The Banty House Read online

  “This is my room.” Connie threw open a door. “Come right on in and we’ll see what the dress looks like on you.”

  Ginger followed her inside, trying not to stare, but it was impossible. Wallpaper with trailing pink roses surrounded her. The full-size canopy bed had a pink-and-white checkered ruffle around the top and a matching bedspread. The stool in front of the vanity was covered with pink velvet, and pillows of every shade of pink were scattered on the bed.

  “I like pink,” Connie said. “I’ve had that bed since I was a little girl. I only wish that I could talk Kate and Betsy into digging a hole big enough in the Cottonwood Cemetery to bury me in it.”

  Ginger shivered at the idea of Connie dying, but when it happened, she’d probably never even know. Her time at the Banty House would be over on Monday morning.

  Connie went to her closet and found the dress, pulled the plastic bag up over the hanger, and laid it on the bed. “Are you too modest to try it on in front of me?” she asked. “I can step out into the hallway if you are.”

  Ginger bit her tongue to keep from giggling. Connie couldn’t know that she’d slept in shelters that had as many as sixteen women in one room. “I’m fine with you being in the room.” She jerked her shirt up over her head and kicked off her shoes. Then she stripped out of her jeans, removed the dress from the hanger, and slipped it over her head.

  Connie took one look at her, fell back on the bed, and laughed so hard that she got the hiccups. When she could finally talk, she said, “Darlin’, you look like a bump in a tent.”

  “I can wear what I have.” Ginger couldn’t see a long mirror anywhere, so she had no idea just how she looked. However, she felt exactly like what Connie had said. She started to take off the dress, but Connie slid off the bed and took her by the hand.

  “Honey, it can be fixed. We’ll just go on over to the sewing room. I already have ideas about it.” Connie led her to the last room on the left and opened the door. “Mama insisted that we all learn to sew. I’m not as good as she was, but in thirty minutes I can easily turn that dress into something that will look good on you.”

  “How?” Ginger asked.

  Connie took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face a floor-length mirror. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly, and then she giggled. She truly did look like a bump in a tent. There was no way that Connie could ever make this dress usable—especially in thirty minutes.

  “First, we’ll take the sleeves out. I only picked out this dress because all three of us have old-women arms. I call them bat wings because they flap in the air when we raise them. We needed something with sleeves,” Connie said. “And then we’re going to remove the collar. You’ve still got a nice firm neck, so you don’t need a stand-up collar. When I get those jobs done, I’ll put a little bit of elastic under your boobs. That way it will fit right above your tummy.” She talked as she helped Ginger remove the dress. “I’ve got a belt with pretty diamonds—well, not the real things, but sparkling stones—that will finish it off.”

  Ginger couldn’t see that any of those things would help. “But, Miz Connie, it will ruin your dress.”

  “Honey, my closet is so crammed that I’ll never miss one dress,” she said as she got out a tiny pair of scissors and went to work. “I’m thinking that we need to cut two inches off the bottom, too. I can do that after we dye eggs. You’ve got good legs. Enjoy them, girl. They’ll turn cheesy when you get old. I’ll have it all done by bedtime and you can try it on again. What size shoes do you wear?”

  “Seven,” Ginger answered.

  Connie cocked her head to one side. “I think you probably wear about the same size shoes as Mama did. She’s got a lovely pair of white satin flats that will work. Don’t worry, darlin’. She never wore them. I wouldn’t want to wear a dead woman’s shoes, either, not even Mama’s, but she bought them to wear the last Easter she was with us, and then she passed before the holiday.” She rattled on as the sewing machine buzzed.

  “You’re really good at sewing,” Ginger said.

  “Mama insisted that we be self-sufficient as much as possible.” Connie glanced down at Ginger’s hands. “You must have white gloves, but don’t worry, I’ve got a drawer full. I’ve got a pair of pretty lace ones that will go perfect with this dress.” Connie laughed. “I feel like I’m dressing Cinderella.”

