Table for five by Susan Wiggs Page A

family to know she was right. Following a tragedy that was both shrouded in mystery and publicly recorded, her parents had spent their entire marriage making each other miserable. They were still at it to this day.
    Lily had taken the lesson to heart and plotted out her life carefully. Her younger sister, Violet, had taken the opposite route, opting for an early marriage and two kids, a husband who earned too little money and a large rental house in Tigard they couldn’t afford.
    By comparison, Lily had a job she loved, a small but comfortable place of her own and the freedom to do as she pleased. She meant to keep her life this way, quiet and safe.
    You’re all alone, said an inner voice.
    She ignored the voice, which sounded remarkably like Crystal, and sipped her wine as she read an article about a ceramics shop in Ravello where Hillary Clinton and Dustin Hoffman ordered their dishes. After a while, she set aside the map and glanced at the clock. Her usual Friday night routine was a movie at the Echo Ridge Pavilion, but the rain had started up again, and she didn’t feel like going out.
    A guilty pleasure video, then, she thought, perusing her DVD collection. That was another advantage to being a free agent. If she had a man in her life, she probably wouldn’t be choosing something like Steel Magnolias or Two Moon Junction. To her knowledge, no man in history had ever willingly sat through Sense and Sensibility.
    She narrowed her choices down to Under the Tuscan Sun, which would get her in the mood for Italy, and Bull Durham, about a sexually liberated schoolteacher getting it on with Kevin Costner in his prime. She thought about his famous speech about kisses that last for three weeks, and the decision was made.
    As she was watching the opening credits, the phone rang. “Great timing,” she muttered, but stopped the disc and went to get the phone. Crystal, probably, calling to talk about Charlie.
    Just the thought brought a heaviness to Lily’s heart. Ordinarily, school and personal matters were kept strictly separate, but in this case, they intersected. Her best friend, and her best friend’s precious daughter.
    It seemed to amuse Charlie that she knew her teacher outside of school. The little girl usually got a secret smile on her face when she called Lily “Miss Robinson,” but she never took advantage of her intimate knowledge of her teacher’s personallife. In school, Charlie tried not to draw attention to herself at all. Which was why this current habit of stealing was so alarming.
    “Hello?”
    “Uh, yeah. Is this Miss Robinson?” The male voice was deep and strong, completely unfamiliar.
    “I’m afraid I don’t accept solicitation calls,” she said crisply, and started to put down the phone.
    “I’m not—wait. This is about Crystal Holloway.”
    Lily frowned and cradled the receiver against her cheek. Was Crystal seeing someone? Last time they talked about it, Crystal said she was swearing off men once and for all. “I blame men for all my troubles,” she’d said dramatically, not long ago.
    “Don’t you mean one man specifically?” Lily had asked.
    “No, actually.” Crystal hadn’t elaborated.
    “Who is this?” Lily asked the caller.
    “Sean Maguire. I’m Charlie’s uncle.”
    Ah, yes, Lily thought. The fabled Uncle Sean, one of Charlie’s favorite topics for show-and-tell. Since he’d moved back to town, Charlie had related several overly long stories about him, but the main point always got lost in translation. Hero worship was usually the topic.
    According to Crystal, Sean was cut from the same cloth as Derek, “only younger.”
    Lily had the vaguest memories of him from the Holloways’ wedding. He had reminded her of Brad Pitt in his first movie, but that only made her dislike him more. “Never trust a pretty man,” Crystal had once told her.
    “Hello?” His smooth, somewhat disturbing voice intruded on her thoughts.
    “Mr. Maguire,” Lily said. “What can I do for