picked up the coffee from his desk, bent down and retrieved the bag with the biscotti, and limped over to my own desk. I sat in silence and popped the lid. All the foam was gone. I took my first taste. Slightly better than a cold shower.
“It's not a style for everybody, but you carry it off, Camilla.”
Sometimes you have to make the best of adversity. On a typical day, I send Alvin on clusters of low-level yet time-consuming errands all over town: the post office, the dry cleaners, the bank. He finds addresses from the public library, pays traffic tickets at City Hall, and picks out birthday cards for my sisters, although after his last selection I had to stop that. But this could be the morning to send him to the drugstore for panty liners.
I dipped my biscotti into the flat cool latte and daydreamed about precisely what it would take to carry Alvin out of my life. I was rubbing my socks in an effort to restore feeling to my toes when the phone rang. And rang again.
“Answer the phone, Alvin.” I did not swear. I did not indulge in sarcasm. I did not hyperventilate. Not even on the third ring. I didn't want Alvin to press my buttons. This was harder than it sounds. “And take a message if it's one of my sisters.”
Midway through the fourth ring, before it flipped over to call answer, Alvin lifted the receiver with a languid hand and produced the kind of upbeat chirp you might expect in a chewing gum commercial.
“Justice for Victims. Good morning! Yes. Yes, it is. What? Oh! All right, certainly, I'll see if she's available. Please hold.”
“What? Of course I'm available. I'm right in front of you.” I reached over and snatched the receiver from Alvin's hand. “Camilla MacPhee here.”
“It's your sister,” Alvin said.
“Damn.” Too late. I didn't even have time to ask which one.
Edwina's measured tones drifted down the line. “Camilla, you have to get rid of that boy.” In a previous life Edwina might have been a head of state, leading the population through war and famine, brooking no opposition, keeping the dungeons full. Of my three sisters, she is the one I am least fond of finding on the end of a phone line.
“Perhaps you're right,” I said, “but I'm always afraid they'll bring back the death penalty.”
“Why can't he answer the phone like any normal person?”
“He can't, that's all. He just can't, and he'll never be able to. Deal with it and move on, Edwina. Or better yet, back me up the next time I try to tell our mutual father why I need a change of staff.”
“Oh, Camilla, you know how Daddy is about helping people. He'd never understand.”
Nicely understated. Somewhere back in time, my father had fond memories of Alvin's mother, now the widow of a spectacularly alcoholic shoe salesman. Alvin was number six of seven children and definitely in need of help. Since my father is the only person in the world I've never talked back to, Alvin continues to clog my life in his own special way.
My cellphone rang. This time Alvin answered on ring one.
“You're right, Daddy won't understand,” I said to Edwina. “And I'm stuck with the situation. So learn to call me at home.”
Alvin tapped my shoulder.
Edwina likes to dish out orders, not receive them. “No need to be snippy, Miss. I need your cooperation to deal with Alexa's wedding. The way it's going, it will drive the whole family crazy.”
I swatted at Alvin's hand. “Take a message,” I mouthed.
“The whole family's already crazy, Edwina,” I said. “And what do you have to complain about, anyway? It's not like you're stuck with being a bridesmaid. Try a little perspective.”
“Perspective?” Edwina sounded like she was choking. “Don't tell me to show a little perspective, Little-Miss-I-can't cooperate on any of the arrangements for my own sister's wedding because I was put on this earth to make life difficult for the human race.”
Alvin moved over to the front of my desk. He had his hand over the receiver. “I think you'd better take this one.”
“Listen, Edwina, if you mean the…”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“No need to be nasty.”
I showed Alvin my middle finger.
Edwina sputtered from the receiver.
“Gotta go, Edwina. We should keep the discussions of the wedding to non-office hours, since you're so emotional.”
“What? You listen to me, Camilla MacPhee. You are the biggest problem we have. The point of my call is to tell you to shape up.”
Alvin stuck his face six inches from mine. Behind the pointy black spectacles his eyes were slits. He tried to wrap my hand around the receiver.
“One minute.”
“Don't you ‘one minute’ me,” Edwina barked. “Your sister has a well-deserved second chance at happiness, and she doesn't need you to act like a spoiled brat and ruin everything. Do I make myself clear?”
“If Alexa's foolish enough to think she can be happy with a pudgy middle-aged police officer.…”
It takes more than a loud voice to force the supreme ruler to back down. “Fine. We're having a family dinner,” she said. “Wednesday. My place. Six thirty. We'll discuss it then.”
Family dinner? I thought fast. Trip out of town? Frostbite? Amnesia? “But.”
“No buts. Stan will pick you up.” Edwina hung up before I could think of twelve unassailable reasons why I couldn't attend. Trounced again.
Alvin paced in front of my desk. The parrots on his shirt flapped.
“Is it necessary to hound me when I'm on the phone?”
“It's Lindsay Grace,” he said. “She says it's an emergency.”
I grabbed the receiver.
“Lindsay?”
Nothing.
“Lindsay? It's Camilla. Are you all right?”
Dead air.
“Lindsay!” Shouting didn't help. The dial tone was the last sound I wanted to hear. I sank into my chair. To do Alvin credit, he didn't think it was funny.
“Did she say where she was calling from?”
He shook his head.
“Did she say what happened?”
“No. She said it was urgent, and she needed to talk to you.”
“That was it?”
“She kept saying Benning was out.”
“Hardly.”
