Halley (11 page)

12. Bootsie Comes to Dinner

One night the following week, Kate announced that Bootsie was coming to eat dinner on Saturday. “She’ll come home with me after work and spend the night. I’ll put her and Halley in your room,” she said to her parents. “They can share a pallet, and . . .”

“Not in
my
room, they can’t!” said Pa Franklin. “They can sleep in one of the rooms across the dogtrot.”

“Both the rooms over there need a lot more cleaning,” Kate said, “so I thought . . .”

“You thought wrong. Nobody’s using my room.”

For a moment Kate looked angry, but then she mastered it and went on. “Bootsie said she’d help Halley clean the church on Saturday after dinner.”

Pa Franklin was instantly alert. “And I wonder how come she knows about Halley cleaning the church on Saturdays?”

“Bootsie said she was there praying one day when Halley showed up to clean.”

Pa Franklin snorted in disbelief. “
Her
? Praying?”

“That’s right,” Halley said. “Bootsie prays a lot.”

“She
needs
to be praying,” was all Pa Franklin said.

By Saturday at dinner, Halley had the wash done. The weather had warmed some, and so she used the hot sudsy water from the wash pot to scrub the kitchen and the room where she and Bootsie would sleep. Mr. Calvin had surprised them that morning with a big mess of beef from a cow he’d slaughtered, and Halley had put it in her grandmother’s dutch oven to cook while she washed. Robbie had dug potatoes from the potato hill and brought them in, along with some overlooked carrots from the garden. They, too, were cooking.

“Golly found the carrots for us,” Robbie said as Halley checked the pots of food on the stove.

Pa Franklin let out a rumble at the end of the table. “Goliath is a watch dog, not a pet. Sides that, I don’t want him in the garden, lifting his leg on ever’thing growing.”

Halley heard Bootsie’s laughter outside. So did Pa Franklin. He frowned.

“Reckon they’re here,” he said. “I’ll git a bellyful of that girl cackling today and tomorrow.”

Robbie ran to look out the front window. “Bootsie is leading the cow! Sukie must’ve got out again.”

“Tarnation!” said Pa Franklin. “I reckon I’m going to have to end up replacing ever bit of barbed wire around the whole pasture!”

“Sukie’s following after Bootsie easy as you please,” Robbie went on. “She ain’t shaking her horns or nothing.”

“Ain’t it fitting that she’d be the only female that dumb animal would favor? Takes one to know one, I reckon.”

Halley set the coffee pot on the hot part of the stove. They usually had coffee only for breakfast, but this was special. She was setting out plates when Kate and Bootsie walked in.

“We put your cow in the barn,” Bootsie said. “She was headed to town. Old man Tyree loaned us a rope after he called that new dog of his off us.”

“Blackie’s a good dog!” Robbie said. “If you just squat down and let him sniff you, he’ll get friendly.”

“I’ll remember that next time.” Bootsie hugged Halley and Robbie and then turned to the two old people. “Guess I’ll soon be calling you Ma and Pa.”

“That’s what we hear,” said Ma Franklin. She managed a quivery smile.

Pa Franklin had on his funeral face. “I’d as soon you keep right on calling me Mr. Franklin.”

Bootsie kept smiling. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“Something smells good,” Kate said.

“It’s a surprise,” said Robbie, practically jumping up and down. “Want to know what it is?”

Bootsie rubbed his head. “You can whisper it to me.”

Moments later Kate and Bootsie went outside to brush the lint off themselves. They’d left their coats inside. When Halley looked out the front window, she saw Bootsie brushing Kate’s hair. With relief, she decided that Bootsie’s waist looked as trim as it always had. The baby wasn’t yet “showing.”

Halley had the food on the table when Kate and Bootsie returned. “Mmm!” said Bootsie. “Anything that smells this good is bound to taste good. You can put money on it.”

Pa Franklin glared. “We don’t gamble in this house.”

“Good,” Bootsie answered smoothly. “I don’t neither.”

Pa Franklin asked a long blessing and then turned his eyes on Robbie and Halley. “Remember, we use manners in this house.”

Halley knew this message was intended for Bootsie. If Bootsie figured this out, she didn’t let it bother her. She kept up the happy chatter while the food was passed.

“Halley says you pray a lot, Bootsie,” Ma Franklin said at the first pause.

“Yes ma’am,” Bootsie answered. “I got saved a while back.”

“Which church did you join?” Pa Franklin asked.

