Once he was gone, his widow never once deigned to use the thing, and she hadn’t allowed Joanna that privilege, either. For years the grill had sat untouched, protected from dust beneath a layer of multiple blue tarps. But now, with George Winfield in residence and from the looks of the smoke wafting skyward, the tarps were obviously long gone.
Just then the front door slammed open and Jenny came flying down the wooden steps. “Mom,” she shouted. “You’re home.” She stopped two feet away, just inside the gate. “How come you didn’t change clothes?” she added with a sudden scowl.
Jenny was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. Her mother, on the other hand, was dressed for work in a dry-clean-only two-piece suit and a creamy blouse along with a pair of sensibly-low high heels.
“What’s the matter with what I have on?” Joanna asked.
Jenny shrugged. “It’s going to look pretty funny out in the backyard at Grandma’s picnic table. Everybody else is wearing jeans and stuff.”
“We’re having a picnic?” Joanna asked. “It’s only the end of March. Isn’t this a little early for a picnic or a barbecue?”
Jenny shrugged. “It’s what Mr. and Mrs. Dixon wanted.” She paused. “They told me to call them Grandma and Grandpa Dixon, but I don’t really want to. I mean, I just met them. It seems kinda weird.”
“What are they like?” Joanna asked.
“Okay, I guess,” Jenny replied, wrinkling her nose. “But they talk funny. Their words are so sharp they hurt my ears. And they must think it’s summer, because they’re both wearing shorts. Shorts and white socks and black sandals. Ugh.”
“They’re from Chicago,” Joanna said. “I think it’s a lot colder there than it is here. Maybe this feels like summer to them.”
“Maybe,” Jenny said. “Anyway, when Butch introduced them to Grandma Lathrop this afternoon, she asked them if there was anything special they wanted for dinner. Mr. Dixon said what he wanted more than anything was Mexican food and he wanted to eat it outside. So Grandma Winfield went down to Naco and bought tamales and tortillas. And Grandpa Winfield is making carne asada.”
“Who hired the mariachis?” Joanna asked.
“They’re not real. That’s just a tape on Butch’s boom box. He said it would add atmosphere.”
Butch met them just inside the door. “You didn’t change,” he said, frowning. “Didn’t you get my message? Frank said he’d be sure to tell you.”
Joanna sighed. “Frank did give me the message, but there wasn’t enough time to go out to the department and still be here on time. I’m sure the clothes I’m wearing will work. I promise not to spill anything.”
“It’s not that,” Butch said. “It’s just that everyone else is dressed a lot more casually than you are.”
“Don’t worry,” Joanna said. “I’ll be fine. Now come on. Where are your parents? Let’s go get the introductions out of the way so I can stop being nervous about meeting them.”
Outside, Joanna found that the backyard was lit with a series of festive-looking lanterns complete with lighted candles. Predictably, three men-George Winfield, Jim Bob Brady, and a portly man in shorts, sandals, and socks, who made Jim Bob look slim by comparison-were clustered near the barbecue. Even across the yard, Joanna could see that Butch Dixon resembled his father, Donald. The older man was taller and much heavier than his son. In contrast to Butch’s clean-shaven head, his father had thick, curly gray hair, but their facial features were almost identical.
Halfway down the yard, Eva Lou Brady sat at Eleanor’s cloth-covered picnic table engaged in subdued conversation with a heavyset woman with thinning gray hair who looked to be in her mid-sixties.
“Come on,” Butch said to Joanna, taking her hand and leading her down the backyard. “I’ll introduce you to my father first.”
They met Eleanor Winfield halfway to the barbecue. She looked her daughter up and down, pursed her lips, and said nothing, but Joanna got the message all the same.
“Dad,” Butch was saying. “Here she is-the girl of my dreams-Joanna Lathrop Brady. Joanna, this is my dad, Donald Dixon.”
Donald Dixon turned away from the grill with its layer of thinly sliced beef, looked at Joanna’s face, and beamed. “You can call me Don,” he said, holding out a massive paw of a hand and pumping Joanna’s eagerly. “Everybody does. And I’m delighted to meet you. Maggie and I have heard so much about you. Butch said you were just a little bit of a thing, and by God it’s true!”
Despite the fact that it annoyed Joanna when strangers and new acquaintances made unsolicited comments to her size, she nonetheless managed to keep her smile plastered firmly in place. “Good things come in small packages,” she responded, knowing that the comment sounded perky and stupid both, but Don Dixon seemed to like it.
“Right you are,” he said heartily, slapping a beefy, snow-white, shorts-clad thigh. “I do believe my mother used to tell me the same thing. I just didn’t pay any attention. Have you met Maggie yet?”
Hearing the Chicago twang in his voice-the hard-edged vowels-Joanna recognized what Jenny had meant. Don Dixon’s accent hurt her ears, too.
“No,” she said in answer to his question. “I just now got here.”
“Well, by all means go over and be introduced. She’s really looking forward to meeting you. She hasn’t talked about anything else ever since we left Chicago.”
Taking a deep breath and following Butch’s lead, Joanna turned back to the picnic table. “Mom,” Butch was saying when they arrived at the table. “This is Joanna Brady. Joanna, my mother, Margaret, but everyone calls her Maggie.”
Margaret Dixon held out her hand. She smiled a thin smile. “How do you do. Glad to meet you, Joanna. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Let’s hope the third time’s the charm.”
Joanna saw the muscles tighten along Butch’s jawline. “Mother!” he said.
“I’m sure Joanna knows what I mean,” Maggie Dixon said quickly, waving away his comment as though it were a bothersome fly. “No doubt the two of you will be very happy. And since Butch is getting such a late start on settling down, it’s probably a good thing you come complete with a ready-made family.”
For months Butch had been hinting to Joanna that his mother was a difficult woman. He had warned that, in a competition of relative prickliness, Maggie Dixon would run Eleanor Lathrop Winfield a close race. Joanna had laughed off his comments, saying he was probably exaggerating or making things up. Now, all it took was that one exchange for Joanna to realize he was right. Maggie Dixon was going to be tough to like. Across the table and behind Maggie’s back, even the perpetually easygoing Eva Lou Brady felt constrained to shake her head and raise a disapproving eyebrow.
Never one to retreat from a battle, Joanna motioned Butch to take a seat next to Eva Lou. Then, raising her skirt, she stepped over the picnic bench and sat down next to Maggie. Wanting to give Butch a chance to relax, Joanna dived into the task of making polite conversation.
“So how do you like Cochise County so far?” she asked as evenly as she could manage.
“It is warm,” Maggie replied. “I’ll say that much for it, and it’s so dry here. My skin feels like it’s going to turn brittle and break off. I’m used to a lot more humidity. My mother and her second husband retired out here,” she continued. “They bought a place up in Sun City. That’s how Butch ended up coming out here years ago. But as far as I’m concerned, I could never see what it was about the desert that appealed to my mother so much, and it’s such a long way from home. And now that Donald’s retired from the post office, we prefer to spend our winters in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Ever been there?”