Temple joined him at the redwood buffet table. “The worst is over,” she whispered. “Nephews tomorrow. They’re smaller and have slightly better manners. So far.”
“Hamm’s beer?” Matt had never heard the brand name.
“Founded here, and once the glory of Minnesota. Now owned by CoorsMiller, and just a select brand for oldsters. ‘From the land of sky-blue wah-ah-ters’,” she sang. “‘Hamm’s, the beer refreshing.’”
Matt had never heard Temple sing and raised his eyebrows at her on-key soprano. “We could make beautiful music together on Electra’s Lowery organ at the Lovers’ Knot,” he said.
She gave him a sassy hip bump. “We already have that covered at the Circle Ritz. As for home-grown products here, Land-o-Lakes butter is still a going concern,” Temple added with a smile. “Minnesota and heavy-duty dairy products keep on trucking.”
“And your brothers.” Matt watched them grabbing hamburgers and heaping hot dog buns with tablespoons from a slimy pile of apparent bean spouts.
“Sauerkraut,” Temple murmured under her breath.
“Where are their wives?”
“Saved for the visit’s second day. All those women and kids were deemed too overwhelming for you right off.”
“I was a pastor at a Catholic parish, Temple,” Matt told her. “Large families are not a stress factor for me.”
“This one will be. Whatever you do, don’t let my brothers talk you into a friendly game of touch football after lunch.”
Matt eyed the huge, grassy yard. “I can do that.”
“Not with my brothers.”
Matt noticed Temple’s grip on her lowball glass had grown white-knuckled. “Where’d you get a cocktail?” he asked. “I could use one.”
“In the kitchen with Mom. Out here, it’s only beer for boys. You do not want to look like an effete intellectual who knocks back Gilbey’s gin with that crowd.”
“Gilbey’s?” Matt wrinkled his nose. “Not my brand of gin.”
“Vegas spoils you. Toast the Hamm’s bear like a good boy.”
“Bear? Aren’t the Bears a Chicago team?”
“And you say you don’t speak Sports. Very good. A cartoon bear was the Hamm’s beer mascot.” Temple glanced over her shoulder. “Tom is heading our way. That can’t be good after three bears. I mean, beers.”
“Temple, how much Gilbey’s is in that glass?”
“Enough for what’s next, I hope.” Temple edged around to stand beside him.
“How’s about we take a stroll on the lawn,” Tom suggested to Matt. He was the Timberwolf T-shirt guy.
Matt nodded at the shirt logo. “The Wolves going the distance?”
“Basketball season is over,” Tom said with a frown.
“Uh, right. I meant next season.”
Keith turned to Temple. “Can we borrow your guy for a while?” His arm made a sweeping gesture to the backyard. “Introduce him to the great Minnesota outdoors.”
Temple frowned. “I don’t want any grass stains on those khaki pants of his.”
Tom hitched up his roomy knee-length shorts. “No problem, lil’ sis. We’ll take care of your guy.”
“Do not call me ‘lil’ sis’,” Temple warned. “And your guts are an endangered species if you yobos get out of line with my guy.”
Tom of the Timberwolves turned to shrug at his grinning three brothers in their equally aggressive team T-shirts.
They surrounded Matt with collegial backslaps. “Just a little touch football to settle the sauerkraut.” Keith, the Viking, said that. Tom the Timberwolf nodded with cheesy sadistic glee.
Matt let Temple’s super-sized big brothers swarm him in a pack down the deck stairs onto the yard. If touch football was the rite of passage here, he could manage it.
Temple placed her hands on the deck rail, like Juliet on her balcony, and shouted down in a Kate the Shrew voice, “If you guys tear out the stitches from his bullet wound, I’ll see that you’ll be drinking your Hamm’s out of your shoes.”
“Bullet wound?” Keith reared back to regard Matt with astonishment. “You have a bullet wound?”
“Nothing major,” Matt said. “It was a while back.”
“Bullet wound,” Tom of the Timberwolves repeated. “How on earth that’d happen, man?”
“From a semiautomatic. Actually a Walther PPK.”
“A James Bond gun. Cool,” Hank of the Wild said.
“What’s a talk show host doing catching a bullet wound?” Bruce of the Swarm asked.
“It’s complicated. Your sister is overreacting.”
“Tell us about it, Matt,” Keith said. “No kidding. Somebody shot you? Why the hell?”
Matt was amused he could make points with them without uttering a single lie. “I do my radio shrink gig at a Vegas radio station, WCOO. You know crazies abound in Vegas. And on live media if you do call-ins, you can attract the occasional fringe person. A stalker. It’s all in the ethernet…but occasionally a crazy gets through the security and breaks in.”
“At the radio station? Someone came in and got a shot off?”
“Like I said, rare. And the shot went wide of doing permanent damage, by an inch, I’m told. Crazy-proof security has now gone in. Not to worry, guys. I’ll survive to marry your”—he thought for a second—“your little sister.”
Temple booed him from the deck, but her brothers grinned.
“What the heck?” Tom rubbed his balding buzz-cut. “WCCO is our big radio station. Kinda weird coincidence.”
“World’s full of them,” Matt said.
“You seem pretty tough about getting shot,” Hank mused.
“What’s tough is being a celibate priest,” Keith said. “I just don’t see that going with our little sister and a bullet wound.”
Matt got inspired. “You’ve seen movies with martial arts monks, haven’t you, guys? Shaolin kung fu monks?” They nodded, puzzled by his drift. “The Catholic church has had monks and brothers for centuries too. ‘Brothers’, that’s what they’re called in the West. So. Nobody asks questions about their private lifestyle; nobody who lives.” Matt lifted his hands in a praying position and then separated them as he took a throwing stance. “We gonna toss a football around or not?”
“Yeah, sure. Brother,” Tom said just before the football slapped Matt’s open palms and he took off running, ducking, and shouldering anyone in his way.
Matt had played enough basketball and touch football with the parish high school teams to know how to keep it interesting, but not injuring. The Barr boys kept their moves at the same level now that they knew he was playing hurt. And that Temple was watching.
So everybody worked up a light sweat and looked good and they all were soon relieved to hit the deck for a second round of food and drink. Or mostly drink for the brothers.
“That ring is breathtaking.” Temple’s mother came to sit beside Temple and Matt on the long traditional sofa in the living room while Roger and the boys finished off the cooler contents from the deck. Hamm’s, the beer refreshing.
Temple formally presented the ring on her left hand to Karen. “It’s vintage. I don’t think you had a chance to really study it at that large, noisy dinner table in Vegas.”
The “boys” hadn’t even noticed the rubies and diamonds glittering on their sister’s knuckle. And now they were downstairs watching ESPN on the recreation room’s sixty-inch TV.
“Of course, it’s vintage,” Karen said. “You were begging for dress-up clothes since you were three.” Karen smiled at her husband, who’d taken the big brown leather recliner after depositing three crystal lowball glasses of straight Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit on the coffee table. Sipping whiskey. “Who picked it out?”
“Guilty,” Matt said.
“I’m impressed.” Karen glanced at her husband.
Roger Barr grunted, a content paterfamilias at the moment. “That’s a large bunch of bling for my baby girl’s tiny finger.”