The Banty House

by Brown, Carolyn

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Sloan whispered softly in her ear.

  “It would take more than that to get me to talk, especially in church,” she answered.

  He smiled and put his arm around her on the back of the pew and let his hand fall onto her shoulder. She heard a few buzzes behind them, but when the preacher cleared his throat, they ceased pretty dang quickly.

  The aroma of pepperoni, sausage, cheese, and hot marinara sauce made Kate’s mouth water when she got out of the back seat of the car with her two sisters. The place had been in business since she was thirty, and she’d loved it from the first time she and Max had met there. The place had changed hands a dozen or more times in the past fifty years, but it still held the honor of being the first pizza place in Medina County, Texas.

  They wound up sitting at a round table for five next to the booth where she and Max had sat that Sunday evening. Their first date—and their last—had been in the same place, but she wasn’t going to think about him. Today was all about Ginger and Sloan. There was definitely a spark between them, and she intended to fan it as much as possible.

  “Granny loved to come here,” Sloan said.

  “It was a treat for us when it first went into business,” Kate said. “The first owners had a picture of me and your granny sitting beside the cash register. We were the first customers who pushed the doors open.”

  “I don’t remember that.” Betsy took a bite of a wedge of meat lover’s pizza.

  “You were at Woodstock, and Connie was helping with a funeral dinner at the church that day,” Kate reminded them.

  “Oh, that’s right. That’s when Theo Williams died. Poor guy was only twenty-eight when he fell off that horse and hit his head on a rock. You know, I had a crush on him when we were younger,” Connie admitted. “He kissed me behind the schoolhouse when I was thirteen, and I liked it.”

  “Why didn’t y’all ever get married?” Sloan asked.

  “Just never happened,” Kate answered. “Maybe we were all too picky.” She thought about Max—but that was in the past, and should be left there.

  “We were too sheltered,” Betsy said. “Mama kept us close to her, and we were kind of socially backward. None of us had much outside social interest except for Sunday-morning church.”

  “Besides, just exactly who’d want to marry someone who lived in the Banty House?” Connie asked. “Personally, I have no regrets about my past. We might have had our sorrows, but for the most part, we’ve been happy.”

  “I’m going to do that,” Ginger declared.

  “Do what?” Kate asked.

  “Be happy instead of dwelling on all the hard times,” she answered. “Sloan?”

  “I’m not there yet, but I’m workin’ on it,” he said.

  Kate smiled and nodded in agreement. “We’ve all been blessed.”

  “Amen,” Connie and Betsy said at the same time.

  But there is a bittersweet part of my heart that wishes I was the one Max chose, Kate found herself thinking. I could have had kids, grandkids, and maybe even great-grandchildren at this time in my life. Maybe if I’d been his wife, he wouldn’t have passed away before he was seventy, and we’d be making moonshine together.

  “You look sad, Kate,” Ginger said.

  “Just woolgathering.” Kate smiled, and wondered what it was about Ginger that seemed to bring out the past. Neither of her sisters had any idea about Max. It was the one secret that she might even take to her grave. Surprisingly enough, not even the seasoned gossipers knew that she’d dated him all those years ago.

  Betsy pushed her empty plate to the middle of the table. “I’m ready for my Sunday-afternoon nap. You kids are going to have to go get snow cones without me.”

  “Me too,” Connie said. “You can drop us at the house.”

  “If you’d take the car out for a drive and maybe get it up over fifty-five miles an hour, that would be nice,” Kate told Sloan. “It’s been months since it’s had the cobwebs blown out.”

  “Miz Kate, I make sure every Friday that there’s no dust or cobwebs, but I’ll be glad to take it out on a good straight stretch and wind it up to about eighty for you.” Sloan pushed back his chair. “This has been fun. I suppose it could turn into a regular date if y’all were willin’.”

  “All except for Easter,” Betsy said. “Mama wouldn’t like it if we didn’t keep up with our traditions.”

