She caught a whiff of hair spray and permanent solution and turned to see that she was sitting in front of a beauty shop. Her reflection in the window showed her stringy blonde hair and gaunt cheeks, which left no doubt that she was a homeless kid. What little pride and dignity she’d had a couple of weeks ago was gone in her time on the road, and the only thing she had left was the baby. She’d vowed from the day the pregnancy test had come up positive that she’d be a good mother and that her child would never go into the system.
“Well, hello there.” An older gray-haired woman sat down beside her and lit up a cigarette. “They won’t let me smoke in the beauty shop, so I have to come out here for my nicotine fix. You waitin’ on a bus?”
“No, ma’am.” Ginger pulled her frayed denim jacket tight around her protruding belly.
“Someone goin’ to pick you up, then?” The woman took a long drag on her cigarette, and turned her head to blow the smoke away from Ginger. “I’m Connie Carson. What’s your name?”
“No one is pickin’ me up, and my name is Ginger Andrews, ma’am.” Most folks wouldn’t even sit down beside someone who might be homeless.
“Then what are you doin’ sittin’ on a bench here in Hondo?” Connie asked.
“Just restin’ up a minute before I get out on the highway to try to hitch a ride.” Ginger told the truth. “I’ve run out of money.”
“Good God!” Connie gasped. “Don’t you have relatives?”
“No, I just don’t.” Ginger shrugged. “Been in foster care my whole life up until a year ago. The gover’ment don’t pay for kids past eighteen, so I been on my own since then.”
“Where’s your husband, child?” Connie looked over at Ginger’s big belly.
Ginger put her hand on her bulging stomach. “His name was Lucas and he got killed seven months ago, before he ever even knew that I was pregnant.” It felt good to talk to someone, even if the woman reminded her of Marie, the mama from that television show about everyone loving Raymond. Connie even wore bright-red lipstick and had her hair all frizzy like Marie did in the show.
“Where are you from?” Connie asked.
“Kentucky, I guess. That’s where I was born, according to my birth certificate. My mama was in prison at the time, so I went into the system,” she replied with another shrug. “Guess I’d best get on my way now. Nice talkin’ to you.”
“Whoa!” Connie almost dropped her cigarette. “You can’t be hitchhikin’,” she gasped. “Don’t you watch them crime shows on the television? Someone could kidnap you so they could steal that baby when it’s born, and you’d never see it or daylight again. Why did you leave Kentucky?”
“Nothing for me there but bad memories.”
“How far you plannin’ on goin’ to get away from them ugly memories?” Connie asked.
The woman was sure nosy, but then, she was old. Most of the elderly folks who were regulars at the café where Ginger had worked until they’d closed the doors asked lots of questions, too.
“Until I run out of land,” she answered as she stood up. “You have a nice day, now, ma’am.”
Connie shook her head and set her mouth in a firm line. “I just can’t bear to think of you out there travelin’ in your condition. You’re comin’ home with us.”
“Us?” Ginger asked.
“Me and my two sisters, Betsy and Kate. They’ll be out of the beauty shop in a few minutes. I’m calling a rule number one,” Connie said.
“You think you should ask them about that first? And what’s a rule number one?” The woman was crazy for sure. No one took in a complete stranger. Ginger thought of herself as a good person, but for all Connie knew, she could be a serial killer—or for that matter, Connie might be one.
“Come on with me.” Connie put what was left of her cigarette in a bucket beside the bench. Then she got Ginger by the hand and tugged. “We’ll go ask them together, but I’m tellin’ you right now, they’ll say yes. They have to, because of Mama’s rules.”
“Which are?” Ginger stood up, wondering if Mama was the cult leader. Connie seemed to be a little crazy, so maybe it was hereditary.
“The Banty House has rules,” Connie said. “You’ll have to abide by them. Anyone who walks through the doors has to, but don’t worry—they ain’t hard to uphold. I been doin’ it for my whole life, and I’m still alive and kickin’. Rule number one is the one about takin’ in strangers.”
Ginger’s first instinct was to grab her ratty suitcase and run, but then she thought about her situation. Surely one night with three old women wouldn’t hurt anything. She’d probably get to sleep in a real bed and have a real meal. Then tomorrow she’d sneak out and hitch a ride on out West—Texas was a good distance from Kentucky, but it was not far enough. She hadn’t forgotten anything yet.
One of her foster mothers had had a standing appointment on Mondays at a local salon, but Ginger couldn’t remember which town she’d lived in during that short period of time. She’d never been inside a beauty shop in her entire life. She drew her brows down and tried to get a picture of the woman—somehow it seemed very important that she remember. She had spent a birthday—her fourteenth birthday—in that house and was the oldest of the five children in the home. She was pretty much the in-house babysitter for the four smaller kids. The foster mother had been a tall brunette who’d smoked a pack a day. She had been one of the indifferent ones. She wasn’t interested in the kids, but she didn’t fuss at Ginger or punish her for not knowing what the preacher said on Sunday morning. She followed Connie inside the shop and was amazed that it looked exactly like she’d imagined it would from the pictures in the magazines that her various foster mothers had left scattered around the house. Sometimes she had imagined herself sitting in one of the chairs like those in front of a mirror, but she had always known it was just a pipe dream.
