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recently had his monthly haircut, and his short, neat style showed off his high forehead and warm, green eyes.
    “Don’t worry. I know it was all Heather,” I tried to reassure him, although I couldn’t help wondering whether the whole family was engaged in some horrible reunite-Chloe-with-Sean conspiracy. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” I turned to my parents. My mother was wearing a tremendously awful capelike thing on which she had affixed patchwork squares. Her latest craft obsession?
    “Hi, sweetie.” Mom gave me a hug. I tried to avoid chafing my cheek on her cape. “Where’s the food?” she asked.
    “Yes, where’s the food?” Dad chimed in, craning his head over the crowd. “Oh, yeah. Nice to see you, too, kiddo,” he teased. But at least he gave me a sympathetic look that I took as a reference to the Sean problem. I was pleased to note that my father had not only run a comb through his graying hair but had traded in his usual jeans and flannel shirt for a pair of corduroys with coordinating jacket and dress shirt.
    “Down this way.” I gestured to the back of the gallery. “Mom and Dad, come with me. I have to get back to the Organization’s booth, anyhow. Heather, why don’t you stay here and get something to drink, okay? I’ll see you guys in a little bit.” I glared at her. I wanted to keep Sean away from Josh for the moment.
    “What has your idiot daughter done this time?” I avoided screaming at my parents as we moved toward Josh. “Sean said Heather called him? She is a piece of work.”
    “I don’t even know what to tell you, Chloe. I cannot imagine what she was thinking,” Mom shook her head. “Oh, there’s Josh!”
    “Jack and Bethany! You made it,” Josh said to my parents. My parents greeted Josh, whom they adored, and immediately asked him for a full description of the food he had prepared. I felt a little better realizing that my parents were complete fans of Josh. I left them hovering over their plates and returned to Naomi.
    “There you are!” she said. “We had a rush of interested people here. This is such great publicity for us!”
    “Really? That’s good news.” Naomi was so happy that I couldn’t help smiling at her. Maybe she had relaxed enough to stop accosting everyone who stepped too close to our table.
    Our piles of information had been significantly reduced, so I reached under the table and pulled out more brochures, fact sheets, and flyers from a box and restocked our table. Naomi was right; our table was doing well. I spent the next twenty minutes busily describing our organization to visitors. I was surprised at how much I knew about the Organization and wondered whether I’d been absorbing more information than I’d thought. When things quieted down, I realized that I hadn’t even tasted Josh’s food, so I excused myself and walked over to the good smells.
    Josh was speaking with two sets of well-dressed couples who were standing at Simmer’s table. “Hey, Chloe. This is Oliver and Dora Kipper, and Barry and Sarka Fields. Oliver and Barry are from the Full Moon Group,” Josh said, giving me a knowing look. Oh. The very same Full Moon Group that Gavin outbid for Simmer’s location! “You know, they own Lunar, the Big Dipper, and Eclipse?”
    Despite the fancy space-themed names, those places were pretty much bars and nightclubs, not restaurants. The Full Moon Group had just finished some sort of marketing blitz; you could barely go anywhere in Boston without hearing or reading something about its clubs. I’d been to Lunar a few times with Adrianna, but it was such a meat market that we hadn’t been there for a while. For one thing, she and I both had boyfriends now. For another, it was... well, a meat market. Lunar served food of some kind, but it wasn’t exactly known for gastronomic originality. I couldn’t even remember its menu—and on the subject of food, I’m known for my total recall.
    “Sure. Nice to meet you.” I shook everyone’s