Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

As he stood and shook hands with the strapping Barr family men, he saw that Temple’s relatives were less bombastic than his large Polish family clan, but they were bigger people. They seemed like bodyguards as they escorted him and Temple up the exterior stairs and into the house’s main living area that stretched above the garage below. A sliding glass door in the living room overlooked a deck.

The low, eight-foot ceilings made Matt uneasy, like being a sandwich meat everybody was examining for two much fat. He was used to and loved the Circle Ritz’s high, barrel ceilings. His family’s venerable Chicago row houses and two-flats boasted ten-foot ceilings.

Matt relaxed with a tiny sigh when Temple’s beefy dad released her from a bone-squeezing hug, pumped Matt’s hand with an accompanying backslap, and then suggested they all go out on the deck for barbecue and beer. That seemed familiar.

Ah, air as fresh as the great outdoors. The cedar wood deck was expansive enough to hold a picnic table for twelve and overlooked a sea of mowed grass that lilted in gentle swells to a row of untrimmed bushes and trees. Minnesota tamed and Minnesota wild.

“Grew up in Chicago, I hear.” Roger Barr confirmed with a grin. “City boy. This grass here is heaven. Until you have to mow it.”

“Can’t argue,” Matt said, enjoying the breathing room so he could take in…four chunky guys all older than he, all wearing loose khaki shorts and well-filled-out T-shirts celebrating the Vikings, the Timberwolves, the Swarm and the Wild. The St. Paul Saints on Daddy Barr’s chest gave Matt hope. God help me , Matt thought quite sincerely. He did not speak Sports. He was a stranger, yes. And in a strange land, even more so.

Temple was disappearing into each brother’s embrace in turn, but emerging uncrushed. “Gee, guys,” she said, “I’m glad to see you again, too, and your full heads of Hair Club for Men.”

That was a joke. Keith, David, Tom and Hank were in various forms of transition to forty and middle age, which meant more middle and less luxuriant hair topping.

Matt duly shook their hands, which ended with a final slap each time. Good thing his job didn’t rely on using a computer keyboard, like Temple’s. His shoulders would be out for a week if this continued.

“Say, Matt,” said Keith, the apparent eldest. “We don’t generally watch daytime TV, but Mom insisted we eyeball a tape of The Amanda Show , and you are one cool talker, guy.”

By then Temple had arrived at Matt’s side to slip an arm through his.

Bad move, Matt thought. The boys didn’t want to see he had a sponsor.

“It’s a living,” Matt said with a shrug.

Temple opened her mouth to (unfortunately) sing his praises and future talk show prospects, but suddenly all attention turned to the sliding glass doors from the house behind them.

Matt, who’d wondered since he’d briefly met her in the chaos of a major Vegas banquet, what womanly steel had borne and put up with this lusty male throng—saw Temple’s mother in her element at last and stood still in shock and awe.

She was a true “slip of a thing”. Her girlishly slim frame curved like a leaf about to be blown away, yet belied by those ample sixty-something laugh lines. Her short-cropped hair still flashed a glint of fiery red among the iron gray. Now he knew the gene pool Temple and her aunt, Kit Carlson Fontana, had sprung from, the fey side of the northern European spring, not the Viking one. It was insane to think this wiry elf could have carried and borne all these big-headed brothers, although Karen Barr broadcast the calm control of a woman who had managed child-bearing with amazing ease, like everything else in her life.

“Matt Devine.” She paused in the open doorway to the deck, her extended arms holding a tray of muffins. “Put these out on the picnic table, sweetie, and we can all get eating.” She cocked an eye at her sons. “Yes, boys, you can safe-crack the ice chest for the Hamm’s beer now.”

Matt was actually relieved to have some heavy lifting to do—Minnesota muffins weren’t wimpy. They were as big as his fist and darkly dotted with nuts and berries.

Temple joined him at the redwood buffet table. “The worst is over,” she whispered. “Nephews tomorrow. They’re smaller and have slightly better manners. So far.”

“Hamm’s beer?” Matt had never heard the brand name.

“Founded here, and once the glory of Minnesota. Now owned by CoorsMiller, and just a select brand for oldsters. ‘From the land of sky-blue wah-ah-ters’,” she sang. “‘Hamm’s, the beer refreshing.’”

Matt had never heard Temple sing and raised his eyebrows at her on-key soprano. “We could make beautiful music together on Electra’s Lowery organ at the Lovers’ Knot,” he said.

She gave him a sassy hip bump. “We already have that covered at the Circle Ritz. As for home-grown products here, Land-o-Lakes butter is still a going concern,” Temple added with a smile. “Minnesota and heavy-duty dairy products keep on trucking.”

“And your brothers.” Matt watched them grabbing hamburgers and heaping hot dog buns with tablespoons from a slimy pile of apparent bean spouts.

“Sauerkraut,” Temple murmured under her breath.

“Where are their wives?”

“Saved for the visit’s second day. All those women and kids were deemed too overwhelming for you right off.”

“I was a pastor at a Catholic parish, Temple,” Matt told her. “Large families are not a stress factor for me.”

“This one will be. Whatever you do, don’t let my brothers talk you into a friendly game of touch football after lunch.”

Matt eyed the huge, grassy yard. “I can do that.”

“Not with my brothers.”

Matt noticed Temple’s grip on her lowball glass had grown white-knuckled. “Where’d you get a cocktail?” he asked. “I could use one.”

“In the kitchen with Mom. Out here, it’s only beer for boys. You do not want to look like an effete intellectual who knocks back Gilbey’s gin with that crowd.”

“Gilbey’s?” Matt wrinkled his nose. “Not my brand of gin.”

“Vegas spoils you. Toast the Hamm’s bear like a good boy.”

“Bear? Aren’t the Bears a Chicago team?”

“And you say you don’t speak Sports. Very good. A cartoon bear was the Hamm’s beer mascot.” Temple glanced over her shoulder. “Tom is heading our way. That can’t be good after three bears. I mean, beers.”

“Temple, how much Gilbey’s is in that glass?”

“Enough for what’s next, I hope.” Temple edged around to stand beside him.

“How’s about we take a stroll on the lawn,” Tom suggested to Matt. He was the Timberwolf T-shirt guy.

Matt nodded at the shirt logo. “The Wolves going the distance?”

“Basketball season is over,” Tom said with a frown.

“Uh, right. I meant next season.”

Keith turned to Temple. “Can we borrow your guy for a while?” His arm made a sweeping gesture to the backyard. “Introduce him to the great Minnesota outdoors.”

Temple frowned. “I don’t want any grass stains on those khaki pants of his.”

Tom hitched up his roomy knee-length shorts. “No problem, lil’ sis. We’ll take care of your guy.”

“Do not call me ‘lil’ sis’,” Temple warned. “And your guts are an endangered species if you yobos get out of line with my guy.”

Tom of the Timberwolves turned to shrug at his grinning three brothers in their equally aggressive team T-shirts.

They surrounded Matt with collegial backslaps. “Just a little touch football to settle the sauerkraut.” Keith, the Viking, said that. Tom the Timberwolf nodded with cheesy sadistic glee.

Matt let Temple’s super-sized big brothers swarm him in a pack down the deck stairs onto the yard. If touch football was the rite of passage here, he could manage it.