“Look what I found sitting on the bench out front,” Connie said. “Her name is Ginger Andrews, and I’ve invited her to come home with us since she ain’t got no place to live.”
Kate looked over at Betsy and raised an eyebrow. “Rule number one?”
“I guess so,” Betsy said. “Well, Miz Ginger, do you have a driver’s license?”
“Yes, ma’am, but it’s from the state of Kentucky,” she answered.
“I don’t reckon that will matter for a few months. Kate”—she nodded toward the tall lady with short dark hair sprinkled with gray—“is the only one of us who’s still got a license. You could earn your keep by drivin’ us and helpin’ me with makin’ my jams and jellies.”
“Hey, now,” Connie protested. “I found her, so she gets to help me with the cleanin’. You know how I’m gettin’ down in my back and all.”
Kate giggled. “Maybe we should ask Ginger about all this before we start arguin’ about who gets her first.”
“Y’all are offerin’ me a job?” Ginger asked. “You don’t know me, and I’m pregnant and not married.” Good Lord! Connie wasn’t the only one in the bunch who was crazy.
“Darlin’, we all make mistakes, but our mama set down the rules, and we’ve abided by them all these years. The rules ain’t never failed us, not one time,” Betsy said. “So soon as we pay our bill in here, you’re welcome to come home with us and help out at the Banty House, at least for the rest of today and tomorrow. Then you can be on your way if you want to.”
Ginger wasn’t sure whether to agree or to run, but the baby kicked hard right then. She took that as a sign that she should go home with them. Besides, it seemed like fate that Connie had chosen the very moment Ginger had gotten off the bus to need a smoke. She started to ask what the Banty House was, but when it came right down to it, she didn’t care if it was a floral shop, a restaurant, or a bakery. They had offered her a job, and even if all she got out of it was room and board, it sure beat sleeping in a park or in an abandoned house.
Chapter Two
Friday was Sloan Baker’s favorite day of the whole week. That was the day he worked for the
Carson sisters. Usually he was up and going, trying to keep his mind busy, but that morning, he awoke in a cold sweat from the recurring nightmare that he’d had since he was sent home from the army.
He and his teammates made up the bomb squad, and in the dream, they were going into a tent where there’d been a threat. He went in first, located the bomb, and was about to dismantle it when the timer started clicking off minutes, not seconds. He turned to tell his buddies to run, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He awoke with his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound of the explosion.
He crawled out of bed and spread the covers out until there wasn’t a single wrinkle. He got dressed in faded camouflage pants, an army-green T-shirt that had seen better days, and his combat boots. The things that he’d brought home when they’d sent him back to the States a little more than two years ago were about to wear out—all but the boots. He figured he could get another five to ten years out of them.
He made a pot of coffee, poured himself a mug, and carried it out to the front-porch swing. “It was just a dream,” he said out loud.
Real or nightmare—it didn’t matter. His buddies had been blown up in an explosion that he could have prevented if he’d only been with them. He was glad to see the sun peeking up over the horizon, giving shape to the tombstones in the cemetery right next to his place. When daylight came, he didn’t have to worry about the dreams and he could stay so busy that sometimes he even forgot about the guilt he carried with him. He got into his twenty-year-old pickup truck and ate half a dozen cookies while he listened to the radio and drove the half mile up to the Banty House.
Washing their fancy car was his first job on Fridays. Most of the time the car didn’t even need to be cleaned, but Connie could find a fleck of dust hiding in a dirt pile. And she knew they stirred up all the dust driving into town on Thursdays for their beauty-shop appointment and their grocery shopping. After it was cleaned up, he’d check the oil and everything under the hood to be sure that nothing was needed there. Then he’d go on to mow the huge lawn and take care of Connie’s flower beds. Beyond that, they always found a few odd jobs to keep him busy the rest of the day—sometimes helping Kate in the cellar or maybe doing whatever Betsy needed to make her jams or jellies, or even helping Connie on the days that she decided to move everything out of a guest bedroom to clean it.
They always paid him well for his day’s work, but what he liked best was that they invited him to eat dinner with them at noon. Betsy was a fantastic cook, and her biscuits reminded him of his granny’s. He parked in his usual spot in front of the house and checked the rosebushes on his way across the yard to see if they needed any buds clipped. He whistled as he made his way up the four steps onto the porch and knocked on the doorjamb. He expected to hear someone yell for him to come on in, but that morning the door flew open and there stood the cutest and the most pregnant little blonde woman he’d seen in a while.
“I’m Sloan. I’m here to work for the Carson sisters today,” he said.
This was the first time in his remembrance that they’d brought home a pregnant stray. Usually, it was older women or sometimes men who needed a place to stay for a day or two while their house was being fumigated, or maybe just before they were about to make a move from their home to a nursing facility.
“Hello, Sloan.” She stuck out her hand. “Betsy told me that you would be coming this morning. I’m Ginger.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He shook her hand and then dropped it.
