A little eyeliner, a touch of blusher, lipstick and I was almost ready to go as soon as I found my car keys.

I had just picked up my straw shoulder bag when a truck door slammed outside and Dwight’s voice called, “Anybody home?”

“Two minutes later and the answer would have been no,” I told him as he pulled open the screen door and came in.

Like me, he had on his working clothes this morning: olive chinos, dark blue jacket, a soft white shirt with small blue figures. The end of a blue knit tie trailed from his pocket. Dwight cleans up real good, if I do say so. No wonder Sylvia seems so taken with him.

“I was out this way and thought I’d have breakfast with Mama, but she’s off somewhere, so I was hoping maybe you’d give me a cup of coffee.”

Dwight has two younger sisters. You’d think that would be enough for any man. (Mine usually say that one’s too many and that I wrecked the perfect dozen Daddy was aiming for.) But he’s always walking in and out as if I were Beth or Nancy Faye.

“I guess you want Sylvia’s dog, too?”

He had the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry about that. I could have sworn I left the truck unlocked.”

“The dog you can have,” I said. “It’s still in my car, but I have to judge the yam contest at ten, so it’ll have to be a quick cup.”

“I was wondering why you were so dressed up. That dress looks real nice on you.”

“Don’t start,” I said. “Daddy’s always fussing that he never sees me in anything but shorts or jeans and am I sure I’m a girl?”

He put up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I wasn’t sniping. You can wear gunnysacks for all I care.”

I thought about Sylvia, always so neat and feminine in dresses or pastel slacks. No cutoffs for her.

As I refilled the coffeemaker and spooned fresh coffee into the basket, Dwight noticed my bracelet. “When did you start wearing that again?”

“Today. I found it in the dresser just now. I’m surprised you remember it. I hadn’t thought about it in years myself.”

“Does it still have the scissors?” he asked, his big hand reaching out to touch the small charms till he located it. “I was with Will and the little twins when they bought it for your birthday. I forget how old you were. Six? Seven?”

(Even though Adam and Zach are a couple of inches taller now than Herman and Haywood, they’ll always be called the “little” twins because they’re younger.)

“Why scissors?” I asked.

“You don’t remember?”

I shook my head.

“Miss Sue used to put your hair in pigtails in the summer. She said it was cooler and neater. But you hated the way it pulled, so—”

I burst into laughter as memory flooded in. “—so I took her sewing scissors and whacked them off!”