The Banty House

by Brown, Carolyn

  Ginger glanced over her shoulder and figured that meant last week there were only about half as many folks in the building, but then Rooster wasn’t a very big place, so maybe that was a good number. The sign on the edge of the city limits said it had a population of ninety-five. She’d thought it had to be a mistake until she saw just how few houses there were in the town.

  The preacher took his place behind the podium, looked out over the crowd, and adjusted his reading glasses to the right place on his nose. With a deep voice, he told them that he’d be speaking about the Resurrection that morning.

  Surprise! Surprise! Ginger thought, but then she began to compare where she’d been a week ago to the place she was that morning. She wasn’t Jesus—not by any means. But she’d been in a very dark place for three days, just like he’d been in the tomb. She’d lost her job, was down to her last bowl of cereal, and had walked the streets looking for work. Everyone had taken one look at her rounded belly and shaken their heads. Now she’d been brought out of the dark into the light. Jesus got to ascend into heaven at the end of his days. She wondered if her final destination would feel like heaven to her.

  Betsy startled her when she leaned over and whispered, “I wonder if Sloan has the eggs all hidden. Last year it took us a whole hour to find the last one.”

  The preacher cleared his throat, and Betsy straightened up. Ginger noticed that she’d crossed her fingers like a little girl who was either telling a lie or hoping for something.

  “Eli Thomas, will you please deliver the benediction for us this morning?” the preacher asked.

  An old guy on the pew behind them stood to his feet and prayed, and prayed, and then prayed some more. Ginger was sure she’d either fall asleep listening to his monotone or get a crick in her neck from trying to look over her shoulder at him before he finally ran out of air and said, “Amen.” The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes and was able to focus again was that Betsy’s fingers weren’t crossed anymore and that everyone was getting to their feet.

  “I didn’t get my wish this morning,” Betsy whispered.

  “What did you wish for?” Ginger asked.

  “Same thing we all did,” Kate answered.

  Connie scanned the area around them and then said in a low voice, “We all hoped that the preacher would ask Everett Dickson to pray. He keeps things short and sweet.”

  Ginger bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “Y’all are so funny.”

  Before any one of them could answer, a lady touched Betsy on the shoulder. “I thought I might drop by tomorrow and pick up a few jars of jelly. Have you got strawberry and grape made up?”

  “I sure do.” Betsy nodded.

  Several other women had approached Betsy by the time they were outside and asked if they could come by the next day to pick up jams or jellies. She graciously told them that it would be fine and then broke into laughter when she got into the car.

  “I swear to God, and I do not mean that blasphemously right here on Easter morning”—Betsy took a lace-edged hankie from her pink handbag and wiped her eyes with it—“that I’ve never had this much business on a Sunday morning in my life. Ginger, you are my good-luck charm.”

  “How’s that?” Ginger asked.

  “They want to find out about you, so we’re going to play this close to our vests. Tomorrow I want you to help Connie and stay out of sight.” Betsy rubbed her white-gloved hands in glee.

  “You’re evil,” Connie laughed, “and I love it. I bet you sell every jar of jams and jellies that you have made by next Sunday.”

  “I’m plannin’ on it,” Betsy said sweetly.

  Ginger thought the whole thing was a hoot. Folks in Rooster must love gossip and drama as much as the people in the shelter had. She’d always avoided that kind of thing, but today it was more than a little humorous.

  Kate parked the car in the garage, and they all went inside through the kitchen. Sloan was leaning against the doorjamb leading from the kitchen to the dining room. He was dressed in his usual camouflage pants, and his dark hair had recently been combed back. His biceps stretched the knit of his army-green shirt, and a smile barely tickled the corners of his mouth.

  “Well, don’t you ladies all look just like a picture out of one of those fancy magazines,” he drawled.

  “Thank you,” the Carson sisters said in unison.