“None yet, but I go to church ever’ Sunday. When Gid gets a job, I’ll join a church close to where we live. Me and the Lord ain’t fully got that worked out yet.”

Pa Franklin glowered. “Young woman, you need to do a lot more praying. When you really git saved, the Lord tells you what church he wants you in
right
then
.”

Halley tightened up, but Bootsie just smiled. “Maybe God does different ways with different folks, Mr. Franklin. The Lord tells
me
he’s a lot more interested in whether or not I’m loving him and treating my neighbor like I want to be treated than he is in which church has my name on its roll. He just keeps telling me to trust and obey, and he’ll show me the path. A month ago I wouldn’t have believed I’d be marrying Gid. Now God’s let me know Gid is the very man he intended me to have.”

“Hhumph!” said Pa Franklin, but before he could say more, Kate spoke up.

“Has Gid got any word on a job outside the CCC yet?”

“Not yet,” Bootsie said. “But you folks know more people around here than me. Do you know of any jobs?”

“They ain’t none,” Pa Franklin said. “Least ways, none that pay what CCC does. Jobs ain’t that easy to come by.”

Bootsie’s optimism would not be crushed. “I’m not a bit worried. You forget, Mr. Franklin, this is in God’s hands.”

Ma Franklin let out a long sigh. “This is the first good meal I’ve tasted in a coon’s age.” Her plate was nearly empty.

“You want more?” Halley asked.

Ma Franklin shook her head. “I don’t want to founder.”

Pa Franklin pushed back from the table. He went to get his coat from its peg next to the door. “I have to go find where that blame cow got out this time, and fix the fence one more time.”

Soon Halley and Bootsie headed to the church. Robbie went with them. “I’ll go play with the Calvin boys while you clean,” he said when they were out of the yard. “Mr. Calvin got a goat and a cart for Dooley and Steve.”

“You be careful, and you better get back to the church by the time we finish cleaning,” Halley told him.

Robbie broke into a run. He was nearly out of sight when the girls got to the main road.

“You’re doing better with Pa Franklin than I thought you would,” Halley told Bootsie. “But I hope you don’t have the thought that he’s going to improve.”

Bootsie laughed. “No, I was real sure he didn’t like me before, and I figured he’d like me
less
as a daughter-in-law. But Miz Franklin seems like she’s softening a little.”

Halley agreed. “Being sick has changed her for the better.”

“Well, they’re both going to hate me when this baby comes a few months after me and Gid are married, and I just have to get used to that.”

Bootsie was right, but Halley didn’t say so. Instead, she asked, “Does Gid know about the baby?”

“He sure does. After I wrote him that me and Stan had broke up, he asked me to marry him again. I wrote back and told him I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t work now, and I told him why. He wrote back and said it didn’t change any of his love for me and that he’d be proud to claim the baby if I’d let him. Can you believe that—he’d be
proud
to claim my baby! Oh, Halley, you can’t know how much that meant to me. Gid is a good man.”

Shortly before they reached the church, they heard a motor behind them and turned to see a car coming. It was Stan Duncan with a new girlfriend. The girl was behind the wheel, and the car was veering from one side of the road to the other. Both Stan and the girl were laughing. But Stan’s laughter froze when he spotted Bootsie.

“I’m sorry,” Halley said when the car rounded a curve and disappeared.

Bootsie shook her head. “Just save your pity for that poor girl Stan is fooling now. I just hope she’s smarter than me—or, failing that, luckier.”

The church cleaning didn’t take long. To pass the time while they waited for Robbie, Bootsie played the piano and they sang. Finally, however, Halley realized how low the sun was getting.

“We better go get Robbie,” she said.

They closed the church and headed out. The road circled the mountain and dropped sharply toward the bridge over Sipsy Creek. As the road dropped, the sun disappeared behind the mountain that sloped sharply up on the left. On the right, the downward slope was steep for about twenty feet and then it leveled into one of Mr. Calvin’s fields.

They heard squeals of laughter up ahead, and then they saw the goat cart top the hill on the other side of the bridge. The goat was pulling the cart at top speed, and the two Calvin boys were chasing after it. Robbie was in the cart, Halley suddenly realized. Before that fully sank in, she saw a car top the hill behind the boys. Stan’s car.

“Robbie!” Halley and Bootsie both screamed and began running to meet him. The Calvin boys leaped the ditch and climbed the road bank to get out of the way. The car honked its horn and the frightened goat put on more speed than ever and moved to the very middle of the road. At the last moment, the car swerved around the cart, one wheel in the ditch. It bounced over the bridge and headed straight for Bootsie and Halley.

