It was Keri's job to get dinner, of course. Jody had to help, but the girl was hopeless in the kitchen and mostly did the cleaning up. It pissed Keri off that the boys could just come in and sit down, while she had to do all the work; but her father was unmovable. They were men. They worked hard all day. Hell, Steven just went to school like her and Jody.

She resisted the temptation to toss the mashed potatoes in Steven's face when she brought them in and set them down on the table. He grinned cockily at her and she glared fiercely.

"Jody, take off that hat," her dad ordered.

Jody looked up at the baseball cap she wore and sighed, then took it off and threw it across the room onto a chair.

"No hats at the table. How many times I have to tell you guys that?" he demanded, ignoring the fact that Jody was a girl, as he often did.

"You and Joe get that crane working?" he asked Mark.

"Yeah. We had a bitch of a time doing it, though."

"Watch your language around your sisters!"

Her brothers were all big guys, the smallest still over six feet tall, but her dad was the biggest. He had an enormous barrel chest that came from lifting and hauling heavy objects every day for year after year. His skin was tanned darkly. His hair was short but neatly combed for dinner, as always.

The boys did what he said more because they knew he could beat the shit out of them then because he owned and ran the salvage yard they worked at and was their dad.

They were a crude, rude, chauvinistic bunch, Keri thought, but at least her dad had some manners.

She returned to get the rest of the food, noting that Joe was looking at her oddly again. She wondered what that was about. She'd checked herself in the mirror. She didn't look odd or weird.

"I got made co-captain of the basketball team," Jody announced.