  Ginger nodded, afraid that her voice would be all high and squeaky. Just looking at him had jacked up her pulse. She should feel guilty for feeling that way—after all, she was carrying another man’s baby.

  “Are you ready for the annual picture-taking event?” His eyes locked with hers.

  “Just make me look pretty in the pictures,” she whispered.

  “That won’t be a problem.” He grinned.

  “Yep,” Betsy said. “We want some with us sisters, and then we want some with Ginger in the photograph with us.”

  “Are you sure you want me in the pictures?” Ginger asked.

  “Of course,” Connie said. “You’re with us this Easter, so you should be in the book. Mama would like that.”

  The ladies posed on the porch exactly like they had in the pictures Ginger had seen in the album. They lined up from oldest to youngest, put their arms around each other’s shoulders, and smiled at the camera. Their big hats would have been the rage at the Kentucky Derby, what with the huge bows and floral arrangements. Her fascinator had looked pretentious to her that morning when she’d settled it on her head, but now the poor little thing made her appear underdressed.

  For the first several pictures, she stood beside Sloan as he snapped away with his phone. Every time the wind shifted, she caught a whiff of his shaving lotion—something woodsy with a hint of a fiery, spicy aroma that sent her senses reeling.

  Dammit! Pregnant women don’t feel this kind of thing.

  Chapter Six

  Easter dinner was the traditional ham, sweet potato casserole, baked beans, hot rolls, and a lovely green salad. At least that’s what Betsy said it was. Ginger couldn’t have proven it by her past. The only real celebration dinner she might have known had been when she was with the religious couple. That year, she couldn’t answer the questions about the Resurrection, so she didn’t get to eat, but one of the other children slipped her a ham sandwich after dinner was over.

  The ladies removed their gloves, but they wore their new dresses and hats to the table that afternoon. Sometime during the meal, Ginger laid her hand on her stomach and silently told the baby that this was like eating with the Queen of England. The best china had been brought out of the cabinet, and the sterling silver had been polished. Ginger fingered the lace cloth that covered the table and felt the heat rising from candles. Before he died, Lucas had gotten high and told her a little about his family and how much he hated what people expected of folks who had money. She’d thought he had been affected by the pot and the liquor, but when she met his mother, it all became pretty real.

  If he was so against having money, then why did he try to scam so many people? she wondered, putting another bite of ham into her mouth. She was jerked out of the past and into the present when Sloan accidentally brushed her shoulder as he reached for the bread basket to passed it down to Kate.

  “What do you think, Ginger? Want to put your bet on the table?” Kate asked.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ginger apologized. “I was thinkin’ about how beautiful the table is today and got caught up in woolgathering. What were y’all talkin’ about?”

  “Gladys Jones is coming by tomorrow to buy strawberry jam,” Betsy explained. “She arrives about this same time every year and buys a couple of jars, but what she’s really interested in is gossip. Edith will arrive next and will be the one to try to talk me into hiring a few girls to dress up in what she calls hooker clothes and sit on the front porch during the Rooster Romp. Poor old darlin’ thinks no one in town knows that she got pregnant before she married.”

  “Not that we care,” Connie said, �
�but the way she puts our mother down for not having a husband grates on my nerves.”

  Kate nodded and said, “Her son is the preacher at our church. We’re bettin’ on how long she’ll be here before she brings up the idea of us being the daughters of a woman of the night. Edith is one of those things that you have to take with a grain of salt and laugh about, or else you might want to kill it. You want in on the money?” Kate’s thought drifted over for just a moment to Max, Edith’s deceased husband. She’d really bet dollars to doughnuts that she’d cried more at his death than Edith had.

  “Say no,” Sloan whispered.

  “You hush!” Connie pointed her fork at Sloan.

  “What’s the Rooster Romp?” Ginger asked.

  “It’s our annual festival. Anyone who ever lived here or in Mission Valley, or who has kinfolk here, comes back for the Romp. We have a carnival for the kids, all kinds of vendors up and down the street from the church to the cemetery. The street is closed off to traffic, but there’s golf carts to take folks down to visit the graves if they want to go. People come from all over the county,” Connie explained.