  Kate shook her finger at Sloan. “And only if you go to church with us.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled. “It’s pretty special for this rough old soldier to be escortin’ four lovely ladies around in a vintage car.”

  Back at the Banty House, Sloan parked at the curb and opened the back doors for the ladies, then made sure they were in the house before he and Ginger drove away. Kate kicked off her shoes and peeled off her pantyhose right there in the foyer before she headed to the living room to stretch out in one of the recliners.

  “I can’t believe you let Sloan take our car out for a drive,” Betsy fussed. “Are you losin’ your mind? Mama would be furious. She never let anyone but us three drive the Lincoln.”

  “Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist.” Connie flopped down on the sofa, removed her shoes, and stretched out for a nap. “Are you blind? You said you wanted Ginger to stay, didn’t you? Well, if she and Sloan are given a chance, they might find that they like each other. Why do you think I had them clean Mama’s room with me yesterday? I don’t usually do her room until the very last when I start spring cleaning.”

  “What’s your cleaning got to do with Sloan and Ginger?” Betsy grabbed a fluffy throw and sat down in the second recliner.

  “Do you want Sloan in your bedroom?” Connie asked. “When I do spring cleaning in y’all’s rooms, I don’t move furniture because there might be something he don’t need to see. Like your weed, Betsy, or your dirty books, Kate. I figure if I throw them together enough, maybe some sparks will start to fly. I’d be willin’ to bet she’s the reason he went to church, and if she stays, he’ll start going all the time. We’ve got to encourage them a little by insisting they go for a drive like they’re doin’ right now.”

  “I don’t have dirty books,” Kate protested.

  “Don’t tell me that.” Connie giggled. “I’ve opened those romance books in your room and read a few pages. Honey, most of them would make a sailor blush with shame by page one hundred and forty.”

  “How do you know that if you’ve only read a few pages?” Betsy asked.

  “I may have borrowed them on occasion, but I haven’t gotten into Kate’s bottom drawer, where she keeps all her private toys.” Connie winked across the distance at her older sister.

  “I haven’t used those in years,” Kate declared.

  “Well, if you don’t want them, I’ll take ’em,” Betsy said.

  “You touch anything in my room, and I’ll break your arm,” Kate told her. “Just go to sleep and stop talking. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Evidently you do from what I saw in that drawer when I was cleaning your room last year,” Connie said.

  “Why were you snoopin’ in my stuff anyway? How would you like it if I got into your things?” Kate asked.

  “I wasn’t snooping. I was trying to get all the dust bunnies from under the dresser and the drawer just slid open when I pulled the dust mop out. If you touch anything in my room, I won’t break your arm. I’ll drown you in your moonshine,” Connie told her.

  “What a way to go,” Kate muttered and pretended to be asleep for about three seconds until the doorbell rang.

  “Dammit!” she muttered as she padded barefoot across the room. “We’ve got to get Ginger a key made so she can come and go as she pleases.” She slung open the door, kicking aside her pantyhose in the meantime, but it was Edith Wilson standing on the porch, not Ginger.

  Of all the people in the whole county, Edith was the last one she would’ve given up her Sunday nap to see that afternoon. Since she’d been taught not to be
rude, she took a step back and said, “Come right in, Edith. I figured you’d be home taking a nap like all the rest of us old ladies.”

  Edith opened the screen door, entered the foyer, and just stood there like a statue in her cute little black-and-white polka-dotted suit and black nylons that had to be making her thighs sweat in all the humidity. “I need to visit with you and your sisters.”

  “They’re asleep, but we can talk in the kitchen.” Kate headed that way. “Can I get you a glass of lemonade or maybe a nip of apple pie? Either one is chilled and will cool you right down.”

  “Liquor has never touched these lips”—Edith pointed to her mouth—“but I’d gladly take a glass of lemonade. I should’ve driven up here, but it’s only three blocks. I didn’t realize how hot it was.”

  You might be a more pleasant person if a drop of my apple pie got past those lips, Kate thought as she poured lemonade into two glasses. “Please have a seat at the table. Kick off your shoes and cool your toes.”

