Calculated Risk by Zoe M. McCarthy

good.”
    “Are you hitting on me, Cousin Tony?”
    “No reason why I shouldn’t, is there?”
    Cisney made the circuit with the forks, Tony still in tow. The card in Nick’s turkey once again read, Tony. She flashed him her face-scrunching scowl. “You scamp!” Holding onto the back of a chair, she reached across the table and snatched Nick’s card holder, then thumped Tony’s back in its place. “And I actually thought you cared about my shampoo.” She shook Nick’s turkey at him as if he were a naughty puppy. “Do not touch the turkeys, or I’m going to find a rolled-up newspaper.”
    He laughed. “You can’t blame a man for trying. And I do like the scent of your hair.”
    He’d followed her eight times around the table by the time she was ready to place the napkins. She’d let pass that he’d switched turkeys on the seventh round. This challenge-savvy woman would outsmart the naughty puppy.
    Holding a corner of an autumn-orange napkin, she snapped it like a high-class restaurant’s hostess and released it from its three-fold pamphlet shape. Then she fashioned the napkin into a bird of paradise flower and placed it in the center of a dinner plate. With her head cocked, she studied the setting. Perfect.
    Tony held up the flower and examined it. “Cool. You’re really talented.”
    While he was occupied, Cisney pocketed Nick’s turkey from Tony’s place setting, and then clamped her hands on her hips. “Tony. Put the napkin down before it comes apart.”
    He obeyed.
    She gave the napkin a tap to center it, and then moved to the next plate. Good. He hadn’t noticed the missing turkey. For the moment, anyway.
    As she worked her way around the table, Tony strolled behind her feigning attacks on her birds of paradise.
    She rolled her eyes. “Be a good cousin and tell me about your job that keeps you at work in the evenings.”
    They stood at Nick’s place setting, where Tony’s turkey rested next to the plate. Cisney shook out a napkin and, in a flourish of folding another flower, switched the turkeys and smuggled Tony’s into her pocket.
    Tony rested his hand on the table near the replaced card holder. “I man the front desk at a downtown Charlotte hotel during the evening shift, and I’m working on an online degree in hotel management.”
    “I imagine you have some good front-desk stories to tell.” And why didn’t he tell one now so he’d be distracted when she slipped his turkey back on the table?
    “You have no idea.”
    She moved to the next plate, but he stayed put, his hand still planted near Nick’s card. The way her heart was racing, she’d think she was trafficking diamonds.
    He slid his hands into his pockets and closed the gap between them.
    Another hurdle cleared. She let out a breath. “So tell me a story.”
    “OK. This story isn’t from our hotel, but I heard it from a fellow desk clerk. Early one morning, a middle-aged woman entered the lobby dressed in her nightgown. She walked over to the rack where all the sightseeing pamphlets were stored. She pulled several stacks of pamphlets from their slots and arranged them on the front desk, and then proceeded to the hotel restaurant. There, the woman grasped a coffee pot and went from table to table refilling patrons’ coffee cups.”
    “Was she sleepwalking?”
    “That’s what the desk clerk thought. She had asked for a first floor room on making her reservation. The manager escorted her to her room, and she went willingly. Later, she checked out like any other guest.”
    Laughing, Cisney let her last bird of paradise fall to the floor. As Tony bent to scoop it up, she set Nick’s turkey where it belonged. She centered the retrieved napkin on its plate and faced Tony, blocking his view of Nick’s place setting.
    Tony brightened at her proximity. “The next time you’re in Charlotte you should stay at the hotel. I could show you around.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” She inspected the table. Everything sparkled