  “And why would Miss What’s-her-name want y’all to put hookers on the front porch?” Ginger asked.

  “She’s watched too much television and thinks that Mama had her girls dressed in red satin and black garters. The Banty House wasn’t that kind of place. Men didn’t just come and go all through the night,” Kate answered.

  “I’ll show you tomorrow what we’ll be wearing,” Connie said. “Since you’ve got to stay out of sight so that Betsy can draw out all this drama a little longer, you can help me let out one of the dresses that we wear on the day of the Romp.”

  “Sweet Jesus!” Betsy rolled her eyes. “I thought you’d already let that dress out as far as it would go last year.”

  “I’m planning to put a gusset in it,” Connie told her. “Just think how round I’d be if I didn’t smoke. I hear you gain about forty pounds when you give up cigarettes.”

  “Those things are going to give you lung cancer,” Kate said.

  “I’ll eat what I want, smoke as many cigarettes as I want, and die when I’m supposed to, so stop bitchin’ at me and pass the sweet potatoes this way,” Connie said.

  “Changing the subject back to the bet . . .” Ginger tried to smooth things over. “Explain it to me again.”

  “Edith won’t be able to keep her mouth shut about how we dress, and she’s coming tomorrow. So we’re betting on how long it’ll take her to get around to it when she gets here.” Betsy smiled.

  Sloan could agree with Connie’s statement about not knowing what the future held when it came to eating or smoking. One day he was going out into the heat and sand to defuse bombs. The next week he was being sent to doctors and psychiatrists for severe depression and PTSD. Then he’d been told to pack his stuff, and he had been put on a plane and sent home to Texas with an honorable discharge and full disability from the United States Army. He didn’t want either. His dream had always been to go into the army after high school and make a career out of it. The future damn sure hadn’t brought what he’d wanted.

  When the meal was over and they had finished the cleanup, the ladies all hurried off upstairs. They returned hatless and barefoot and carrying the same Easter baskets that Sloan figured they’d carried from their young days. Ginger was still wearing shoes when she came down the stairs, but not for long. When she noticed that the sisters were barefoot, she kicked hers off at the foot of the steps.

  “Hunting in our bare feet is a tradition.” Betsy picked up a basket from the credenza, handed it to her, and said, “This was Mama’s basket. You can use it today.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Ginger protested. “What if I ruin it? I can just use a grocery bag.”

  “Nonsense,” Kate said. “Mama would be glad for you to use it, and besides, we always take a picture at the end of the hunt to go in the album. It just wouldn’t be right for you to be holding a plastic sack in the picture.”

  “Where’s your basket?” Ginger locked eyes with Sloan.

  “Remember—I take the pictures and hide the eggs. I don’t hunt them,” he answered. “But I did like the excitement back when I was a little boy. One time, I even found the prize egg at the church hunt and got a bicycle. I put a million miles on that thing riding up to the Rooster store for snow cones in the summertime.”

  “Okay, now you’ve got me wanting a snow cone,” Betsy said. “Maybe after supper, we’ll all take a walk to town and get us one. I like cherry. What’s your favorite, Ginger?”

  Kate led the way to the porch. “My favorite snow cone is blue coconut. We don’t have a starting pistol, but after Sloan takes a picture of us all waiting with our baskets, we take off.”

  “Cherry,” Ginger said as she followed behind them.

  “Rainbow.” Connie took her place in the lineup.

  Sloan walked out past them and into the yard, where he held up his phone and took several photos, including a couple of Ginger by herself. Those he quickly shuffled into a personal folder, where he kept pictures of his grandmother and his old team members.

  Maybe you shouldn’t put her in that file, the voice in his head said. Seems like folks you put there don’t live much longer.

  Or just maybe, she’ll be the one that breaks the pattern, he argued.

