Julie Hyzy - Eggsecutive Orders

Tom grimaced. “Shh!”

I lowered my voice. Too late, people around us had perked up. An avid eavesdropper myself, I recognized the body language. “All I’m saying is that Craig would be an idiot to refuse to use me as a resource.”

“I told you. He intends to do just that.”

“Now I’m confused.”

“It gets complicated.”

“Because officially”-I raised my hands to make quotation marks in the air-“I’m a suspect?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s a crock.”

We both took long sips of coffee. The waitress waited across the room, pot in hand, eyebrows raised. When I looked at her, she turned away and set about filling mugs at another table.

After a few tense moments of silence, I asked, “What about Suzie and Steve?”

Tom blinked. “Who?”

“The SizzleMasters. Remember, they were in the kitchen that day.”

“You suspect them?”

I thought about it. “Not really. But my point is that we had a camera rolling most of the day. It would be enormously helpful if I could review it.”

“Not gonna happen.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “This is so wrong,” I finally said.

“It’s only temporary.”

“It’s still… wrong.”

When he looked at me, I was taken aback by the alarm in his eyes. “Ollie, don’t get involved. Unless the directive comes from me. Or Craig. Please. I know how you are. I know how you want to fix things. You think you’re helping, but-”

With an almost palpable snap, hot anger shot furiously into my chest and spouted out my mouth. I couldn’t stop myself. “I have helped. I do help.”

Tom looked around the room and raised his hands. “Ollie, please.”

“Please what? Please let the Secret Service do its job by itself? Is Craig so insecure that help from the chef unnerves him?”

Tom glanced around. “I think it’s time we leave.” He motioned for the waitress. Mistaking his call for more coffee, she poured eagerly.

When he asked her for the check, she pursed her lips. “Okay,” she said. “Be right back.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks tight, trying hard to hold on to my temper. As much as I wanted to help this investigation-both to clear my kitchen and to satisfy my curiosity-the fact that I’d been banished from doing so wasn’t what was getting under my skin. It was Tom. He wouldn’t admit that I’d been key to preventing some major disasters in the White House. Disasters that, for one reason or another, the Secret Service could not have anticipated. Naturally, the media continued to speculate about what a busybody, amateur-sleuth wannabe I was.

I expected more from Tom.

The lines on his face were deeper than they had been. He seemed to hold himself too tightly-too wound up. A small part of me softened when I looked at him. This had to be hard for him, too. Craig issuing the edict that Tom was responsible for me was mean-spirited. Not to mention unnecessary.

Tom didn’t even look at the waitress when she dropped off the check. He mumbled a “Thank you,” and stood next to the booth, waiting for me.

Tom hadn’t asked for this assignment and I knew, clearly, that he wasn’t happy with it. If we were to get through this, I needed to keep our lines of communication open. I got up and touched his arm. “By the way,” I said, “thanks again.”

He looked at me with total confusion.

“For picking up my mom and nana from the airport,” I said. “For getting them safely to my place.”

His cheeks reddened and he looked away. “They’re nice ladies. I was glad to help.”

“It means a lot to me.”

Still not moving toward the cash register, Tom looked at me. “I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Neither do I.”

He shook his head. “But I know how your mind works.”

I nodded slightly. I had to give him that.

“I’m afraid that you will get involved, Ollie,” he said. “You’ll think that you’re just asking a simple question-just checking the veracity of a small fact-but before you know it, you’ll be in the center of everything.” He shook his head. “Again.”

“No one complains except Craig and the newspapers,” I said. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

He seemed to consider that, but a moment later shook it off. “Let’s go.”

Outside he walked me to my car. “Do me one favor,” he said. “If something, anything, comes your way that’s even remotely related to this investigation-tell me.”

“I would always-” The sentence died on my lips. There had been a few instances-more than a few, if I were totally honest-I hadn’t remembered to alert Tom to my plans. I forced a smile. “I will.”

The pain was in his face again. “I’ve worked hard to become part of the PPD. This is it-this is all I’ve ever wanted. You know that, don’t you? There’s nothing more prestigious than being part of the Presidential Protective Detail. Not for me, anyway. I don’t know what I would do if Craig dropped me from his team-”

I ran my hand along his shoulder. “I promise,” I said. “Anything comes my way-anything at all-I will tell you.”

“And if I ask you to back off of something?”

“I’ll back off.”

“Thanks.”

We shared a moment of quiet camaraderie, but then I had to ask, “Do you think there’s any chance of my team getting back into the kitchen soon?”

His shoulders slumped. “Didn’t you hear anything I said?”

I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but he didn’t seem to understand. “This isn’t about the investigation. This is about our commitments. We have Easter on Sunday, and then the big Egg Roll on Monday. I need to get back.”

“A man died at the White House after eating there. You think they’re not cancelling everything as we speak?”

Exasperated, I stared at the sky. “Something needs to be done.”

He waited until I looked at him. “But not by you. Right?”

I wanted to argue, but that would only cause him more anxiety. “No worries. I promise.”

He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. Like an uncle or kindly grandfather might do. Not exactly a clear signal of how things would be between us, going forward.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

Yeah. Sure.

“BACK SO SOON?” MOM ASKED WHEN I RETURNED to my apartment. She must have read the expression on my face, because when she turned away from the sink, her smile withered. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” That didn’t appease her, and I knew it wouldn’t. So I came up with a white lie. “With this investigation, Tom is under a lot of stress. He and I can only meet if it’s official business.”

“The impression of impropriety?”

I nodded. “Something like that.”

The way Mom studied my face I could tell she wasn’t buying my story. Of course she wasn’t. She knew me too well. “And I hate being banished from the White House,” I said, dropping into one of my kitchen chairs. “The whole point of you coming out here was so that I could show you around the president’s mansion. Now I’m not even allowed in myself.”

She made reassuring noises, the kind she always made when I was disappointed or frustrated and there was nothing we could do about it.

I smiled across the table. “I bet you wish you had stayed home.”

She patted my hand. “Of course not. Nana and I flew out here to see you . That’s the whole reason we came. And you know that this problem will get worked out. In the meantime, it’s nice having you all to ourselves.”

“But the tour I promised you-”

“There will be plenty of time for that. If not this trip, then next time.”