The buttery aroma of popcorn floated up the stairs as she started down. Sometimes she’d keep back a few dollars of her tip money and sneak off to watch a movie when Lucas was drinking and playing his fantasy games on the television in their apartment.

She shouldn’t have spent the money for a movie since they slept on a mattress on the floor and she cooked in pots that she’d gotten from a junk shop. They couldn’t afford cable and the only station that was clear had been one that showed nothing but news, but Lucas had his games, his DVDs, and enough joysticks so that four people could play. When he was killed, she had sold the whole lot to one of his friends and paid a month’s rent with the money.

Only one lamp was burning when she reached the parlor. Kate motioned her into the room, pointed toward one of the crimson recliners, and said, “That’s your seat right there. Betsy and I sit on the sofa, and Connie has the other chair. Tonight we are watching two episodes of The Golden Girls, two of Designing Women, and one of NCIS. We will start the evening with NCIS.”

“I thought maybe Wednesday night would be church night.” Ginger eased down into the chair and threw the lever to prop her feet up.

Connie did the same thing in the matching chair. “Nope. God can forgive all our sins on Sunday morning. We never have gone for the midweek service.”

Kate sat down on the end of the sofa and propped her feet on the coffee table. Betsy brought in four brown paper bags of popcorn and four candy bars. She passed them out and then went back to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of root beer for each of them.

She took her place on the sofa, picked up the remote, and pushed a button. To Ginger’s surprise, a panel on the wall above the fireplace slid back to reveal a big-screen television.

“That’s pretty cool,” she muttered.

“Mama didn’t believe in modern things,” Betsy explained. “She thought we were all better off without. We had the television put in about thirty years ago, but we made a vow that we’d only watch it once a week. We hate commercials, so we buy whatever shows we like and watch them over and over. Sometimes we get a season and hate it. When that happens, we give it to the library in Hondo.”

Ginger had seen reruns of the three shows they mentioned at the shelter, so she was familiar with them. “Do you ever watch movies?”

“Oh, yes,” Connie answered. “When it’s my turn to choose, I usually pick two movies. I love Western movies like Quigley Down Under.”

“And when it’s my turn,” Betsy said, “I like Justified and Longmire. You’ll have to look through everything we have when it’s your turn here in about four weeks. We just started all over this evening. Kate got to choose tonight. Next week is my turn. Then Connie’s and then yours.”

Ginger wasn’t even sure that she’d be in Rooster in a month. Since the ladies had been so kind as to offer to let her stay, she’d given it some thought. She hadn’t settled on a definite yes or no, not by any means. If she did stick around, though, she wondered if they had seasons of Friends in their collection. She’d watched reruns of that show in the last foster home she’d stayed in.

“We’re watching NCIS first because sometimes it shows dead bodies and autopsies and such,” Betsy explained. “Kate loves it, but then she needs to see something funny to get the images out of her mind.”

“I understand that very well.” Ginger opened her candy bar and took a bite.

Betsy turned off the lamp, and when the room went dark, a night-light came on out in the foyer.

“Here we go.” Kate started the show with the touch of a button on one of the remotes on the sofa between her and Betsy.

Ginger had never seen the episode that started on the screen. It had to do with a woman in the military having a baby that belonged to some big shot over in one of those foreign countries. The baby’s father’s people wanted to kidnap the child as soon as it was born, since it would be heir to a big oil business.

Ginger’s hands shook when she thought about what could happen if Lucas’s folks ever found out about her child. Of course, everything turned out well at the end of the show, but life wasn’t always like that. Maybe it would be best if she told the sisters that she’d be moving on west after tomorrow.

She needed to get settled, and the sooner the better. A permanent home was important. Her baby needed to go to the same school from kindergarten all the way to graduation. It needed to make friends that would last longer than the few weeks or months that the two of them might live in one spot if she decided to keep moving on toward the west.

Betsy sniffled at the end of the show. “We’ve watched this episode dozens of times, but I always hold my breath during the gunfight when Gibbs is delivering that baby girl.”

Kate handed her a tissue. “And she always cries at the ending.”

“Well, I did always want a daughter.” Betsy blew her nose loudly, then tossed the tissue into a small trash can beside the sofa.

Both Magic and Hetty ran into the room, did some wrestling and growling under the coffee table, then crawled up on the sofa to settle down in Betsy’s lap. “Look at you sweet babies,” she crooned. “Y’all have come to comfort me when I’m sad.”

“You can’t have both of them.” Kate held out her hands. “I get to hold one.”

“And I get one when this show is over. You have to share,” Connie piped up from her chair.

“I love animals more than both of y’all, and the kittens know it,” Betsy said.

“Maybe you do,” Kate agreed. “But that don’t mean we don’t love them at all, and they belong to the whole bunch of us, not just to you.”

Betsy handed over Magic, and Kate laid the kitten on her shoulder like she would a baby. The comment Betsy made about wanting a daughter resonated so much with Ginger that she crossed her fingers and sent up a silent prayer asking God, if she was carrying twins, to make one of them a girl.

“And now we have an hour’s worth of Designing Women,” Kate announced as she picked up a second remote and hit a button.

As luck would have it, the first episode had to do with Annie Potts’s character having trouble with her ex-husband’s new girlfriend. Ginger had threatened to go back to the shelter once when she found out that Lucas had brought another woman to their apartment. He’d sworn that his three friends, Chip, Lil’ Dan, and Tat, had been there the whole time, and she’d come around to buy some product from him. The next night when she’d come home from work, she’d smelled expensive perfume on her pillow, and Lucas hadn’t come back for three days. By the time he appeared again—with his friends in tow—she hadn’t even cared enough to argue with him.

My life would make a television series, she thought, then changed her mind. Folks would say that there was too much drama and way too few funny moments in her story, but then, the truth was always much weirder than fiction.

It seemed only fitting that they ended the evening with The Golden Girls. From Gibbs delivering a new baby, to women running a design shop, to senior citizens—life was pretty well covered right there. Ginger put each of the ladies into the roles played out by the older ladies in the show. Kate became Dorothy, because she was tall. Betsy was Blanche, all spicy and with a deeper Southern accent than her two sisters. That left Connie as Rose, which wasn’t an exact match. Connie wasn’t ditzy, but she was shorter and a little rounder than her sisters.

When the credits began to roll, Kate shut the power off to the television, hit the right button to slide the doors shut, and put the remote control devices into the end-table drawer. “Well, that’s it until next week.”

“Why do you have two controls?” Ginger finished off the last handful of popcorn in her bag, then wadded it up and tossed it into the trash.

“One for the DVD player and the television, and one to close the doors.” Kate yawned. “I love Wednesday nights. You know, we really should start inviting Sloan to movie night. I bet he’d enjoy it. Next time you see him, Ginger, ask him if he’d like to join us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ginger popped the footrest down and stood up. “Thank you for the entertainment. I hate to run, but all that root beer has hit bottom.” Were the ladies trying to play matchmaker between her and Sloan? If so, they were going to be disappointed, because Ginger wasn’t sure she could ever trust a guy again—not even one as sweet as Sloan.

“Go right on. We’re all going up to our rooms, anyway. We’ll see you in the morning,” Betsy said.

“We’ll be leaving right after breakfast,” Kate called out. “Your doctor’s appointment is at nine o’clock and then we go to the beauty shop, and after that we do our grocery shopping.”