Chapter 3

The day was nearly perfect for tooling around in a sports car with the top down—springlike temperatures and partly sunny. "Where I'm taking you for lunch is in the valley, but I thought I'd first take you for a spin," Doug said, talking over the traffic noise and the wind. "If that's okay."

"More than okay," Amber said, brushing back the hair blowing over her face. "This is a thrill for me."

"Great!" Doug shifted into third gear past the traffic light on Falls Road, headed out to the semirural Greenspring Valley, a place of nineteenth century and early twentieth century country estates and recent scattered suburban development. Amber had been out here on family Sunday drives, "where the rich people live," her dad had said. She asked, "Do you live out here?"

"No, but our club is out here," he revealed. "Some of my relatives still live here."

No doubt, Doug and his relatives were the rich people her dad had mentioned. Our club...Amber had an idea of what he meant, some fancy-schmancy country club that cost a bundle to join, and that's only if you were part of high society. She began thinking about what Thelma had said and her own suspicions about what motivated him to do this with her, a poor clerk at a dry cleaning establishment. Still, she meant what she said about being thrilled, being chauffeured around by this classy guy in his snazzy sports car.

Less than an hour later, she and Doug were sitting outside on iron-frame chairs at a round table set on a brick patio that looked out to the eighteen-hole golf course. Eight Roman Doric style columns held up a roof lined with round bulbs of track lighting. Fancy-schmancy, just as she thought. "You belong here?" she asked.

After handing her the small lunch menu, he said, "My family have been members here for, oh, fifty years or more. I guess you could say we're part of the old guard." He chuckled, looking at her as if she was supposed to be the type of person who knew what that meant. The old guard...With every passing minute, she was feeling more and more like an outsider, outclassed and way out of her element.

"Order anything you'd like," he said, perusing his menu. "The crab cakes are excellent. Delicious Ceasar salad also."

She settled on a burger ("chop steak" on the menu) with fries, while he got the crab cakes and a Ceasar salad, served by waiters in white jackets and black slacks.

"I guess you're not quite drinking age," he said. "Otherwise, I would have ordered wine."