Chapter 17: Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner

“HELLO. I’M REBA SMITH. I’ve been sent by the alphabet soup department to collect a baby from Mr. Adams,” the redhead at the door said. Ramsey looked at her skeptically. Another Smith sent to collect Jack’s... Wait a minute.

“It’s not right to make someone work on Thanksgiving,” I said. “Come in and join us for dinner. We’re just having drinks before we go downstairs for the meal.”

“Oh yes, thank you.” Reba pranced into the room like she owned it, went directly to Jack and kissed him. He spit champagne through his nose.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” Jack sputtered. “What are you doing? I don’t go around kissing strange women.”

“I won’t be strange for long, Jackie-poo. You’ll get used to it.”

“What agency did you say you’re from?” Sheila asked. This person looked and sounded awfully familiar.

“Oh, you know. The redhead one. They’re all the same.”

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Smith MIB said moving between Jack and Reba. I’d guessed right and the MIB came out of their rooms at ten Thursday morning as if they’d been there all along. For that matter, maybe they had. Already this morning, they’d begun forging a truce with the colonel and had vetted both Sheila and Kitty. “Let’s see your ID. I’ll run a check on it while Ms. Smith here takes you to a different room to strip search.”

With Reba squealing all the way, Ms. Smith escorted her into a bedroom. “In the bedroom with just me or out here with everyone watching,” she growled. Reba was pushed into the room. Smythe was already on his phone looking over the shoulder of Smith at Reba’s ID. Sheila was likewise on her phone, having snapped a picture of the newcomer and sent it to someone.

“Well, this is exciting. Mattie, better call the kitchen and have them set another place. I think we’re up to fifteen now,” I said. Mattie made the call from a house phone. Elizabeth hooked my arm and led me to our room.

“She’s a fraud,” Elizabeth hissed.

“Of course she is. Cleverest of the contenders so far. Might be worth considering,” I laughed. “I do wish we could get people to use a different alias than Smith. What is wrong with Jones? We could even use some Herrera for variety.”

“Who is Herrera?” a baffled Elizabeth asked.

“That’s Spanish for Smith.”

“What are we going to do, Ramsey? She didn’t come here to make a collection like Sheila. She came here to get pregnant. Jack isn’t safe from her.”

“I think we should play along for a while and see what the others come up with. Everyone was on a phone.” I kissed my wife and glanced meaningfully at the bed.

“It’s time for Thanksgiving Dinner,” she hissed.

“I was thinking of getting a head start on the wishbone.” Elizabeth squealed and ran from the bedroom with me in hot pursuit.

The room was in a flurry of excitement.

“Secret Service suspects she’s the president’s daughter. She went off the grid two days ago,” Mr. Smith MIB said.

“I’m right here,” Kitty answered. “I’ve been updating my chat page every day!”

“The other one,” Smith replied. “There’s scuttlebutt that there was a big argument with POTUS and she left the West Coast White House without looking back. SS didn’t even know she was gone.”

“Oh. Poor Scarlett. She has no idea how to live in the real world. But one thing is for certain. That woman is not Scarlett Muffley,” Kitty declared.

“NSA is convinced she’s a Russian plant, sent here to seduce and turn Jack Adams, then to defect with him to Russia,” the Colonel said.

“Do they have any proof of that?”

“Who needs proof when it’s the Russians?”

“The FBI says she’s one of the several hundred women they’ve tagged as a potential saboteur or possible rapist. They’re still trying to match her to the right file,” Lieutenant Smith broke in.

“She’s blonde,” Ms. Smith MIB said, pushing Reba out of the bedroom ahead of her.

“You can’t prove that! All my hair is red!”

“I talked to you,” Ms. Smith said. “That was sufficient.”

“She’s my boyfriend’s ex-wife,” Sheila said, showing the picture on her phone. “Reba Dean, nee Watkins, nee Dean. I knew I recognized her.”

“Your boyfriend! You’re fooling around with my husband? I’ll sue you for disaffection.”

“You did that quite well before we met,” Sheila answered back. “She is obsessed with having a baby so she’s not the only one in her clique who’s childless.”

“The kitchen called and they’re ready to serve dinner for the Smith party,” Mattie said. “Shall we go to the dining room?”

With the number of accusations, rumors, conjectures, and hurt feelings, it was much the same as any family Thanksgiving dinner. Dessert had not yet been served when another young woman who looked remarkably like Kitty stormed into the dining room.

“Scarlett!” Kitty shrieked. “How did you get here? The last we heard you’d escaped from the family unit in California and no one knew where you were.”

“I hitchhiked. Kitty, help me. Please!” The young girl threw herself into her sister’s arms. “I read your chat page, so I knew you were here. It’s awful out there. Daddy wants to get me pregnant and everyone hates me.”

“Here, Miss Scarlett,” Lieutenant Smith said, rising from his chair. “Please have a seat at our table. I bet you haven’t eaten. We’re about to have dessert but I’m sure the kitchen can serve you a full meal.”

“When did you last eat?” Kitty demanded.

“Sometime yesterday. I only had twenty dollars when I left the madman,” Scarlett sobbed. She didn’t appear to be more than fifteen, but otherwise, just a younger and more innocent version of her sister.

Food was summoned, Scarlett ate, and Kitty coaxed the story from her while everyone had dessert.

“Excuse me, but are you saying you don’t want to get pregnant?” Jack asked bluntly.

“Oh, yuck! With a man? I’d rather die,” Scarlett announced. Forks were dropped on plates. “Daddykins thinks that if I was just ‘with child,’ it would straighten out my hormones—with the emphasis on straight. Now ... If she could get me pregnant,” Scarlett pointed at a very startled Evelyn, “I might be persuaded. You are seriously cute.”

“Um ... Well ... I ... Uh...”

“Oh, don’t worry. I never try to turn someone from hetero into homo. But men are, like, yuck.” She looked around the table and lowered her eyes. “Um ... present company excepted, of course,” she sighed. Lieutenant Smith visibly wilted. His eyes had not left her since she burst into the dining room.

“What do you plan to do now?” Colonel Smythe asked.

“As soon as it opens Monday, I’m going to the American embassy and asking for asylum,” Scarlett said firmly. “Will you shelter me until then?”

“We need to look at the room assignments,” Ramsey sighed. “Mattie?”

“If the colonel and lieutenant share a room, we can put the sisters in the spare. But what are we doing with that one?” Mattie pointed at Reba who had been edging away from the table only to find her ankle was cuffed to her chair.

Kitty was simply shaking her head over her sister’s naiveté.

“That won’t work,” she said. “Honey, you can’t ask for asylum from the American embassy. You’re an American. They’d just turn you over to the White House. Who knows what might happen then? They might lock you in the kennel.”

“That would be just like Daddy! He wouldn’t even let me have a puppy!”

“And I certainly won’t be sharing a room with a lieutenant,” the colonel humphed.

“Okay, let’s try this on for size,” Ms. Smith MIB said. “Mr. Smith and I can share a room. This Mr. Smith. After all, we’re on assignment. Then Scarlett can have my room until we figure out who to palm her off to. The colonel and the lieutenant can continue to have their rooms and Kitty can decide who she’s sharing with.”