  “A very pregnant Cinderella.” Ginger went to the window and looked out over the field where Sloan was riding on a small tractor. He sure wasn’t Prince Charming on a big white horse, but then, it had been years since Ginger believed in fairy tales.

  Chapter Four

  Ginger had thought that dyeing eggs was going to be a two-hour job, but she was dead wrong. The dining room tablecloth had been removed and replaced with newspaper. Four place settings had been arranged with paintbrushes, glitter, glue, all kinds of cute little stencils, and everything that could be imagined to decorate the eggs.

  “All this just to put the eggs in the grass and then eat them tomorrow?” Ginger asked.

  “Honey, the real prize isn’t the end; it’s the journey itself,” Kate told her. “This is one of our traditions, and we love this part of it as much as hunting the eggs.”

  “And after they’re decorated, we put them in the refrigerator,” Betsy told her. “That way, it’s safe to use them tomorrow. We always, always have egg salad sandwiches for supper on Easter night.”

  Ginger made a mental note right then to have lots and lots of traditions for her baby, and one of them would be decorating Easter eggs. She pulled out a chair and sat down. “What do I do first?”

  “You are the artist,” Betsy answered. “If you want the background to be a color, then you start dipping like this.” She picked up a boiled egg, settled it into a wire loop, and slowly submerged it in a bowl of blue dye. “The longer you leave it in there, the darker the color that you’ll get.”

  Kate giggled under her breath.

  “What’s so funny?” Connie asked.

  “I was just wonderin’ if I’d be totally white if I soaked myself in buttermilk for a whole day,” Kate replied. “Maybe then I’d look like Edith Wilson, and I could have gotten a husband like Max.”

  “Honey, you never would have had a chance with someone like Max Wilson. No way would a budding preacher man want a woman who came from the Banty House.” Connie laughed out loud.

  “Or who had black blood in her veins, but I do remember the buttermilk days.” Betsy laughed with her sister.

  “What’s so funny?” Ginger asked.

  “I read about women soaking their hands and using buttermilk compresses on their faces in an old magazine I found in the attic back when we were little girls.” Connie dried her eyes on a paper towel.

  “And she took a whole gallon of buttermilk up to the bathroom and Mama caught her smearing it on her arms and neck and face.” Kate drew a design on an egg and started painting a lovely picture of a little duck swimming in water.

  “Did it work?” Ginger asked.

  Connie shook her head. “Nope. I’m still not one thing or another.”

  “I’ll tell the rest of the story,” Kate said. “We had one of our sister meetings in my bedroom, and we figured the lady in the article got it all wrong. It had to work from the inside, so we all three asked for buttermilk every night with our supper. I gagged with every swallow and still hate the taste today.”

  “How long did you do that?” Ginger asked.

  “About a week, and then one night at supper, Mama told us that it didn’t matter what we were on the outside,” Kate said. “What mattered was what we were on the inside—in our hearts and how we treated other people. I was so glad that she said that, and I’ve never put buttermilk in my mouth again.”

  “Your mama was a smart lady.” Ginger put an egg in a little wire holder and dipped it in red dye just long enough to turn it pale pink. Maybe if she made sure all her eggs were shades of pink and decorated to please a little girl, her wish for a daughter w
ould be granted.

  “Yes, she was.” Connie picked up the silver glitter.

  “It was after the buttermilk week that I asked her who our father was,” Kate said.

  “You didn’t know?” Ginger asked.

  “Not until many years after that. She just told us that he was a good man who’d died a hero, and that satisfied us until we were teenagers,” Betsy answered.

  “But on her deathbed, she said she’d only ever loved one man, and that was the sheriff of Medina County. That includes Hondo and Rooster and a few more little towns around us, and he was the father to all us girls.” Connie sighed. “He died a few months after I was born.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ginger said.

  “He wanted to marry Mama, but she’d have none of it. She said being married to the madam of the Banty House would ruin his career. So they had about five years of love before he got killed during a bank robbery, and she never forgot him,” Kate said. “Too bad none of us ever found that kind of love.”

