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should probably start earning your keep,” he teased, grinning.
    “Dang it, Poppa. I did not haul my butt back to Oklahoma for y’all to start working me,” I teased right back.
    I turned to survey my family, not realizing until now how much I had missed them. Relief washed over me that I wouldn’t have to clean up the mess that was now my life all alone. With this group I would have plenty of opinions and too many distractions to feel sorry for myself. I was starting to get misty-eyed and sentimental , so I was relieved when Nonnie announced that there was no use standing out in the heat when there was a perfectly good air conditioner inside. I headed in, flanked on all sides by my family.

Chapter Three
     
    We were sitting down at the table when a car horn tooting the tune of Elvis’ , “Little Sister , ” sounded outside. Apparently my own had arrived for dinner. Moments later, the former supermodel herself breezed into the dining room and laid kisses on everyone’s cheeks and grabbed me from behind in a ferocious hug.
    “Holy hell, sister. You’re too dang skinny. Didn’t that guy ever feed you?”
    “Tally!” Mama and Daddy and Nonnie and Poppa Joe admonished collectively. She sighed and hung her head as she walked around the table to her seat.
    “I’m sorry. You look pleasantly plump.” She giggled and winked at me. I laughed and winked right back.
    “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you,” Mama chastised.
    “Just love me Mama,” Tally answered in faux-seriousness, “that’s what all the books say.”
    “I think more beatings as a child would have been a good idea,” Daddy quipped back.
    “No way, I’m too cute to beat.” Tally was all about getting the last word. Changing the subject, Daddy reached for the mashed potatoes and asked Tally why she was late.
    “I was buying a piece of property.”
    “Excuse me?” Daddy drawled suspiciously. I know it’s the twenty-first century and all, but in small towns like Brooks a woman generally doesn’t go out and buy a piece of property without discussing it with her daddy or her husband, if she has one.
    “Well, Daddy, y’all said I needed to find something meaningful to do with my life and my money, so I am,” she started out in an affirmative tone which melded into the whine she’d perfected since she discovered what it meant to be the baby, and our Daddy’s baby to boot.
    “Define ‘meaningful’,” Daddy responded sarcastically, holding onto his suspicions.
    “Now Rex, let’s don’t go jumping to conclusions before the girl gets a chance to explain herself,” Mama interjected smoothly, soothing Daddy’s ruffled feathers and ego. “So explain, sweetheart,” she directed at Tally, who’s bluff she’d called a long time ago. While Daddy was always good to manipulate, Mama’d be damned before anyone pulled one over on her.
    “Well…,” Tally started hesitantly, knowing her bluff had been called once again, “you know how this town only has one of everything and people are always having to drive to see a movie, or g et anything decent to eat, or buy any fashionable clothes? I mean, really, Mama, you have to drive more than an hour just to buy makeup, right?”
    “Right. So what’s your point?” Mama asked sweetly. Tally shot Mama a look.
    “I’m gonna build a strip mall,” she started and rushed on to finish, “with a movie theater, and a few good restaurants and some higher end clothing stores. I mean, if I know anything, it’s how to look good and what to do it in,” she finished with her trademark smile and infamous eyelash flutter. To relieve you of any confusion, my darling baby sister, Tallulah Belle Atkins was a model. A supermodel. Like runway model in New York, Italy, France, you name it. She was the muse for all the major lingerie designers; the ultimate “it” girl, living in New York, making tons of money , when about a year ago , she decided to give it all up and move back to Brooks and the