  “My toes are fine.” Edith threw a go-to-hell look at Kate. “You know my poor Max has been gone for years, but I’m just now gettin’ around to takin’ care of his things. I just couldn’t bear to give them away at first.”

  Kate sat down with a bit of a thud. Surely Max hadn’t saved anything from their days together. She had burned all his letters and pictures and had always figured he’d done the same.

  “I came across these hidden in an old cigar box out in the garage.” Edith pulled a small bundle of letters from her purse. “From the dates on them, I’ve figured out that you two were having some kind of fling when I was engaged to him.”

  “We saw each other a few times, but . . .” Kate shrugged.

  “For the whole six months that we were engaged.” Edith’s voice went all high and squeaky. “My daddy would have killed the both of you if he’d known. He always held Max in the highest esteem, and . . .”

  “What’s going on in here?” Connie and Betsy came into the room at the same time.

  Edith raised her voice a little higher. “Your sister had an affair with my husband.”

  “Bullshit,” Betsy said.

  “You weren’t married to him at the time.” For more than fifty years, Kate had kept her secret, but now a few letters that Max probably thought he’d thrown away had floated to the top of the stream of life. “You were only engaged, and, honey, I was the one that broke it off. He wanted to be a preacher like your father, whom he admired very much. He couldn’t have done that with me as his wife. I gave him his dream rather than preventing him from having it.”

  “Why couldn’t he . . .?” Connie slapped a hand over her mouth. “The Banty House?”

  Kate nodded.

  “I hate you,” Edith said. “You’ve marred what I thought was a perfect relationship between me and Max. From what I read in these letters, you were sleeping with him while I was saving myself for our wedding night.”

  “That was your choice,” Kate said. “But don’t give me that bullshit, Edith. You had your first child seven months after y’all married, and he weighed well over six pounds. No one thinks he was premature.”

  Edith popped up like a little banty rooster, but then that was only fitting considering the place she was in. “I did not . . .” She snapped her mouth shut and blushed.

  “Aha!” Betsy grinned. “So if you weren’t having sex with Max, then who does your oldest son, James, belong to anyway?”

  “Looks like we both have some skeletons in our closet,” Kate said.

  “Y’all are crude, but then given what your mama did for a living . . .” Edith didn’t get out another word.

  Betsy doubled up her fist and slung a mean right hook into the woman’s face. Edith reached out and got a fistful of Betsy’s dyed hair with one hand and slapped her across the face with the other.

  Connie wrapped her arms around Edith from behind and tried her best to pull them apart. Kate did the same with Betsy, but good Lord, her little sister was strong. She kept kicking and screaming that Edith better watch her tongue when it came to Belle Carson or Betsy would cut it out and feed the damn thing to her kittens.

  As if on cue, both cats came running into the room, and all four of the women got tangled up with one another’s feet as they tried not to step on the kittens. They went down in a pile of flying elbows and swearing that could have blistered the paint on the kitchen cabinets.

  When Kate and Connie finally untangled them, Betsy glared at Edith. “Don’t you ever set foot in the Banty House again, not for any reason. You aren’t one bit better than my sister, so don’t judge her—or my mama.”

  “Your mama was a hooker.” Edith spewed out the words.

  “Our mama was a saint,” Kate said. “The only difference in what she did and what both of us did was that she got paid for it.”

  Edith took a step forward and kicked at Kate’s leg, but Betsy stepped in front of her sister and the blow landed on her shinbone. Hetty and Magic chose that moment to head back to the living room, so when Betsy took a step back, she stepped on Hetty’s tail. The cat let out a squeal and became little more than a blur as she left the kitchen.

  Kate tried to catch Betsy as she fell backward, but all she grabbed was air. Betsy threw one hand behind her and went down hard on the kitchen floor. Her head bounced off the floor like a basketball. Blood spewed out from her head wound, but she was holding her arm when she sat up.

  “That bitch broke my arm. Kill her, Kate,” Betsy said.