  “Thank God we didn’t.” Connie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “We’ve done very well taking care of the Banty House without a man telling us what to do.”

  “You’ve got Sloan,” Ginger reminded them.

  “Oh, honey, he’s like our shared son. That’s different from a husband who’d always be meddling in our affairs.” Connie made squiggle designs on her egg with glue and rolled it in glitter.

  “More like our grandson,” Kate told her. “If he was a son, we’d have to keep him in the house. But a grandchild is different. We can spoil him and send him home. Shhh . . .” She held a finger to her lips. “The tractor has stopped, so he’ll be coming in for a break.”

  Ginger drew a princess crown on her pale-pink egg with glue and then shook gold glitter on it. “I so hope this baby is a girl.”

  “Got a name picked out?” Kate asked.

  Ginger shook her head. “I wouldn’t know what kind of name to give him or her. What if I picked out Grace and that didn’t fit her at all? Or maybe Ross if it’s a boy and he looked more like a Declan? I’ll just wait until I’m holding the baby in my arms and then make the decision.”

  Sloan came into the house through the kitchen door. His dark hair was stuck to his forehead and was flattened at the place where his hat had been. “I’m going to help myself to a glass of lemonade. Any of y’all want one?”

  “Pour up four and bring them in here,” Connie said. “Want to take a break and decorate eggs with us?”

  “No, ma’am,” he called out.

  “We always ask him, but I reckon he’d soon as be out there sweatin’ on that tractor as gettin’ his hands all messed up with glitter and paint,” Kate whispered softly across the table toward Ginger.

  Ice crackled in the glasses filled with homemade lemonade as he carried them to the table and set one at each place. Ginger’s breath caught in her chest when he pulled out a chair at the end of the table and sat down. His biceps strained the sleeves of his chambray shirt, and sweat had mussed up his hair. The temperature in the house seemed to rise by at least ten degrees, and Ginger’s hands shook when she dipped another egg, this time in green dye.

  Dammit! She thought. I’m pregnant and ugly as a mud fence right now, and I vowed I’d take care of my own self and this baby first. I don’t need a man in my life—not after Lucas.

  “The rest of the field is plowed, and corn is in the ground.” Sloan took a long drink. “Anything else y’all want me to do this afternoon?”

  “Nothing I can think of,” Kate said.

  “Then I’ll be goin’ on home. Tinker will be missin’ me,” he said.

  “That’s his dog,” Betsy explained to Ginger. “It’s an ugly little mutt that his grandma adopted when it showed up on her porch one day several years ago.”

  “The eggs will be in the refrigerator tomorrow when you get here, and you might turn off the oven so the ham doesn’t get too done,” Betsy reminded him.

  Connie looked up and said, “Don’t forget your phone. Past two years have been the best pictures we’ve had to go in our album, and you got them with your fancy-shmancy cell phone.”

  “Got to have it so I can listen to music. I’ll see y’all tomorrow a little after noon,” he said as he stood up and started for the door.

  “You could come on back up here for supper after a while,” Betsy said. “We’re havin’ waffles and chicken, and I know how you like that.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Me and Tinker need to get some things done around the house, but I sure appreciate the offer.” He pulled a camouflage cap from his hip pocket and put it on as he left by the kitchen door.

  Tinker came from around the house, tail wagging and head down, wanting to be petted when Sloan got out of his truck. The dog looked like maybe one of his parents had been a Chihuahua and the other a small poodle. The hair on his sides was smooth, but what was on his back was kinky curly, and he had a tuft on his head. He probably didn’t weigh more than seven or eight pounds, but he had a big bark, especially when someone was coming around the house. Sloan stooped down and scratched Tinker’s ears. “Did you hold the place down for me today, old boy?”

  Tinker yipped and led the way up onto the porch and then rushed inside when Sloan opened the door. He went right to the sofa and jumped up on his favorite spot. Sloan hung his cap on the rack inside the door and sat down on a ladder-back chair to take off his combat boots.

