’ll be calling myself ‘one’ as in, ‘One can only guess at the enormity of the cosmic consequences of one’s inner self.’ ”

Reede laughed. “Sounds just like Roan. Have you eaten?”

“Not for hours.”

“Good. Me neither. Let’s go to Ellie’s for lunch.”

“Is she my competition?”

“She’s your savior. She owns the grocery, and she’ll sell to you wholesale.”

“She could give me a ninety-nine percent discount and I still couldn’t afford it. I tried to talk to Roan about money, but he was busy.”

They’d reached Reede’s Jeep and they got in it. “You have to understand that Roan is a McTern.”

“Al said he’d inherited some property.”

“More than a little.” Reede started the engine. They were in the little parking area behind his office. “See the building my office is in?”

“Yes.”

“Roan owns that. And the one next to it and that one and that one. In fact, he owns most of the downtown, and we all pay him rent. An ancestor of his, Tam McTern, bought the land and began building the town.”

“And it’s stayed in the family all this time?”

“Through centuries. He sells some of it now and then but mostly to cousins.”

“He wants to sell the sandwich shop to Al. He isn’t a cousin, is he?”

“No,” Reede said, “but Al’s family’s been here a while.”

Sophie was beginning to learn about Edilean. “A hundred years?”

“Or more,” Reede said, his eyes twinkling.

By the time they got to the grocery, she was almost finished with the giraffe. They sat in the car and he watched her as she pushed and pulled the clay. “Could I borrow your keys?”

He handed them to her and she quickly used a point to etch onto the clay a semblance of the giraffe’s distinctive skin pattern.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he said.