  The only thing that saved Edith Wilson’s life that Sunday afternoon was that Sloan and Ginger rushed into the kitchen at that very moment.

  “What’s going on in here?” Ginger gasped.

  “Is Betsy all right?” Sloan asked.

  Kate wanted to finish the job her sister had started, but she couldn’t kill Edith with Ginger there. The poor child had been through enough, and it might cause the baby to come early if she murdered that bitch right in front of her.

  Edith’s hands went to her hair, but no amount of patting would take care of the mess it was in right then. Kate was pretty sure the woman would have to see Lucy at the Hondo Cut and Curl the next day to get it under control.

  “I’m bleeding,” Betsy said, and then fainted dead away.

  Ginger left Sloan’s side and went to Betsy. “Don’t be dead,” she kept whispering over and over.

  “She’s not dead, darlin’. She’s just fainted. She never could look at blood,” Connie said. “Don’t know how she handles raw meat.”

  That seemed to be a strange thing for Connie to say during a crisis, but it was the truth. Betsy came to herself before Kate could get the smelling salts and glared at Edith again. “You’ve got until I get up off of this floor to get off my property, or I’m going to get Mama’s shotgun and shoot you myself. I won’t mind spending my last days in prison if I get to see you in a casket.”

  “You’d better go on now, Mrs. Wilson.” Sloan tried to guide her to the door by laying a hand on her shoulder.

  Edith jerked away from him and glared at Kate. “I’ll have you all in jail for this. And, young man, don’t you ever touch me again. I don’t need your help.”

  Ginger grabbed a tea towel from the countertop and went straight to Betsy. She applied pressure to the head wound at the back of Betsy’s head and said, “We should get you to a hospital.”

  “You’ll stay with me, won’t you? You won’t leave me,” Betsy whined. “And you’ll tell Mama that Edith started it.”

  “She’s got a concussion,” Ginger whispered. “She don’t have any idea what she’s sayin’.”

  “I know I’m disappointed in Kate for not killing Edith.” Betsy’s eyes rolled back in her head and she was out again, though she regained consciousness a few moments later.

  Kate went straight for the wall-hung phone and dialed nine-one-one. While she waited for them to answer, she said, “We’re not moving her. I’m getting an ambulance to come get her. We’ll follow it to the hospital. I’m too nervou
s to drive. You’ll have to do it for me, Sloan.”

  “While we’re there, we better have you two checked out, too,” Sloan said. “Kate, you’re bleeding from a long scratch on your arm, and, Connie, you’ve got bloody knuckles. What in the hell happened here, anyway?”

  “History surfaced,” Connie told him. “You can’t hold it down forever.”

  “Testify, Sister.” Betsy tried to raise her arm and cried out in pain.

  As she was giving the operator the address, Kate noticed a look that passed between Sloan and Ginger. If everything happened for a reason, she sure hoped the result of four old women acting out like teenage drama queens had something to do with that.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ginger loved all the sisters, but she’d spent so much time in the kitchen with Betsy that she’d become her favorite. She sat on the floor beside her, holding her good hand and reassuring her every few minutes that everything would be all right.

  “You won’t leave me,” Betsy kept saying. “You left me once, and I never got over it. I can’t lose you again.”

  “I’ll stay right with you the whole time you’re in the hospital, no matter how long it takes,” Ginger assured her each time.

  “Kate’s in love with Max Wilson.” Betsy giggled like a second grader. “I went to Woodstock and slept around, but Kate did, too. Connie, did you have sex, or did you just get into Kate’s special toy drawer?”

  “She’s delusional.” Connie cocked her head to the side. “I hear the sirens. They’ll be here any minute.”

  Sloan had just gotten back from seeing Edith to the door and said, “I’ll let them in.” He headed back to the living room.

  Seconds later, two EMTs were hovering around Betsy, trying to figure out how to get her on a board and get a neck brace on her. Sloan began moving chairs to the living room, then picked up the kitchen table and set it off to one side to give them more room.