Without even stopping to think, Halley shoved Bootsie over the embankment and leapt down after her. Then she was tumbling over and over, hitting rocks and bushes in the way. Finally, she stopped and for a moment Halley was too stunned to move.

“Halley! Bootsie!” someone screamed above her. It was Robbie. Halley sat up and that’s when she saw Bootsie a few feet away, lying in a crumpled heap.

“Bootsie,” she whispered and crawled over to her. Bootsie was bleeding from several scrapes and scratches, and her coat was torn. Then she moaned and rolled over on her back.

“She ain’t dead,” said Robbie who had scrambled down the embankment in a shower of pebbles.

Bootsie’s eyes opened. Her face was radiant, despite the scratches and bruises.

“You okay?” Halley said.

Bootsie nodded. “I’m fine.”

Dooley crawled down the bank behind Robbie. “Is she alive?”

“More alive than I’ve ever been,” Bootsie said. She sat up slowly, her face still turned skyward. Halley offered her a hand.

“We need to go toward the creek,” Dooley said. “The bank ain’t as steep there.”

Slowly Bootsie stood, with one arm around Halley’s shoulders. They made their way to the creek, where Bootsie scooped up handfuls of cold water and washed her face. When she stood, she grabbed her middle and doubled over.

“You okay?” Halley asked.

Bootsie gasped and then nodded. “I’m fine. You don’t have to hold me no more. I can make it.”

Halley climbed the bank to the road behind Dooley and Robbie. Steve waited there, holding the goat by its halter. “What’s left of the cart is up there in the ditch,” he said.

As she gained the road, Halley saw Stan and his girlfriend coming on foot. The car was slammed against a high road bank. Stan’s door was gaping open.

“What do y’all mean?” Stan yelled, shaking a fist. “Blocking the road with a goat cart?” Steve backed away from him and dropped his hold on the goat harness. Stan kept yelling. “And you two gals in the middle of the road. You caused me to run my car into the bank and bend the fender.”

“That’s your fault, Stan,” Halley said. “You’re the one letting your girlfriend drive like a fool, and way too fast for a narrow mountain road. You could kill someone, and that’s a sight worse than your car getting wrecked.”

At that moment Bootsie pulled herself up on the road. Her red hair was a tumble of curls around her pale face. She looked from Stan to the girl for a long moment. Then she spoke to the girl. “You better take a good look at the company you’re keeping. Stan never thinks about anybody but Stan. If you don’t know that already, you’re apt to learn it soon.”

“You shut up,” Stan yelled, his face blazing. “Come on, Linda,” he said, wheeling around.

“I’m sorry about your cart,” Halley said to Dooley.

Dooley shrugged. “Me and Steve can fix it.”

“And our goat’s okay,” said Steve. “Do I need to go get Pa to give you a ride home in the truck?”

Bootsie smiled and shook her head. “It’d take more’n a little tumble to keep me down.”

Without speaking they walked by the vehicle that Stan was trying to get out of the ditch. He raced the motor and spun the wheels to no avail.

Robbie sprinted for home, but Halley and Bootsie went slowly. Bootsie frequently took sharp breaths and grabbed her middle. They were passing the church when she stopped and whispered, “Halley, I’m going to lose my baby.” She pointed to her legs. Blood ran down the insides of them.

Halley pulled her down on the road bank. Her mind was racing. Should she get Kate? No, Kate couldn’t help and she might end up telling the Franklins. A doctor? Halley didn’t know where the nearest doctor was. “Your mother,” Halley said at last. “Do you want me to get Mrs. Hawkins?”

Bootsie shook her head. “She can’t do nothing, and there’s no sense in her knowing anything. I’ll be all right in awhile.”

Hurrying to the church, Halley got several of the clean dusting cloths. With them, she managed to clean Bootsie’s legs and shoes.

“My coat hides my dress,” Bootsie said at last. She stood. “I think I can go on now.”

They went on even more slowly than before. When they took the turn to the Franklins, Halley asked, “Are you still going to marry Gid?”

“You can count on it. I got me a good, decent man that loves me, and I aim to keep him ’til death us do part.”

Kate came out on the porch as they neared the house. Robbie and Pa Franklin were right behind her. “Robbie told us what happened. Are you all right?” she asked.