“Come on in,” Betsy called out from the kitchen. “Have you had breakfast? We’ve eaten, but there’s plenty of leftovers.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ve eaten.” Sloan removed his cap and wiped his feet before entering the house. He slid a sly look over toward Ginger again. Had the old ladies completely lost their minds? This was more than following the first of their deceased mother’s rules—the one about not turning away strangers. What if that woman had the baby before they could get rid of her? She might weasel her way right into their hearts with a baby and then rob them blind.
Betsy poked her head around the kitchen door. “I see you’ve met Ginger. She’s stayin’ with us. Today she’s helping me make elderberry jelly.”
“You about to use up all that juice we put up last summer?” Sloan reached for the key to the garage.
“Not quite. I figure it’ll last until harvest in late August, and then we’ll be ready to start all over. Folks sure like it,” Betsy said.
“You should’ve put in a café years ago,” Sloan told her as he headed across the kitchen floor. “If people ever got a taste of your biscuits with elderberry jelly on ’em, they’d swarm the café like ants to an open sugar bowl.”
“I’m too old to manage a café, and besides, I’d have to keep a schedule. With my jams and jellies, I just make them when I want to, and folks come to me to buy them. I sold the last of my wild plum the first of the week, so we may make a batch of that today, too,” Betsy said.
“If you ladies need me, just holler.” Sloan slipped out the door and closed it behind him. He’d have to keep a good eye on the ladies for sure, and see to it that this Ginger woman left in a day or two at the most. Poor old souls were so damn gullible that they didn’t know people in the modern world could be conniving.
Ginger pinched herself on the leg, and it hurt like hell, so she was definitely not dreaming. She’d had a bath in a big claw-foot tub the night before—one so deep that she could sink all the way down to her neck, leaving her pregnant belly the only thing poking up out of the water. She’d slept in a bed with sheets that smelled like flowers and laid her head on a soft feather pillow, and she’d awakened to the smell of coffee and bacon floating up the stairs to her bedroom.
The bedroom was an absolute dream, with a hand-quilted spread on the four-poster bed, a pretty crystal lamp on the bedside table, and even one of those long velvet chaise lounges against one wall. She felt like a queen when she sat on it and propped her feet up to read a book before she went to bed. To put the icing on the cake, there was a bookcase that reached from one wall to the other, and what shelves weren’t filled with novels had decorative things on them. She particularly liked the figurines that looked like little children, but she was afraid to touch them.
Sloan had looked at her like he could see through her—all the way to her soul—and he didn’t like what he saw. But then, if she’d been in his shoes, she might have also had second thoughts about some woman the ladies dragged into their home. She unzipped three plastic bags of elderberries and poured them into the pot that Betsy brought out from the cabinet.
“I thought Sloan would be an old gray-haired man,” she said.
“Why would you think that?” Betsy barely covered the elderberries with water and started smashing them with a potato masher.
“You said that he lives alone and does odd jobs,” Ginger answered. “Most guys his age have a job like in a factory or a business of some kind.”
“He’s a good man, that Sloan is, but . . . ,” Betsy said.
Connie butted into the conversation as she headed over to the pantry and brought out a fresh can of furniture polish. “But he went into the military right out of high school, and they sent him home more than two years ago.”
“What happened back then?” Kate asked as she opened the door and came up from the basement to join them.
“Sloan came home,” Connie said.
“That’s right.” Kate nodded. “His granny said that he didn’t do anything wrong, but there was some kind of trouble over there, and he’s been kinda like a hermit ever since. He don’t talk about the time he was in the army, but his granny said that it all happened when they sent him to Kuwait, or maybe it was Iran—one of those foreign places, anyway. We don’t get much into politics here at our place.”
“Why does your house have a name?” Ginger caught a whiff of alcohol and cinnamon mixed together when Kate walked past her to get a cup of coffee.
“It’s like th
is . . .” Kate sat down at the table and blew on her coffee. “Rooster hasn’t ever been very big, and it’s kind of out of the way, what with it being on a dead-end road that stops at the Cottonwood Cemetery. Way back there at the end of the Civil War, just south of us was a black community named Mission Valley.”
Connie poured herself a mug of coffee, added a heaping spoonful of sugar and a lot of whipping cream to it, and then sat down beside Kate. “Grandma Carson told me that it was named that because there was a Baptist church and a Methodist church, both of the missionary type, down in that area.”
Ginger didn’t want a history lesson. She only wanted to know how they came to name their home the Banty House. Something like the Sisters’ Mansion sounded more fitting to her than the name of a little male fighting chicken.
“So anyway, the Mission Valley community and both churches are gone now. The cemetery is still down there.” Betsy set the pot of elderberries off to the side, poured herself a cup of coffee, and joined them. “And it was all grown over. Folks that come to find their relatives had to walk through weeds and cockleburs and hope there weren’t no rattlesnakes hiding in all that until Sloan came home. He devotes a day a week to mowing and keeping the little graveyard looking decent.”
“Our family is buried there,” Kate went on. “Grandma and Mama, and there’s plots for each of us.”
Ginger wondered what all that had to do with the name of the house, but she’d learned through the years to be patient. The ladies seemed to be enjoying the reminiscing about the area. Maybe the cemetery itself had something to do with the name of the house.
The Banty House Page 2
