Eat, Drink and Be Wary by Tamar Myers

that my dining-room table is extraordinarily long - thanks to my ancestor's lusty loins and fertile wife - so there is invariably a lot of empty space. This is never a problem when I seat folks, because I spread them thin, like a single pat of butter on a double order of toast.
     
     
Imagine my dismay when everyone but Alma Cornwater and Gordon Dolby squeezed together at Susannah's end of the table. If Gordon hadn't seated himself at my immediate right, and Alma at my left, I might have been deeply wounded. I shower every day, and change my clothes almost as frequently, so hygiene couldn't have been the problem. I did a quick sniff test just to be sure. Everything seemed to be okay.
     
     
I smiled benevolently at my two loyal companions and then, just to punish the others, said the longest grace that table has witnessed since Grandma Yoder, bless her senile heart, said the Lord's Prayer twenty-three times in succession.
     
     
"So tell me, Mr. Dolby," I said, after grace had been said and the food passed around, "are you a native of Baltimore?" that wasn't a lucky guess, mind you. I take the time to read the addresses recorded in my guest book.
     
     
"Baltimore, born and bred," he said. "Birthplace of `The Star-Spangled Banner.' "
     
     
"Is that so? What do you do for a living?"
     
     
"I'm retired," he said, and helped himself to a double portion of the entr‚e.
     
     
"Oh? Retired from what, dear?"
     
     
He glanced at his daughter, Gladys. "Let's just say, I've served my country."
     
     
I turned to my left, where Alma Cornwater sat, her glasses about to slide off her nose, her thick hair straying from its bun.
     
     
"Miss Cornwater," I said pleasantly, "what do you do when you're not competing in a cooking contest?" I already knew that woman was a Cherokee Indian, but that isn't an occupation.
     
     
She pushed her glasses back into place with a pudgy brown finger. "I'm a mother."
     
     
"Oh." I don't mind telling you that I was disappointed. Some of my most unpretentious guests have been my most interesting. Who knew that Nevada Barr was a park ranger who once flung a tranquilized wolf over her back?
     
     
But Alma wasn't done. "Now that Jimmy, my youngest is in school, I plan to look for a job."
     
     
"How many children do you have?"
     
     
"Eight." She sounded defensive.
     
     
"I just have the one," Gordon said, nodding at Gladys.
     
     
"And I have none," I said lightly. "At least none that I know of."
     
     
Nobody even smiled. When a man tells that joke, however, folks think it's a hoot.
     
     
"Being a parent is never an easy task," Gordon said. Again he nodded in his daughter's direction. Fortunately she was sitting at the far end of the table and engrossed in a conversation with Marge Benedict. I couldn't imagine the mild-mannered Gladys giving her father an ounce of trouble. Clearly the man had no perspective.
     
     
"Being a big sister is no picnic, I can tell you that," I said and stared down the table at Susannah's empty place. Lunch is a meal she never eats, falling as it does in the middle of her sleeping schedule.
     
     
"In fact," I said, "look up at the ceiling."
     
     
They looked up. Mercifully, no on else did.
     
     
"See those footprint up there?"
     
     
Alma nodded. "Women's size eleven, double A. You don't see that very often."
     
     
I gaped like a gulping guppy.
     
     
"My daddy was a traveling shoe salesman. We used to play with his stock."
     
     
"I see. Well, those are my sister's. And that's a ten-foot ceiling. Lord only know how they got up there. Now look closer."
     
     
Alma nodded again. "A man's ten right beside hers. Faint, but definitely there."
     
     
"Kids," Gordon said.
     
     
"She wasn't a kid when that was made," I said, and stabbed at my salad. "Those were made last week. Susannah is thirty-five years old."
     
     
"My Gladys is thirty-five."
     
     
"I bet she doesn't leave her footprints on the ceiling."
     
     
"There are other ways to