  “The sisters have taken in a new stray. She’ll be gone Monday. I guess since they don’t go to town except on Thursday, they’ll ask me to take her to the bus stop. ’Course, they’ve started talkin’ about getting a new cat, so it could be that they’ll make an exception and go twice in one week.”

  Tinker’s tail thumped on the worn sofa.

  “I agree with you. It is what it is, whether I take Ginger to the bus stop or they do. She’ll be gone. I kind of feel sorry for her. There she is pregnant and no family. At least when I hit rock bottom, I had Granny to come home to . . . and you.” Sloan laid his phone on the coffee table, picked up Tinker and gave him a kiss on the head. Then he set him back down on the sofa. “What’ll it be tonight? You want some classic country or new modern country?”

  Tinker looked up at him with big round brown eyes.

  “All right, classic country it is.” Sloan touched the screen and Waylon Jennings began singing. He pulled his shirt up over his body and carried it with him to the bathroom, where he put it in the hamper and adjusted the water in the shower. A visual of the rush to the showers after he and his team had been out on a long mission flashed through his mind. A cold shower and a bottle of bootleg whiskey sent from home in a mouthwash bottle were the two most important things in those days. He finished getting cleaned up and went to the kitchen to open a can of dog food for Tinker. Then he poured himself a glass of sweet tea and carried it to the living room. Surfing through the few channels on the television, he finally settled on reruns of NCIS.

  Somewhere in the middle of the last half of the episode, he turned off the television. “I’m restless tonight, Tinker. Let’s go for a walk. I need to clear my head of all these thoughts rumbling around up here. It’s a jumble of things that happened over there in the sandbox and what’s going on at the Banty House with that new girl.” He touched his forehead with his forefinger.

  The dog hopped off the sofa and headed toward the door. He waited patiently until Sloan got his boots on and tied and slipped on a hooded jacket, but when the door opened, he bounded outside and ran toward the end of the short lane.

  County Road 4404 was a little less than half a mile long and ended at Cottonwood Cemetery. The tiny community of Rooster was set just off County Road 442, and that was where he and Tinker usually went if they felt like an evening walk. The dog was getting up in years, so Sloan always gave him a rest at the halfway mark, where an old scrub oak had fallen over beside the road.

  Sloan kept an eye on the dog when he chased a rabbit into a mesquite thicket, but he didn’t seem to b
e panting too hard when he came back to the edge of the road. He was sure enough ready to flop down and catch his breath when they reached the log, though, and Sloan sat down. They weren’t there but a few seconds, when Tinker’s head popped up and he growled down deep in his throat.

  “What is it?” Sloan glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a squirrel or maybe even a slow-moving possum. A movement to his left startled him, and he whipped around to see Ginger not ten feet from him.

  “Well, hello.” She sat down on the log about two feet away. “Is that Tinker? He’s kind of cute.”

  “Beauty must be in the eye of the beholder,” Sloan replied. “But to answer your question, yes, this is Tinker. He’s gettin’ up in years, so when we take a walk from our place to Rooster, we take a little rest right here.”

  Ginger nodded but didn’t say anything more for several seconds. Other than the sisters at the Banty House and their occasional guest, Sloan hadn’t socialized since he’d come home to Texas. Sitting there with Ginger so close should have been awkward, but it wasn’t, and that surprised him.

  “You just out for an evening walk?” he finally asked.

  The setting sun put sparkling highlights in her blonde hair when she nodded. “The way the ladies are feeding me, I figured I’d better get out and get some exercise, or I’ll be rolling by the time this baby is born.”

  The night air was so still that Sloan could hear a dove cooing in the distance and a coyote howling somewhere beyond the cemetery. Then the thump of an oil well as it started pumping overshadowed every other sound.

  “What’s that noise?” Ginger asked.

  “Oil wells. If you listen, you can hear several different ones starting to work. There’s one on my property and two at the very back of the land that the Carson sisters own, way back behind the Banty House,” he answered.