Ben Soul

by Richard George

recruited a Jade from the group. The church ladies loved her; she tithed, and that was over half their monthly budget.”

  Vanna asked, with a grimace, “Attendance is mandatory?”

  “An appearance is. I’m not comfortable with evangelical church stuff, myself. I’m a practicing Catholic; I go to mass every Christmas and every Easter, and I never miss the Good Friday Stations of the Cross.”

  “Okay.” Vanna fumed after Delta had left. How was she to get away with the Irons brothers? She had been aware the House was going to some party (she had guessed it might have something to do with the convent for old nuns and whores). She had hoped to slip away unnoticed while Hannah and Delta were having their naps. So now what?

  When the day came, the weather was clear and cold. The customary heavy fog that wrapped Dry Bone City in the winter mercifully shrank back against the mountains on the west side of the valley. Delta led her ladies to the small chapel the Evangelicals worshipped in. They went directly to the basement without entering the chapel.

  The church ladies had decorated the basement to make it cheery. Evergreens, in honor of the advent season, looped in an arch over the Salsman’s “Head of Christ” lithograph that dominated one wall. On the opposite wall, a reprint of Holman Hunt’s “Jesus the Light of the World” was similarly draped with pine boughs. Vanna felt suffocation from all the religious potlucks of her past rise up to threaten her breathing. The room began to blur. Vanna sat down heavily on a nearby chair. One of the church ladies, a solicitous woman of bulky build wrapped in navy blue with tiny white polka dots scattered over it, observed Vanna’s discomfort.

  “Dearie,” she said, leaning over Vanna, collapsed on the chair, “do you need a cup of tea?”

  Vanna’s view of the dotted cloth stretched to the tearing point over the woman’s bulging bosom swirled her into a swoon. Perhaps the heavily rose-scented talcum the woman had daubed on her face contributed to Vanna’s sense of suffocation. Vanna passed out. A gaggle of church ladies surrounded her, patting her hands or chafing her wrists. Delta saw the commotion and came over to rescue Vanna.

  “Please, ladies,” Delta said. “I think she just needs some air and some quiet.” Seeing that the solicitous women were reluctant to let go of this opportunity to serve one of “the tainted,” Delta said, “Maybe just one of you could stay with her until she has recovered.”

  “I will,” the first lady said. “I found her first.” She glared up at her evangelical cohorts. They were all accustomed to deferring to the woman’s wishes, and so they drifted away to mingle with their fallen angel guests.

  Vanna returned to consciousness. Her first impression was of a night sky with fuzzy stars that unaccountably trembled and danced. Enlivening awareness finally led her to realize the shivering sky was simply the church lady’s breasts heaving about as she breathed. The poor lady was wheezing. Some other allergen, probably a cosmetic worn by one of the other church ladies, had initiated her asthma. She sneezed, and the heavens shook. Vanna sat up.

  “Feeling better, Dearie?” the lady asked.

  “Yes,” Vanna said. “A little dizzy, still, but all right otherwise.”

  “Maybe now’s the time for that cup of tea,” the lady said.

  “Yes,” Vanna said eager to be rid of the woman’s powder, “a cup of tea, very nice.”

  “Take anything in it, Dearie?”

  “No, no thank you. Just tea.” The woman got up and went for the tea. Vanna shook her head. The dress was stretched so tight over the woman’s derriere that the polka dots were distorted into ovals. At first Vanna thought the dress’s rump was faded, until she realized it was the lady’s white girdle showing through. Vanna looked around the room.

  It was easy to tell Delta’s ladies from the church ladies. The church ladies all wore drab colors. On many of the scrawniest, the dresses hung like dirty bath towels draped over a shower rod. Here and there some bold lady, commonly one of the younger ones, had sought to liven her costume with a dash of color, such as a garnet pin in the shape of a cross, or, in one most bold case, a full-size silk rose pinned to a most drab gray sack dress.