  When the ladies looked at the pictures later and decided which ones they wanted, he’d send an order into a place in Hondo, and they could pick them up on Thursday when they went into town.

  “All right. I believe we’ve gotten several good shots for y’all to pick from.” He raised his voice. “On your mark.”

  Kate bent forward like someone who was fixing to run in a quarter-mile sprint.

  “Get set,” he yelled.

  Betsy put one foot out and tucked her elbows to her sides.

  “Go!”

  Connie threw both arms out to slow her sisters down and got ahead of them by ten feet. All dignity was thrown to the wind as they began to search for hidden eggs.

  “I saw that one first,” Connie squealed when Kate picked one up right at her feet.

  “Too bad. If you didn’t smoke, you wouldn’t be out of breath and you could get around faster,” Kate threw over her shoulder.

  “Did you sample your shine while you were takin’ off your pantyhose?” Betsy asked. “That’s why your face is flushed and you’re so hyper, ain’t it?”

  “I did not,” Kate protested. “My eyesight is better than y’all’s, that’s all.”

  “Bullshit!” Betsy disagreed. “You have to have reading glasses just like Connie. I’m the one with good vision.”

  Sloan fell in beside Ginger. “You just point at whatever you find and I’ll pick it up for you.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him. “That bending over business is gettin’ to be a real problem.”

  “Kind of like trying to get past a basketball under your dress?” he asked.

  “More like a great big old watermelon.” Her smile widened.

  “You sure you got just one baby in there?” Sloan asked.

  “Nope. Could be a whole litter for all I know.” She stuck her toe on a bright-purple egg with lots of glitter on it.

  He put it in her basket. “What would you do if it was twins or maybe even triplets? Would that change your plans?”

  “I don’t know that I have anything to change to,” she answered.

  “You could stay here in Rooster,” he suggested.

  “And do what? I don’t even see a restaurant in town. I don’t have a car, there’s no public transportation to take me to Hondo, and I’d never make enough money to pay a babysitter”—she stopped and inhaled deeply—“for even one baby, much less two.”

  “You can’t raise a child—or children—in a shelter or on the streets,” Sloan told her. “You know what will happen if you don’t have a home to take the baby to when it’s born. They’ll put it in the system.”

  “Then I’ll just del
iver it on my own.” Her tone went stone cold. “My child is never going in the system—not ever. The only way it will is over my dead body. I’m hoping to get a job where I can take the baby with me, maybe working at a day care center.”

  Sloan didn’t know anything about those places, but he doubted that Ginger had the education or training for a job like that. She might have babysat for the kids in the foster homes where she had lived, but that wouldn’t carry much weight in a licensed day care center.

  “How many do you have?” Connie called over her shoulder toward Ginger. “Between us we’ve got one shy of three dozen. That means you have to have thirteen, or else there’s still some out here to be found.”

  Ginger glanced down at her basket. “How did so many get in here? Did you cheat, Sloan?”

  “No, ma’am. I only picked up the ones that you either had a toe against or else you pointed out to me,” he answered with a shake of his head. “I’d never cheat at something with this much riding on the game.”

  What he didn’t say was that while they were talking, he’d seen Betsy sneak up behind them and put a couple of eggs in Ginger’s basket. Then Connie had done the same thing. Kate almost got caught giving one more to Ginger but had quickly run to the other side of the yard and picked up another egg.

  “There’s thirteen eggs in here.” Ginger frowned. “But I only remember picking up about six or seven.”

  “Guess you was all involved with Sloan and didn’t keep a good count. Looks like you win the contest and get the hundred dollars,” Betsy said. “It’s time for our last picture of the day. We all sit on the porch like we did when we were little girls with our baskets full of eggs on our knees.”

  They made their way to the porch, and Sloan took the picture, but he sure wished they hadn’t cheated. A hundred dollars would take Ginger a long way from Rooster, and he didn’t want her living on the streets with a new baby to take care of.