Free Stacy Matthews - Dear Mary 01 - Think Twice Before You Order by Stacy Matthews Page B

No one just drops by to chat. I’m
starting to realize how much I miss living here, and having people in your
neighborhood that actually care enough about you to check on you.
    It was Mr. and Mrs. Dixson. They live down on the next block,
and Mrs. Dixson’s sister, Chub, lives a block over from the Dixson’s. You know
I’ve never really thought about it until now, but I’m sure Chub isn’t her real
name. Mrs. Dixson said she had seen me sidetracked every time I tried to take a
walk, so she thought it would be a good idea to come up to the house instead of
waiting for me to make it down to her.
    I have to explain the Dixson’s to you. I can honestly say
they are one of the most unique couples I’ve ever come across. If you were the
sort of person that judges people by first appearances you would never guess
those two would be married.
    Up first is Mr. Dixson. He looks like a man that works hard,
and he does. He spits his chew into an empty pop can, and if you can get a word
out of him, you’re doing better than most of the town. He owns a small pig farm
on the outskirts of town and seems to do well enough. The one thing people say
about him is that he is a very fair man in business as well as his personal
life. Even when business was down, he wouldn’t take a dime from Mrs. Dixson’s
father; that’s just the way Mr. Dixson is.
    Now Mrs. Dixson is a completely different story. You can look
at her and tell she came from money, and a lot of it. Mrs. Dixson is always
dressed to the nines and looks like she stepped out of a magazine. One summer
Mrs. Dixson was visiting Mrs. Kelley four houses down from my Mom and Dad’s old
house. It had been cloudy, hot and humid all day, then the storm hit. The
tornado sirens started going off. The Kelley’s didn’t have a basement, so Mrs.
Dixson and Mrs. Kelley came over to Mom and Dad’s. Now keep in mind they both walked
the same distance, but Mrs. Kelley looked like she walked through the tornado,
and Mrs. Dixson didn’t have a hair out of place. It’s like she has an invisible
bubble around her. I have a feeling she wakes up looking like that.
    Mrs. Dixson’s family was not pleased when she fell in love
with Mr. Dixson. Her father, Bud Benson, owned the tire store in town. His
plans had been to hand over the business to the man his eldest daughter
married. I would have loved to have been a fly on the
wall when Mrs. Dixson brought Mr. Dixson home and told her parents he was Mr.
Right.
    I don’t know how Chub got that name, because she is anything
but chubby. Mrs. Dixson and Chub look a lot alike, but Chub has more of a model
look to her. As far back as I can remember , Chub
always had a lot of boyfriends, so Mrs. Dixson had to catch me up on all of the
latest ones. She said for the life of her she can’t figure out why none of them
had married Chub. It’s not that Chub hadn’t tried the traditional route; she
has been married five times. None of them seemed to stick, so Chub resigned
herself to the fact that she was meant to have boyfriends, not husbands. Chub
doesn’t have any children, and the Dixson’s have one son who is the spitting
image of his father. Not only does he look like his dad, he loves working with
his dad, so that pretty much ruled out the grandson taking over the tire store
for Mr. Benson. We talked for a little while longer, and she decided she had
caught me up on everything in her world. Before they left, she asked if I had
any dinner plans. When I said no, we were headed to the Dixson’s for a home
cooked meal. If this keeps up, I won’t have to do any cooking the entire time
I’m here.
    Mrs. Dixson made chicken fried steak, green beans, homemade
biscuits, and the required taters and gravy. I swear I have gainedten pounds
since I’ve gotten here.
    No wonder most of the men around here wear overalls; they buy
them big so they can just grow into them. All that food has put me in a
semi-coma.
    Talk to you later

June 12 th
    Dear Mary,
    Charlie