“You’re quite the salesman,” Butch said, laughing. “No wonder Milo Davis had you out hawking insurance before you got elected sheriff. But maybe we could find a place in Phoenix that could run off a copy from my disk, although I’m sure it would be a lot cheaper to do it on our printer at home.”
“But I won’t have a weekend off when we get home,” Joanna pointed out. “As soon as we cross into Cochise County, I’ll be back in the soup at home and at work both, and you’ll be tied up working on plans for the new house. We won’t even have time to sit down and talk about it.”
Between Joanna’s job and Butch’s project of herding their pro-posed house design through the planning and permit stage, the newlyweds didn’t have much time to spend together.
“All right, all right,” Butch agreed with a chuckle. “I know when I’m licked. Now look. It’s almost two o’clock in the morning. What time is your first meeting?”
“Eight,” she said.
“Don’t you think we ought to turn off the light and try to get some sleep?”
“I’m not sleepy. Too much coffee.”
“Turn over then and let me rub your back. That might help.”
She lay down and turned over on her stomach. “You say you’ll rub my back, but you really mean you’ll do something else.”
He nuzzled the back of her neck. “That, too,” he said. “I have it on good authority that works almost as well as a sleeping pill.”
“Maybe you’re the one who should have been selling insurance,” she told him.
It turned out he was right. Before long, caffeine or not, Joanna was sound asleep. When the alarm went off at six-thirty, she reached over and flicked it off. She was still in bed and dozing when a room service attendant knocked on their door at seven-fifteen, bringing with him the breakfast Butch had ordered the night before by hanging a form on the outside of their door.
While Joanna scrambled into her clothing and makeup, Butch settled down at the table with a cup of coffee and USA Today.
“I really like this man-of-leisure stuff,” he said, when she came out of the bathroom and stood shoving her feet into a pair of heels. Like everything else in Joanna Brady’s wardrobe, the shoes were new—purchased as replacements for ones destroyed by Reba Singleton’s rampage through Joanna’s house. The shoes looked nice, hut they were still a long way from being comfortable.
“Don’t rub it in,” she grumbled. “If you’re not writing, what are you planning to do while I’m in meetings?”
“Today the wives are scheduled to take a trip out to the Navajo Reservation,” Butch answered. “Since I’m done writing, I thought I’d tag along with them on that. I’m especially interested in Indian-made turquoise and silver, jewelry.”
“In other words, while I’m stuck listening to one more dreary speaker, you’ll be spending the day on a bus loaded with a dozen or so women I don’t know.”
Butch lowered the paper and looked at her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
Joanna shrugged. “Maybe a little,” she admitted.
“Have you seen any of those other women?” he asked. “They’re all a lot older than you are, Joey, and not nearly as good-looking. In addition, I’m short and bald. That doesn’t make me what you’d call the sexy leading-man type.”
“Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas were both bald,” Joanna countered. “And so is Andre Agassi. Nobody says any of them aren’t sexy.
She sat down at the table and took a tentative sip of her coffee. He reached across the table and touched her hand. “But I’m in love with you, Joey,” he said. “And you’re in love with me, so don’t go around worrying about the competition. There isn’t any”
She smiled back at him. “Okay,” she said.
Just then Joanna’s cell phone rang. She retrieved it from the bedside table where she’d left it overnight, recharging. The display said the call was coming from High Lonesome Ranch.
“Good morning, Jenny,” she said. “How are things?”
“Do I have to go on the camping trip?” Jennifer Ann Brady whined.
Joanna felt a stab of worry. Maybe Jenny was sick. “Are you feeling all right? You’re not running a fever, are you?” she asked.
“I’m not sick,” Jenny answered. “I just don’t want to go is all. Mrs. Lambert told us last night at the troop meeting that we won’t he able to cook over a campfire because we can’t have any fires. Some dork at the Forest Service decided it’s too dry for campfires. Without cooking, I probably won’t be able to earn any of the badges I thought I was going to earn. I’d rather stay home.”
“You know that’s not an option, Jenny,” Joanna said firmly. “You said you were going when you signed up. Now you have to keep your word.”
“But I hate it. I don’t even want to be a Girl Scout anymore. It’s dorky.”
The word “dork” is certainly getting a workout this morning, Joanna thought. But the idea of Jenny wanting to quit Girl Scouts was news to Joanna. From the moment her daughter had been old enough to join Daisies, Girl Scouting was something Jenny had loved.
“Since when?” Joanna asked. “Is it because you have a new leader? Is that it?”
“No. Mrs. Lambert is nice and so is the new assistant leader. I like them both, but it’s still dorky”
“I’m a little tired of things being dorky at the moment,” Joanna said. “Could you maybe think of some other word to use? As for the subject of quitting, if that’s what you decide to do, fine, but only after we have a chance to discuss it as a family. Right now, you’ve made a commitment to go on a camp-out, and you need to keep that commitment. Mrs. Lambert has made arrangements for food and transportation and all those other details. It wouldn’t be fair for you to back out now. You need to live up to your word, Jenny. Besides, Grandma and Grandpa Brady agreed to look after the ranch for the weekend. They didn’t agree to look after the ranch and you as well.”
“That’s another thing,” Jenny said crossly. “Grandma Brady found my stupid sit-upon. She says I have to take it along because it was on the list Mrs. Lambert gave us. You know, the sit-upon I made back when I was in Brownies? I always thought you threw it away. I asked you to throw it away. It’s so ugly. When the other girls see it, they’re going to laugh at me.”
“No, they won’t,” Joanna countered. “You girls were all in Brownies when you made those. I think there’s a good chance that some of theirs are every bit as ugly as yours is. Remember, Mrs. Lambert said you’re going to be listening to lectures from those young interns from the history department at the University of Arizona. You’ll need something to sit on during those lectures, and a sit-upon is just the thing. Would you rather come home with sandburs in your butt?”
“That means I have to take it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not fair,” Jenny said. “You’re all just being mean to me. I don’t even want to talk to you anymore. Good-bye.” With that she hung up.
Joanna turned to Butch. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “My daughter just hung up on me.”
Butch didn’t seem overly dismayed. “Get used to it,” he said.
“Jenny’s twelve, going on twenty. She’s about to turn into a teenager on you, Joey. It goes with the adolescent territory.”
“Since when do you know so much about adolescents?”
“I was one once.”
“And now she wants to drop out of Girl Scouts,” Joanna continued.
“So I gat I lewd, and maybe she should,” Butch said, from behind his newspaper. “It that’s what she really wants to do. Just because you stayed in Scouting as long as you did doesn’t mean your daughter has to.”
“You’re going to take her side in all this?” Joanna demanded.
“I’m not taking sides,” Butch said reasonably. “But if Jenny really wants to drop out of Girl Scouts, I think we should let her do what she wants to do.”