THE GHOST OF SATURDAY FUTURE

"What about that guy?" Lee asked, adding cream to his coffee. He tipped his head almost imperceptibly in the direction of a young man, dining solo, in the middle of the room.

"Computer scientist," Francine said. "MIT, not top of his class — right in the middle. He likes camping but he doesn't get out enough, and instead spends all his daylight hours inside a lab or something. Builds robots in his spare time. Has never seen a woman naked."

"Thorough assessment, though riddled with stereotypes," he said. "Where's he from?"

Francine ate a forkful of mashed potato and studied the man. "Wisconsin."

"That's weirdly specific."

"Look at his tee shirt, Scarecrow."

Lee looked, surprised to see a Green Bay Packers emblem peeking out from the front of his unbuttoned plaid shirt. "Nicely done, Desmond."

"Hmm. I know." She gave him a smug smile and ate another bite of potato.

They were having lunch together on a Saturday, a rarity for them but Amanda and the boys were away for the weekend, and he'd been at a loose end. He wasn't used to having the house to himself. That morning he'd mowed the lawn and done some laundry and then stood staring out the back window at the yard, wondering what to do next. Francine, who it turned out was also at a loose end and knew he was alone, had called right then. And now she sat across from him in jeans and a ponytail, eating a hot roast beef sandwich and complaining about her hangover.

"So have you forgotten how to be a bachelor?" she asked, reaching for her cup of coffee. "I thought you'd have all kinds of plans for this weekend and instead I find out you've been puttering around the house like a suburban dad."

He chuckled. "No. I just… I don't know. I guess I'm used to a house full of people now."

Francine grinned. "So there's no one to check up on you."

"Except you," he said. "And you can put it all in your report to Amanda on Monday."

Her eyes widened in feigned innocence. "Report? She'd never ask for a report. She trusts you implicitly." She speared a piece of carrot. "I think it's adorable that you miss them all. I thought it'd take you longer to become fully domesticated."

"It's taken plenty long enough," he said. "Anyway, I'm not a housecat."

"I never said it was bad. It kind of suits you."

"Well, thanks. I think."

She nudged him under the table with one booted foot. Even with a raging hangover she was perfectly accessorized. Lee tried to imagine what Amanda might say. That's her hangover outfit? I'd love to see what she wears when she has the flu.

"You know I think Amanda's good for you."

"She's good for you, too, by all accounts. I hear you two really showed Freddy Doyle a thing or two."

Francine laughed. "That was all your wife." She cut into her hot roast beef sandwich. "Doyle didn't know what hit her last Wednesday."

"You seem pretty charitable about it. I remember a time when you'd have wanted to share that collar."

"Oh please. As if Billy would believe I'd closed the case. It had Amanda all over it. And Doyle and I have already gone toe to toe. That case was the most entertainment I've had in a long time."

He couldn't help smirking. "Including last night?"

She rolled her eyes. "There's a reason I drank too much last night and it wasn't because I was having fun."

Lee spread jam on his toast and studied his friend across the table. Amanda had told him she thought Francine was lonely, and he'd scoffed a little, but now he wondered. She hadn't been dating as often as she used to, and if he asked her — okay, teased her — about it, she said she'd decided to focus on her career. He had taken that at face value and told Amanda as much, and she'd rolled her eyes at him. "Of course she tells you that," she'd said, "but it's only half true."

"Your turn," Francine said, steering the conversation back into neutral waters. "The couple in the booth near the back."

"In the sweaters?" She nodded, and he leaned back in his seat, thoughtful. "She's a teacher," he said after a minute. "Little kids, maybe kindergarten. She looks like she has an endless supply of patience and she's wearing a pin that looks like a box of crayons. And he's… he's in sales. He works at the electronics store down the street and he's on his lunch break. He's wearing the red polo shirt they all wear in there, see?"

"Hmmm. Nice. Is he good at it?"

"Decent. He's wearing a good watch. He really cleans up during the holidays, but things have been a little slow in the last couple of weeks so he's getting anxious."

"Kids?"

