LITMIR.BIZ

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nearest convenience store and buy her the Tootsie Roll just to shut her up, then decided that if her parents didn’t care about her whining, he should try to get used to it.

      After he brushed off the question from Jackson about the porn movies, Kyle tried to stick close to Dixie, which meant that he was recruited to snap the ends off green beans while she fried the chicken. Memaw Frances busied herself mashing potatoes by hand, and once she’d eliminated all the lumps to her satisfaction, she dug around in the pantry for pickled okra that she never found.

      “Memaw didn’t make pickled okra last year,” Voncille whispered to Dixie and Kyle on her way to the refrigerator to pour juice for Petey. “She keeps forgetting is all.”

      Frances’s big lace-covered walnut table provided plenty of room for everyone, and it was set with fine china and crystal. Dixie seemed to take everything in stride, including being seated next to the profoundly deaf Claudia, who had to be told everything twice, even if it was only to please pass the salt. Kyle was seated on Frances’s right, which meant that he had to endure a spate of tough questions while steering her away from queries about his name. Not only that, Dixie had also suggested quite strongly that he not mention the reenactment at Rivervale Bridge or the fact that he’d worn a blue Yankee uniform.

      Kyle didn’t like to meet Dixie’s family or anyone else and not be able to tell them who he was, but he honored her request. That wasn’t difficult to do when he recalled that while riding in the car with her to get his truck a while ago, her hand had so softly brushed his arm as she reached to slide the key into the ignition. His skin had crinkled into goose bumps at her touch and he wondered what would happen if their skin made contact again.

      “YOU’RE FROM WHERE, CAL?” Claudia shouted across the table, knotting her face into a frown that rolled lines of pink powder from wrinkle to wrinkle.

      “OHIO,” he shouted back, unsure whether to correct Claudia’s pronunciation of his name.

      “And then I told her, ‘Hon, I’m not going to any shower for the daughter of a woman who cut me dead when Skeeter and I had to get married,’” Voncille was telling Dixie.

      “Can I have more chicken?” asked Paul, and Voncille forked a drumstick onto his plate without losing a beat in her monologue.

      “You ever heard of Linda Lovelace?” Jackson asked Estill, who remained bowed over his plate and kept spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth, which appeared deficient in teeth.

      “And your mother’s maiden name was what?” Frances asked Kyle with interest.

      “Oh, you wouldn’t know his people, Memaw,” Dixie volunteered hastily. “By the way, this is the best cranberry relish you’ve ever made.”

      “Let me tell you how I make it so you can do it yourself. I take my food grinder—that’s the old crank one that Mama had when she first married—and I wash the cranberries real good, getting all the dirt and leaves off. Then I—”

      “I intended to send a present, but right off I changed my mind, money being tight and Skeeter being jobless again,” Voncille said. “Maybe I’ll just mail a card after the baby’s born, whether Jenny gets married or not.”

      “Listen, dumbhead, stop kicking me under the table,” Liddy told her brother, who reached for the creamed corn and managed to spill it down the front of his shirt, whereupon Skeeter, his father, sent him to the bathroom to clean it off.

      “You grind up the nuts medium-coarse, and pecans are best,” Frances went on. “Lord knows I’ve got enough pecans from my trees, that is, if the squirrels don’t get them all.”

      “Did you say you were from Iowa?” Voncille asked Kyle politely.

      “Get all the little pieces of shell off the nuts before you grind them. You could break a tooth otherwise.”

      Kyle kept munching on his third piece of fried chicken. He’d heard that Southerners really had a way with fried chicken, but he wouldn’t have believed it could be so light and crispy.

      “They’ve got this back room at the video store, it’s for adults only,” Jackson was telling Skeeter enthusiastically.

      Voncille shot a warning glance in his direction and addressed him in an undertone that everyone heard anyway. “Jackson, there are children present. Please talk about something else.”

      “I didn’t get any mashed potatoes, Mom. Can you put gravy on? Who’s Linda Lovelace?” Paul asked.

      “Kyle shoes horses. It’s what he does for a living,” Dixie explained to someone, Kyle wasn’t sure who.

      “HE SHOOTS HORSES? WHAT KIND OF JOB IS THAT?” Claudia asked, and Kyle almost choked on a mouthful of iced tea.

      “Kyle shoes horses, Aunt Claudia,” Liddy said in her loudest voice.

      Frances blinked off into the distance for a moment. “I had a horse when I was a child. His name was Booster. Now, how come I can remember that horse’s name when I can’t even recall where I put the pickled okra?”

      “I carry everything I need for shoeing a horse around in my truck,” Kyle told Liddy who stared at him entranced.

      “The horse, too?”

      “No, not the horse, the horseshoes and the equipment I use to attach the shoes to their hooves.”

      “Daddy, when can I have a Tootsie Roll?” Amelia chimed in.

      “Hush up, Amelia.”

      “You use big long nails, right?”

      “Does it hurt the horse?” Paul asked.

      “And then I fold in the cranberries, just so.”

      “Uncle Estill, would you like to go to the video store with me sometime? Next week, maybe?” Jackson asked despite a glare from Voncille. Still gumming mashed potatoes, Estill gave no sign that he’d heard.

      “I KNEW SOME KALBS OVER NEAR LAURENS,” Claudia shouted. “A BIG FAMILY. THEY OWNED A CAR DEALERSHIP.”

      “No relation,” Kyle said.

      “And then all you have to do is put it in the refrigerator and eat it,” Frances said, though Kyle was sure that by this time, no one was listening.

      It went on like this until all the fried chicken and mashed potatoes were gone, which was when Voncille pushed back her chair. “Well, I guess we’re all finished eating. Is anyone ready for fudge cake? I brought one along.”

      Estill raised his head and spoke for the first time. “I’d like some cake, Vonnie, but first I’ll have some of that pickled okra. Can you mash it up real good?”

      “I told you, Estill, I couldn’t find the pickled okra,” Frances said with great patience.

      “Come on out to the kitchen, Memaw, I’ll help you search for it,” Liddy said comfortably as she slid off her chair. She took Frances’s hand and the two of them disappeared.

      Kyle caught Dixie’s eye and was surprised to recognize an amused glint there. He smiled back, and she shrugged lightly as if to say she couldn’t help it, this was her family and she loved them.

      Though he was lacking in family himself, her attitude struck Kyle as really important. Some people would be embarrassed by the carryings on and eccentricities of the people involved. However, Dixie had made it plain that she was not. Maybe more than anything else, Kyle liked this about her.

      WHEN THE TWO OF THEM arrived back at Dixie’s place after dinner, Kyle wished she wouldn’t go inside right away. He had no desire to spend the rest of the evening alone contemplating the sexual sparks that seemed to fly between them.

      “I had a good time,” he said. “Thanks for inviting me.”

      “Oh, we’re a fun bunch, all right,” Dixie said with an amused laugh. “Life wouldn’t be the same without my family especially

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