Chapter 7

Cassie

It was Daddy's fault in a way, because he was the one who decided that instead of going to a restaurant they could come to our house and have a barbecue and discuss their business. Of course Daddy isn't to blame in a bad way, but if he hadn't had that brainstorm it probably wouldn't have happened the way it did and so everything would be different now.

But he did have the idea. He'd arranged the meeting with Brother Hudson after the Sunday evening service, but Monday he realized that a barbecue would be nice especially since it was looking like an early spring and it probably would be warm, and if it wasn't we could put the grill on the patio and cook out there and then eat inside. So he called up Brother Hudson and all the others, and they agreed to the barbecue.

And that's where I came in. Mama's a lot better cook than I am, except when it comes to barbecuing. Somehow I got good at that when I was still in my teens, and I can do the best steaks or burgers or franks on the grill of anyone I know. Everyone tells me so, even the ones who like to give me a hard time. So I got to cook for half a dozen men that Saturday. I hadn't had anything planned, but I got upset with Daddy for not asking me first.

"How did you know I didn't have any plans?" I asked him.

"Well, Cassie, you never do have any plans on Saturday..."

"But I might have. You're always telling me I need to date or something, and maybe I might have been planning to do that or something."

"You'd have told us, Cassie."

"Maybe I was going to tell you tomorrow. Or maybe I was going to meet someone tomorrow and tell you the day after. You didn't know what there might be, Daddy, and you didn't ask me."

"I guess you're right, Cassie." He put his hand on my arm. We were sitting on the sofa just then, sort of turned to face each other. "If you want, I'll tell the men we'll have to reschedule."

"Well, Daddy, I didn't say you had to do that. I just wanted you to ask because someday maybe I will have plans. Maybe I'll meet someone I do want to date, you know." His apology had taken a lot of steam out of me and I was having a hard time not smiling when I talked about the possibility of dating someone, which I'd only done a couple of times and hadn't had any great success with.

"Okay, I'll try to remember to ask you next time I have a sudden idea like that. Really, I guess I should have thought of it myself. You're not my little girl anymore, are you?"

"Daddy, I'll always be your little girl." I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "But yes, I'm 23 years old and I'm grown up and I do have my own life, even if I still live at home, and I really appreciate you trying to think of that when you make plans."

So we had a barbecue. It was a nice sunny day, really like spring even though it was just the middle of March which can be pretty cool in Albuquerque. There wasn't any wind, which made it an unusual spring day, because the main feature of an Albuquerque spring is the wind that picks up dust from down by the river and spreads it all over town. The trees were beginning to leaf out, and the grass was getting green, and the sky was a nice blue the way you always imagined a spring sky would be, with just enough little puffs of cloud floating around in it to keep it from looking like a summer sky.

We were going to eat at noon, but the men – except for Daddy, who lived there of course – came over at 10 and went into Daddy's study and closed the door and thought all sorts of long thoughts, as the charlatan says in the first part of The Wizard of Oz, before the tornado takes Dorothy away from Kansas. Or is that what the wizard says to the Tin Man? I can't remember, but then that's not really my favorite movie anyway. I like movies where people have feelings and express them and it's all soft and gentle except maybe when someone's having a conflict, but then the other characters can help her resolve it.

Anyway they were in there debating and discussing, while I cooked. I know just how to make things, and when the steaks got to the right point I sent Mama in to ask who wanted well done and who wanted rare and who wanted medium. Mama will never be a waitress, because she wrote it all down and brought it out to me instead of remembering it. Of course when I waitressed for a little bit I had to write a lot of things down too, and I always got impressed when some of the waiters and waitresses never needed a pad or anything.

But with just us I had no trouble remembering who wanted what how. Brother Hudson wanted a burger, well done. I thought everyone from Texas wanted steaks, and "just wave the far at it," that being how Brother Hudson said "fire," but I guess he was different, or maybe what I'd thought about Texans wasn't so right after all. I supposed that could be the case, since I wasn't perfect even though I hated to admit it, and sometimes I did make mistakes and usually about things I'd never studied. And I'd never studied Texans.

While I watched the meat I wondered if maybe I shouldn't start studying them. Or at least one of them. If Brother Hudson was going to be our pastor, and it looked like the longer he stayed the better everyone else liked him, then maybe I ought to know something about him, and knowing something about Texans might help me there. Or it might not, because probably there were Texans who weren't like Texans, if that makes any sense. I know there are New Mexicans who seem more like they're from the east, or from California, or wherever, and of course someone from Albuquerque won't be like someone from one of the little Spanish towns where they still talk like the conquistadors. Or that's what they tell me. I don't speak Spanish so I don't know, and even if I did I probably wouldn't know how Juan Oñate talked anyway.

After a bit the food was beginning to get done, the rare meat first, and I asked Mama to go tell the men. She did, and in a few minutes they came trooping out of Daddy's study, still talking. They changed subjects when they got to the patio though, and so I didn't know what they were talking about. I don't hold with keeping women in the dark. The Bible does say we're weaker than men, and physically that's true of course, but nowhere does the Bible say that we're dumb or incompetent. I know Mama is just as smart as Daddy and maybe a little bit smarter, and he listens to her and takes her advice a lot of the time. But there is some business which isn't women's business, I know that, and I supposed that the men were dealing with some of that kind of business, or else they'd have had some of the women of the church involved. And of course there is business that's women's business and we don't invite the men to sit in either. It works out.

I started sliding steaks and burgers, and hotdogs for two of the men, onto plates, and everyone gathered around the picnic tables and waited while I finished up. I fixed my plate last, with a medium well steak, and sat down, and Daddy looked at Brother Hudson and asked him to say the blessing.