Lee studied them over the rim of his coffee cup. "Yep, but they're teenagers now and they refuse to be seen in public with their parents."

Francine ate the last bite of her sandwich and pushed her plate away. "Pretty good. I can see it."

"I could be way off."

"I bet you aren't though. Maybe we should start asking Brenda to verify."

"You think she can verify?"

"Send her over there with the coffee pot, she'd have the inside story before their cups are full."

Lee chuckled and turned back to his eggs. "You're probably right."

"Do you play this game with Amanda?"

"Nope. Just you."

"Really? Why not?" Her mouth curved in a teasing smile. "Wait, don't tell me. You have eyes only for each other."

Lee rolled his eyes. "Half the time we're here with the boys, and we can't get a word in edgewise."

"Oh, so your teens will still be seen in public with you," she said, laughing.

"I'm sure our days are numbered." Lee knew they would have been, in fact, but Amanda had a hard rule about one family outing a week. No matter what, they all piled in the car and went somewhere — the movies, a ball game, out for dinner. The outing had to be unrelated to the boys' activities and school, and it was family-only. Dotty came along occasionally, though she generally just came to Sunday dinner instead.

The boys were surprisingly easygoing about it. Lee had expected some pushback, especially from Phillip, but so far there'd been none.

It certainly wasn't that the boys were perfect kids, either. Phillip had snuck out to a concert once with a girl from down the street and her older brother. They'd driven to Baltimore to see a punk band called The Dry Heaves. Lee had never seen Amanda so angry — it was a quiet, seething rage coated in disappointment, and it had made Phillip swear up and down he'd never pull another stunt like that again.

He hadn't, either. Not so far.

Lee was sure it didn't hurt that the band was terrible and the girl and her brother apparently argued the entire time. Secretly he thought the rotten time had almost been punishment enough. But Amanda had given Phillip a long list of chores to do after school every day, two solid weeks of scrubbing and pruning and meal prep and laundry. He'd done them all without argument or complaint.

Lee remembered serving a similar sentence as a teen, but he kept quiet about it. Amanda and the Colonel weren't even remotely alike, but Lee could still relate to that urge to push the boundaries. He still felt it sometimes, and it still got him into trouble.

Francine knew that about him and it amused her to no end when he told her stories about the boys doing the same thing. "Karma," she liked to say. "You had it coming."

"It's normal teenager behavior," he'd say.

"Last I checked you were not a teenager," Francine would point out, rather archly.

"We're not talking about me," he'd say, annoyed.

"No, but I can see some striking parallels." Amanda had made the same point, usually in the same playful tone, but it was easier not to take it personally when Francine was doing the teasing.

"Your turn," he said, as they waited for dessert. He scanned the dining room, which had thinned out a little, and lit upon a woman at a table in the opposite corner from them. She was alone, sitting at a table for two. If Lee had to guess he'd say she was in her seventies, dressed impeccably in a green wool suit and dark brown pumps, a string of pearls at her neck. She was eating a slice of cake, a pot of tea at her elbow.

Francine followed his gaze, then turned abruptly away. Lee watched as a thousand different emotions played across her face. "No fair."

"Why? You know her?"

"Know her? I'm going to be her."

"Oh come on, Francine. That's just the hangover talking." He looked over at the woman again. She was absorbed in her cake, and she seemed perfectly content. A shopping bag sat under the table, at her feet. "She doesn't look unhappy."

"She's probably numb inside," Francine muttered. She scowled at the creamer on the table in front of her.

"All right, fine. I'll go again," Lee said. "She's retired, but she loved her job. Now she has all this free time and she's doing everything she wants. For all we know she has a repeat hookup waiting to join her on a cruise."

"Oh please, she would never take a cruise."

"A guided tour of Italy, then."

"She speaks four languages. She doesn't need a tour." Francine huffed out a sharp breath in frustration. "She's been out shopping because yes, she's going on a trip. It's her first since retiring. Anyway, she worked with some decent men over the years but they all dropped dead, as men do, or underestimated her."

Lee chuckled. "All of them?"

