"Okay," I said, trying to sound neutral.
"Hey, Iam sorry."
I nodded and went back to drying the dishes and putting them away. The menu, as decided by Amelia, was tossed green salad with tomatoes and slivered carrots, lasagna, hot garlic bread, and steamed fresh mixed vegetables. I don't know diddly-squat about steamed vegetables, but I had prepared all the raw materials—the zucchini, bell peppers, mushrooms, cauliflower. Late in the afternoon, I was deemed capable of tossing the salad, and I got to put the cloth and the little bouquet of flowers on the table and arrange the place settings. Four place settings.
I'd offered to take Mr. Marley into the living room with me, where we could eat on TV trays, but you would have thought I'd offered to wash his feet, Amelia was so horrified.
"No, you're sticking with me," she said.
"You gotta talk to your dad," I said. "At some point, I'm leaving the room."
She took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay, I'm a grown-up," she muttered.
"Scaredy-cat," I said.
"You haven't met him yet."
Amelia hurried upstairs at four fifteen to get ready. I was sitting in the living room reading a library book when I heard a car on the gravel driveway. I glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was four forty-eight. I yelled up the staircase and stood to look out the window. The afternoon was drawing to a close, but since we hadn't reverted to standard time yet, it was easy to see the Lincoln Town Car parked in front. A man with clipped dark hair, wearing a business suit, got out of the driver's seat. This must be Marley. He wasn't wearing a chauffeur's hat, somewhat to my disappointment. He opened a rear door. Out stepped Copley Carmichael.
Amelia's dad wasn't very tall, and he had short thick gray hair that looked like a really good carpet, dense and smooth and expertly cut. He was very tan, and his eyebrows were still dark. No glasses. No lips. Well, he did have lips, but they were really thin, so his mouth looked like a trap.
Mr. Carmichael looked around him as if he were doing a tax assessment.
I heard Amelia clattering down the stairs behind me as I watched the man in my front yard complete his survey. Marley the chauffeur was looking right at the house. He'd spotted my face at the window.
"Marley's sort of new," Amelia said. "He's been with my dad for just two years."
"Your dad's always had a driver?"
"Yeah. Marley's a bodyguard, too," Amelia said casually, as if everyone's dad had a bodyguard.
They were walking up the gravel sidewalk now, not even looking at its neat border of ilex. Up the wooden steps. Across the front porch. Knocking.
I thought of all the scary creatures that had been in my house: Weres, shifters, vampires, even a demon or two. Why should I be worried about this man? I straightened my spine, chilled my anxious brain, and went to the front door, though Amelia almost beat me to it. After all, this was my house.
I put my hand on the knob, and I got my smile ready before I opened the door.
"Please come in," I said, and Marley opened the screen door for Mr. Carmichael, who came in and hugged his daughter but not before he'd cast another comprehensive look around the living room.
He was as clear a broadcaster as his daughter.
He was thinking this looked mighty shabby for a daughter of his. . . . Pretty girl Amelia was living with . . . Wondered if Amelia was having sex with her... The girl was probably no better than she should be.... No police record, though she had dated a vampire and had a wild brother...
Of course a rich and powerful man like Copley Carmichael would have his daughter's new housemate investigated. Such a procedure had simply never occurred to me, like so many things the rich did.
I took a deep breath. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse," I said politely. "You must be Mr. Carmichael. And this is?" After shaking Mr. Carmichael's hand, I extended mine to Marley.
For a second, I thought I'd caught Amelia's dad off-footed. But he recovered in record time.
"This is Tyrese Marley," Mr. Carmichael said smoothly.
The chauffeur shook my hand gently, as if he didn't want to break my bones, and then he nodded to Amelia. "Miss Amelia," he said, and Amelia looked angry, as if she was going to tell him to cut the "Miss," but then she reconsidered. All these thoughts, pinging back and forth... It was enough to keep me distracted.
Tyrese Marley was a very, very light-skinned African-American. He was far from black; his skin was more the color of old ivory. His eyes were bright hazel. Though his hair was black, it wasn't curly, and it had a red cast. Marley was a man you'd always look at twice.
"I'll take the car back to town and get some gas," he said to his boss. "While you spend time with Miss Amelia. When you want me back?"
Mr. Carmichael looked down at his watch. "A couple of hours."
"You're welcome to stay for supper," I said, managing a very neutral tone. I wanted what made everyone feel comfortable.
"I have a few errands I need to run," Tyrese Marley said with no inflection. "Thanks for the invitation. I'll see you later." He left.
Okay, end of my attempt at democracy.
Tyrese couldn't have known how much I would have preferred going into town rather than staying in the house. I braced myself and began the social necessities. "Can I get you a glass of wine, Mr. Carmichael, or something else to drink? What about you, Amelia?"
"Call me Cope," he said, smiling. It was way too much like a shark's grin to warm my heart. "Sure, a glass of whatever's open. You, baby?"
"Some of the white," she said, and I heard her telling her dad to be seated as I went to the kitchen.
I served the wine and added it to the tray with our hors d'oeuvres: crackers, a warm Brie spread, and apricot jam mixed with hot peppers. We had some cute little knives that looked good with the tray, and Amelia had gotten cocktail napkins for the drinks.
Cope had a good appetite, and he enjoyed the Brie. He sipped the wine, which was an Arkansas label, and nodded politely. Well, at least he didn't spit it out. I seldom drink, and I'm no kind of wine connoisseur. In fact, I'm not a connoisseur of anything at all. But I enjoyed the wine, sip by sip.
"Amelia, tell me what you're doing with your time while you're waiting for your home to be repaired," Cope said, which I thought was a reasonable opening.
I started to tell him that for starters, she wasn't screwing around with me, but I thought that might be a little too direct. I tried very hard not to read his thoughts, but I swear, with him and his daughter in the same room, it was like listening to a television broadcast.
"I've done some filing for one of the local insurance agents. And I'm working part-time at Merlotte's Bar," Amelia said. "I serve drinks and the occasional chicken basket."
"Is the bar work interesting?" Cope didn't sound sarcastic, I'll give him that. But, of course, I was sure he'd had Sam researched, too.
"It's not bad," she said with a slight smile. That was a lot of restraint for Amelia, so I checked into her brain to see that she was squeezing herself into a conversational girdle. "I get good tips."
Her father nodded. "You, Miss Stackhouse?" Cope asked politely.
He knew everything about me but the shade of fingernail polish I was wearing, and I was sure he'd add that to my file if he could. "I work at Merlotte's full-time," I said, just as if he didn't know that. "I've been there for years."
"You have family in the area?"
"Oh, yes, we've been here forever," I said. "Or as close to forever as Americans get. But our family's dwindled down. It's just me and my brother now."