“That’s right. She stifled her own career ambitions, first because of me and later because of her husband and you. But now, Joanna, take a look at what you’re doing.
It’s not just that you’re not following Eleanor’s blueprint for life. Instead, you’re designing a whole new ball game. Eleanor Matthews Lathrop had two children-you and me. It’s pretty clear to me that between the two of us we cost her everything.” Speak for yourself, Joanna thought.
But Bob continued. “You have one child, soon to be two, but you’re living in a whole new era. From Eleanor’s point of view, society is letting you off easy. can do whatever you want. You don’t have to pay the same kinds of prices Eleanor had to pay. As far as she’s concerned, you’re not having to give up anything.”
The cell phone next to Joanna’s ear was hot, but so was she. She sat there steaming, saying nothing but doing a slow burn. Bob Brundage had a hell of a lot of nerve analyzing what, if anything, Joanna Brady was having to give up.
“Joanna?” Bob asked at last. “Are you still there?” “I’m here,” Joanna said stiffly.
“Tell me something. Did you think all this up on your own, or did Eleanor ladle it to you one word at a time?”
“On my own,” Bob answered. “I swear, every word of it.” “So what are you then, some kind of psychologist?” “I have an advantage you don’t have,” Bob replied. “What’s that?” Joanna asked pointedly. “Age?” “That, too.” Bob’s reply to Joanna’s blunt question was pleasantly evasive. “But not just that,” he added. “I have the benefit of perspective, and perspective only comes with distance. You’re too close to see it.”
“As in too close to the forest?” “Something like that.”
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Across the parking lot, Joanna could see the Benson mayor’s aide, Martha Rogers, checking her watch and glancing anxiously around the parking lot. A look at the clock on the dashboard told Joanna why. It was two minutes away from the time to introduce visiting dignitaries, one of whom was scheduled to be Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County.
“You still haven’t said what you want me to do about it,” Joanna said to her brother.
“Just be aware of it, is all,” Bob said. ‘And cut Eleanor a little slack now and then.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me to drop out of the race for sheriff?”
‘Are you nuts?” Bob asked with a chuckle. “I get all kinds of points around the Pentagon when I tell my coworkers that my kid sister is a sheriff out west in Arizona. They always want to know whether or not you carry a gun. And when I tell them you’re almost as good a shot as I am, they’re impressed.”
Joanna laughed, too. “Next time you’re out to visit,” she warned him, “you and I will do some target practice. We’ll see then who’s the better shot. Right now, I’ve gotta go. Someone’s looking for me. Tell Marcie for me.”
It was a thoughtful Joanna Brady who made her way through the parking lot toward the red-white-and-blue- festooned podium. Joanna had always despised what she had dismissed as Eleanor’s perpetual social climbing. Now she wondered how much those social-climbing tendencies had to do with Eleanor’s own thwarted ambitions-the hopes and dreams Eleanor Matthews had put aside in favor of marriage, motherhood, apple pie, and the American way. It was likely that her thwarted ambitions had determined the kind of mother Eleanor had turned out to be.
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In Joanna’s opinion, she and her mother had been locked in a perpetual state of warfare that dated from the very beginning-from Joanna’s first conscious memories. Rather than supporting her daughter, Eleanor had always been the one standing in Joanna’s way, blocking her progress and attempting to turn Joanna into someone far different from who she really was. But maybe Bob was right. Maybe the constant bickering with her mother was an outgrowth of a simple case of mother/daughter jealousy. And if Bob was right about that, maybe he was correct in something else as well. Maybe Joanna Brady was too close to the situation-so close that she hadn’t had a clue it even existed.
Minutes later she was standing on a makeshift podium welcoming people to the Benson Community Fourth of July picnic. She kept her remarks short and nonpartisan, then she spent the next forty-five minutes working the crowd, shaking hands and doing what she could to drum up support for her campaign. Later, after the short ten- minute drive from Benson to St. David, she did the same thing again-a short speech followed by another session of glad-handing all around. Everywhere she went she was offered food, none of which appealed to her in the least.
After the St. David appearance, Joanna headed home. She sailed past the Cochise County Justice Center without even turning on the Ciwie’s directional signal. Had anything been wrong, someone would have summoned her. She took the relative silence of radio chatter to mean that even the crooks were taking a holiday. At the Double Adobe turnoff, however, she glanced at her watch. It was twenty after three. The barrel-racing competition would start after a four o’clock performance by Sierra Vista High School’s junior girl’s rodeo drill team. Joanna figured that would give her time enough to get out of her
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dress uniform and into something a little more comfortable for sitting in the dusty stands at the fairgrounds. With that, she stepped on the brakes, and headed for High Lonesome Ranch where, in addition to changing clothes, she might be able to find something decent to eat.
It took Joanna a couple of minutes to negotiate the ecstatic dog greeting committee that met her at the front gate. Tigger was beside himself, and Lucky was so thrilled that he managed to pee on Joanna’s pant leg and dribble into her shoe. That meant the uniform would have to go to the cleaner’s after all. Lady showed even stronger signs of being happy to see her. Sadie’s loss was still a fresh memory, but it was a little easier to bear the bluetick’s absence now that there were other dogs to take the old hound’s place.
Once in the house, Joanna changed into jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt. She knew better than to brave the late-afternoon sun with her fair complexion and short sleeves. Finding a banana on the counter, she downed that along with a glass of ice-cold milk. Then, settling a straw Stetson on her head, she hurried outside and back into the now-roasting Ciwie. Butch had left a note saying that the Outback was in the garage if she wanted to take that, but she felt more at ease in the Crown Victoria.
That way, if duty called and her services were needed, she wouldn’t be driving in a vehicle without two-way radio capability.