"Almost. She has one friend who seems smarter than the others but only because he married well and his wife clues him in."

Lee rolled his eyes. "Where is this genius?"

"He's at home watching golf in his recliner. She's going to stop by there later on, if he and his wife aren't busy with all their grandchildren."

"I'm sure they'd make time. Especially his wife." He gave her a pointed look, then, and was about to say something else when their waitress appeared with dessert.

She'd ordered chocolate cake, because they were out of her usual chocolate tart. The same as the woman sitting across the room, with the same perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. He ate a forkful of pecan pie and resolved to keep his mouth shut.

"Golf," he said after a minute. "Is that really where you think I'm headed?"

She laughed. "I wasn't talking about you."

"Oh, so I'll have dropped dead by then?" He frowned.

She swallowed a mouthful of ice cream. "I'm teasing. Though you have married well and she really has clued you in. Something I was never capable of doing."

"Not for lack of trying."

"Not for lack of trying, no." She eyed him carefully. "You probably should play golf, though. Good for your career prospects."

Lee wrinkled his nose. "Who says I want career prospects?"

He was joking, but only halfway. He was happy running his team — for the first time since he'd joined the Agency, his career wasn't the focus of all his energy. He felt slightly guilty about it now and then — how protective he'd become of time with his family, how his current position allowed him to step into the field when he wanted and back off and delegate when he didn't. He said 'wanted' and not 'had to' because his team was becoming surprisingly capable, and thanks to Amanda's careful coaching he was getting surprisingly good at letting go of the reins. He'd still probably call to check in later that afternoon, but he had plans to spend the evening with a glass of scotch and a book about espionage in pre-war Europe.

"You can't run the Q forever."

"I won't. I'll run it until something better comes along."

Francine rolled her eyes. "Of course. Those things just fall in your lap, right? No clawing your way to the top for Lee Stetson."

"First of all," he began, knowing he'd hit a nerve and feeling bad about it, "I don't have the managerial aspirations you do." He sipped his coffee. "Or the claws."

She tried to kick him under the table, but she was laughing. "That's right, you don't. And don't you forget it."

"You're gonna claw your way right over me, aren't you?"

"You know it." She pointed her fork towards the ceiling. "Right to the summit."

Lee saw the woman across the room lay a few bills on her table and pick up her shopping bags. "Your ghost of Saturday future is leaving," he said, his voice low. He watched as she stood, tall and graceful, and almost glided towards the door of the diner, just as Brenda came out of the kitchen. "Too bad — we missed our chance to have our resident snoop get the real story."

"She'll be here again," Francine murmured, her eyes on her plate.

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know. That looks like appointment cake, like she makes rounds," Francine said. "She didn't just discover this place. She probably comes here every Saturday after she does her errands."

Lee smirked.

"That's what I would do," Francine said, rather shortly. "That's what you do, on Tuesdays."

He held up his hands, as if professing his innocence. "Okay, okay. You're right. I guess I do." He finished his last bite of pie and moved his plate to one side. "You can come back next week and see."

Francine shook her head, poking at her cake half-heartedly. "I'll let her remain a mystery." He thought her mood was turning morose, until she looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. "What would someone say about us, if they were playing this game?"

"I don't even want to try to guess."

"If they're regulars they'll be wondering where your pretty wife is," Francine said. "So… siblings, maybe? I'm the polished, sophisticated one." Her eyes lingered on his stubbly chin and flannel shirt as she spoke. 'You've given all that up for…." She waved a hand at him, unwilling to articulate whatever it was, positive or negative. He didn't care. He had a closet full of designer suits that he pulled out for admin meetings but he was just as happy in his worn-in jeans, as long as Amanda was around.

"Of course," he said, wryly. Then he nodded. "Siblings sounds about right," he said. "You are definitely like an annoying little sister."

"You love it," she said.

And Lee had to admit he did. He wondered if Francine's ghost of Saturday future really was on her way to see an old friend — one who appreciated her commitment to the details, enjoyed verbal sparring matches, and bought her gourmet chocolate on all the holidays. He hoped so. Everyone needed an Amanda.