Shoot / Don't Shoot

Joanna looked at the hostess, looked away, and then did a double take. The young woman was dressed in a Puritan costume, complete with a long skirt and a ruffled white apron.

“It’ll be about forty-five minutes for a table in the dining room, or you can seat yourself in the bar.”

“My aching feet say the bar will be fine,” Carol Strong said. “But first I need to use the RR.”

When they walked into the bar a few minutes later, Butch Dixon was standing behind the bar, gazing up at an overhead TV monitor with rapt

attention. Only when they got closer did Joanna realize that he, too, was dressed in a Puritan costume, complete with breeches, socks, and buckled shoes.

As they came toward him, he glanced away from the set. “Oh, oh,” he said. “My two favorite female gendarmes. You haven’t come to arrest me, have you?”

“Arrest you?” Carol Strong returned. “What for?”

“Video piracy,” he answered with a grin. “I know it says for home use only, but it turns out this is my home. I live upstairs, so that makes this my living room. We have a few important customs around here. One is that on Thanksgiving, the wait staff, me included, dresses up. They can choose be­tween Puritan or Indian, it’s up to them. And in the bar we have continuous screenings of my favorite Thanksgiving movie—Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It’s just coming up on the best part, where John Candy sets the car on fire. What’ll you have to drink, Diet Pepsi?” he asked, looking at Joanna.

She nodded.

“I’ll have one of those, too,” Carol Strong said. “Wait a minute. She didn’t give us menus. I’d better go get one.”

“No need. Everybody gets the same thing today,” Butch Dixon said. “Turkey, dressing, and all the rest.” He went down the bar and returned with the two soft drinks.

“How much does it cost?” Carol asked.

Butch shrugged. “Whatever,” he said.

“Whatever?”

Butch waved toward the crowded dining room. “Some of these people won’t be able to pay anything at all. No problem. That’s the way it is around here. If you can pay, fine. If you can’t pay, that’s fine, too. Let your conscience be your guide.”

He looked up at the television set. “You’ve to watch this. The part with the jacket always cracks me up.”

The food was delicious. The movie was a scream. Joanna laughed so hard she was almost sick. But during the last few frames when Steve Martin drags a hapless John Candy—his unwanted and yet welcome guest—home for dinner, Joanna found herself with tears in her eyes.

And not just because of John Candy, either. It had something to do with family and with reconciliation and with forgiveness. Something to do with Eleanor Lathrop and Bob Brundage.

“Great dinner,” Joanna said to Butch when he came to take their empty dessert plates. She turned to Carol. “I think I’d better go back to the hotel now,” Joanna said. “After missing dinner, I probably have a little fence-mending to do.”

Carol nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. We’ll both think about this overnight and then put our heads together tomorrow morning. What do you say?”

“What time?”

“Not before noon,” Carol said. “I’m going to need my