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us all about your new case.”
    And suddenly, everyone at the table was looking at me and waiting to hear what I had to say.
    It was an unusual experience. 
    No one in my family has ever asked me about removing a stain or the proper way to polish silver.
    It felt nice. 
    I dove into the story.  “It all started with a call from Theresa—”
    My mom filled in, “The worst employee that Quincy’s ever had.”
    “Yes,” I said, then finished the story, most of which had been covered in the paper.  Still, they sat through dinner, listening to my version, and asking the occasional question.
    The conversation eventually made it to medicine, but I didn’t mind.  I’m probably the only LA maid who knows what ankylosing spondylitis is. (Chronic inflammation of the spine and sacroiliac joints.) 
    It was actually a very nice family diner.
     
    On Friday I went into Mac-Prac (see, it sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) at lunchtime. Mom and Dad had put in a very nice lunchroom with a full kitchen at the new offices.  On Fridays, they have lunch brought in and the office eats in shifts.
    I wanted a chance to get to see the new employees up close without being obvious.  Although, having the bosses’ daughter/sister/sister-in-law hanging out in the break room wasn’t ideal, it was the best I could come up with.
    I made cookies that morning and brought them in warm.  “My family feel like you all are family, too,” I said.  “Which makes you my family in a step-family sort of way,” I said.
    I’d have been less conspicuous if I’d come in to clean the place.
    “So tell me about yourselves,” I said to Betty Lou, Mary Kay, and Laurel.  Mom had told me the three of them were hired about the same time and worked predominately for Art and Gil. 
    They all looked at me as if I were crazy.  So I tried, “You know my brothers.  They’re not overly talkative.  I remember, when we were little, we went on a car-trip from Erie to Boston.  It was a good day’s travel.  Art read two books and Gil read one, though he argued how much they read should be measured by page-count, not by the quantity of books.  His was some dusty tome on politics.  Ask me what I read?”
    Mary Kay obliged.  “What did you read, Quincy?” 
    “Ten magazines.  By the time we got to Boston, I was an expert on current fashion—though this was the nineties, so it wasn’t great fashion by any stretch of the imagination.  I also was well informed about everything that was going on in Hollywood.”
    They all smiled Laurel said, “My brother used to be infuriating he….” 
    All three of them talked about their siblings, about their families now, about my brothers.  They laughed and ate, and they made me feel welcome.
    For the life of me, I couldn’t think of a subtle way of asking if they had by any chance purloined a significant quantity of supplies.  But in my gut, I thought I knew the answer.  No.  They hadn’t.
    After they finished eating and went back to work, Carson and Jocelyn came in.  They sat together as well.  That made sense since they were a couple decades younger than the rest of the staff.  I took cookies around to everyone, most of them I’d known for years.
    I went to Carson and Jocelyn’s table last.  “Hi.  You two are new here.  I’m Quincy Mac—”
    “Oh, Quincy, we know who you are.  Your mom has gone on and on about her brilliant daughter, the super-sleuth, business owner, and mother extraordinaire.  Have a seat,” Jocelyn said.  “It was nice of you to make cookies for everyone.  But that doesn’t surprise me.  Your family is very nice.  This is one of the best places I’ve ever worked.  And I’m not just talking your mom’s catered Friday lunches.  It’s the little things.  My son had the flu a couple weeks after I started working here.  I took him to my mom’s, but when your mother heard I’d left him, she sent me home.  She said, W hen a child’s sick, they want