  Delta’s ladies wore colors, bright and happy colors. Each of the girls was dressed in a basic garment that reflected her color, amethyst for Amethyst, apple green for Jade, brilliant turquoise for Turquoise, that sort of thing. Accessories included handbags in contrasting colors, elegant faux fur wraps, and glittering jewelry around arms and throats. Pearl had draped a red fox around her neck. It was a refugee from a cloth coat her great-grandmother had worn near the beginning of the twentieth century. Old as it was, its fur still shone silky red with orange and blonde highlights. Its beady black eyes glittered, even in the dismal corners of the chapel basement, and its tiny nailed paws concealed a cunning clasp that held the whole around Pearl’s shoulders. The paws rested suggestively just above Pearl’s cleavage.

  All the women were elegantly coiffed. Some years earlier the wife of the then-presiding pastor at the chapel had admired Delta’s hairdo. Delta had willingly shared her secret that she had her hair done at the Incorrigible Curl Salon, a place run by one of her former girls. That same pastor’s wife had appreciated Delta’s discreet provision of services that she was no longer willing to provide to her husband. She had even more approved of Delta’s extending the man a clergy discount. She soon had most of the women in the congregation trooping into the Incorrigible Curl Salon for the dressing of their hair. When her husband mentioned preaching a sermon on the vanity of women’s obsession with their appearance, especially their hair, she advised him that he should keep his mouth shut, lest he lose his sexual relief allowance. The man found a text in Paul’s epistles that substantiated a woman’s adorning her crowning glory, her hair. The sermon was among his most popular offerings.

  Each of Delta’s girls was taken aside by an individual church lady armed with a plate of cake and a large pot of tea. This was the Jesus time, when the church ladies witnessed to their salvation in the Lord. Vanna came close to breathing a thanksgiving prayer when the partnership process came up one church lady short, and she had no one to tell her about Jesus. She went to Delta, who was about to begin on her mound of cake.

  “Delta,” she said. “I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll go back to the house and lie down. Can you make my excuses and thanks to the ladies?”

  “Sure, Donna. Do you need anything?”

  “No, Delta. I’ve just got a time of the month headache. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, kid. Wake Hannah up if you need anything. She stayed home today. She was sick. I hope it’s nothing going around. I can’t afford to have any of the girls sick during the holiday season.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing more than a headache. I’ve been getting them for years.”

  “Cheer up, Donna. One day soon you’ll be past the curse. It’s a great blessing, almost worth the hot flashes.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Vanna said. She didn’t bother to mention she hadn’t had any menstrual function since La Señora had frozen her synapses.

  “Should I send one of the girls with you?”

  “No, Delta. I can walk a couple of blocks without difficulty. I’m sure the fresh air will revive me.”

  “Okay.” Delta smiled at Vanna and waved her out. Then she turned to her assigned church lady and pretended to pay attention while she set to work on the mound of cake before her.

  Vanna walked as fast as she could toward the House. She was awkwardly slowed by the high heels she wore. If it had been warmer weather, she would have removed her shoes and made even better speed in her stocking feet, but the sidewalk was too cold to walk on without footgear. If luck was with her, she could make her getaway as she had planned.

  Dumping Dirty Laundry

  When Vanna returned from the evangelical tea, she first checked on Hannah Bollix. Then she slipped into the kitchen and put some barbiturates in the cookin
g wine. She would have liked to raid the kitchen fund, if for no other reason than to spite Hannah Bollix, but Hannah kept the key to that safe close to her private parts. Vanna could see no way to root in that area for it without being discovered, even though Hannah was sound asleep. Hannah was very attached to her key. She changed out of her rose party dress into her customary drab maid’s gray. Then she softly climbed the stairs.

  In Amethyst’s room she unzipped the purple teddy bear and took the stashed cash from it. Then she emptied Diamond’s cold cream jar. The amount was small. Vanna slipped it into the purse she carried with her. Emerald’s cash, as usual, lay on the bureau. Vanna checked the medicine cabinet, as well, but it was empty of cash today. She added Emerald’s funds to her purse. Jade’s bamboo vase was empty, as usual. She had taken her tips with her when she left. Vanna extracted Onyx’s small cache from the warrior’s helmet. She also emptied Opal’s Mason jar. Pearl’s room provided no cash. In Peridot’s room Vanna broke the frame of the landscape behind which Peridot kept her money. Vanna left the broken picture on the floor. She put the envelope of money in her purse. She skipped Ruby’s room, and the quarters of Sapphire and Turquoise. She knew from experience there would be little money there.

  She crept downstairs again. She checked