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“No, I mean outside that.”
“Not really. I could.”
“This kid’s been working for me a few months. Good mechanic. He’s got potential. I figured out a while back he can’t read. I mean, he can, but barely. Enough to get by, enough to fake it.”
“Illiteracy’s a bigger problem than a lot of people realize.You want to help him learn to read.”
“I’m no teacher, and hell, I wouldn’t know where to start anyway. I thought about you.”
“I could help with that, if he’s willing.”
“He’ll be willing if he wants to keep his job, or I can make him think that if he balks.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventeen. Nearly eighteen. He’s got his high school diploma—mostly, from what I get—by paying other kids to get him through, or charming the girls to. I’ll pay the freight for it.”
“No freight, Mal. I’d like to do this.”
“Thanks, but if you change your mind on the kid or the freight, no hard feelings. I’ll tell him to call you, and set it up.”
Malcolm took a swallow of beer, nodded to where Parker crossed from one end of the Ballroom to the other. “So, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Sorry?”
“Parker.Tell me something about her I don’t know.”
“Ah . . . Um.”
“Jesus, Cart, not like dirty little secrets. But if she’s got some, I’ll get you drunk and work them out of you. I mean stuff like what does she do when she’s not doing this?”
“She mostly always does this.”
“For fun. Do I have to go get you a beer just for this?”
“No.” Carter drew his eyebrows together in thought. “They hang together, the four of them. I try not to speculate on what goes on when they do, because some of it probably involves me. Shopping. She likes to shop.They all do.”
“That doesn’t come as a surprise.”
“Well . . . She’s a big reader, one with very eclectic tastes.”
“Okay, that’s a good one.”
“And . . .” Obviously warming to the task, Carter accepted the beer Malcolm snagged off a passing tray.“She and Laurel both like old movies.The classic black-and-whites. She goes to fund-raisers and charity events, some of the club functions. She and Del split those up. It’s a Brown thing.”
“Noblesse oblige.”
“Exactly. Oh, and she’s interested in doing a book.”
“No shit?”
“None. A wedding book, with each of them doing a section on their particular areas, and her tying them together. Which is pretty much how Vows runs. And I have to assume you’re not compiling this data on her out of idle curiosity.”
“You’d be right about that.”
“Then you should know, nobody compiles data outside of the NSA like Parker Brown. If she’s interested in you, she’s got a file on you.” Carter tapped his temple. “Up here.”
Malcolm shrugged. “I’m an open book.”
“Nobody is, even if they think they are. Gotta go, that’s Mac’s signal. Ah . . .” He held the barely touched beer out to Malcolm.
At loose ends, Malcolm wandered downstairs, and found Mrs. Grady paging through a magazine with a cup of tea at the kitchen counter.
“Coffee’s fresh if you’re after it.”
“Wouldn’t mind, unless you want to go up to the party and give me that dance.”
She laughed. “I’m not dressed for a party.”
“Me, either.” He took a mug, poured himself some coffee. “Hell of a party though.”
“My girls know how it’s done. Did you get your dinner?”
“Not yet.”
“How do you feel about chicken pot pie?”
“Fondly.”
She smiled.“It so happens I have some I’d be willing to share.”
“That’s lucky for me, as it so happens I was hoping to have dinner with the woman of my dreams.”
“Parker’s busy, so you’ll have to settle for me.”
“There’s nothing about you that involves settling.”
“You are a clever one, Malcolm.” She gave him a wink and a poke. “Set the table.”
She got up to put the casserole in the oven to heat and noted he hadn’t corrected her about Parker being the woman of his dreams.
She enjoyed his company. It was true enough, she admitted, that there were qualities in him that reminded her of her own Charlie. The combination of easy charm and rough edges, the casual strength and the occasional glint in his eye that said he could be dangerous when he chose.
After they sat and he’d taken the first bite, he grinned over at her. “Okay, it tastes as good as it looks. I cook a little.”
“Do you now?”
“Takeout and nuking get old, and I can’t always hit on my mother for a meal. So I put something together a couple times a week anyway. Maybe you’ll give me the recipe?”
“Maybe I will. How’s your mother?”
“She’s great. I bought her a Wii. Now she’s addicted to Mario Kart and Bowling. She kicks my ass in Bowling, I kick hers on Mario Kart.”
“You’ve always been a good son.”
He shrugged it off. “Some times better than others. She likes her job.That’s important, liking your work.You like yours.”
“Always have.”
“You’ve been with the Browns ever since I heard about the Browns, and I guess before that.”
“It’ll be forty years next spring.”
“Forty?” It didn’t hurt her vanity to see his genuine shock at the number. “So you were, what, eight? Aren’t there laws about child labor?”
She laughed, pointed a finger at him. “I was twenty-one.”
“How’d you start?”
“As a maid. Back then, Mrs. Brown, who’d be Parker’s grandmother, had a full staff, and was no easy woman to work for.Three housemaids, the butler, the housekeeper, cook and kitchen staff, gardeners, drivers. There were twenty-four of us as a rule. I was young and green, but needed the work, not just for my keep but to get through the loss of my husband in the war. The Vietnam War.”
“How long were you married?”
“Almost three years, but my Charlie was gone for a soldier nearly half of that. Oh, I was so angry with him for signing up. But he said if he was going to be an American—he’d come over from Kerry, you see—then he had to fight for America. So he fought, and he died, like too many others. They gave him a medal for it. Well, you know what that is.”
“Yeah.”
“We’d been living in the city, and I didn’t want the city when I knew Charlie wouldn’t be in it with me again. I’d been doing for a friend of the Browns, and she remarried and was moving to Europe. She recommended me to Mrs. Brown, the one who was, and I started on as a maid. The young master, Parker’s father, was near my age, a bit younger when I started on. I can tell you he didn’t take after his mother.”
“I’ve heard a few things that tell me we’re all better off for that.”
“He had a way of navigating the gap between his parents. He had a kindness to him, a shrewdness, yes, but a kindness. He fell for the young miss, and that was lovely to see. Like a romantic movie. She was so full of fun and light. I can tell you when the house came to them, it was full of fun and light—and that hadn’t been the case before, not in my time. They kept the staff on who wanted to stay, retired those who wanted to retire. As the housekeeper at the time was ready to go, the young miss asked if I wanted the position. It was good work for good people in a happy home for a lot of years.”
She let out a sigh. “It was my family who died on that day, too.”
“I was in LA, and I heard about it, even before my mother told me.The Browns made a mark.”
“They did.This house, this home is part of the mark.”
“Now you run it pretty much solo.”
“Oh, I have help with the cleaning. Parker leaves that for me to decide when I need it, what I need.We still have
gardeners for the grounds, and Parker and Emma deal with them for the most part. And Parker?” She stopped, laughed. “It’s the same now as ever. No one has to tidy up after that girl.You’re lucky if she isn’t organizing you to within an inch. I get my winters off in the island breezes, and any time I need between. And I have the great pleasure of watching two children I saw take their first steps leave their own marks.”
She scooped another helping in his bowl. “You remind me of my Charlie.”
“Really? Want to get married?”
She wagged the spoon at him. “That right there would’ve rolled just as quick off his tongue. He had a way with the ladies, regardless of their age. It gives me a soft spot for you, Malcolm. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Are you after my girl, Malcolm?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Don’t screw it up.”
