“If you’d take the car out for a drive and maybe get it up over fifty-five miles an hour, that would be nice,” Kate told Sloan. “It’s been months since it’s had the cobwebs blown out.”

“Miz Kate, I make sure every Friday that there’s no dust or cobwebs, but I’ll be glad to take it out on a good straight stretch and wind it up to about eighty for you.” Sloan pushed back his chair. “This has been fun. I suppose it could turn into a regular date if y’all were willin’.”

“All except for Easter,” Betsy said. “Mama wouldn’t like it if we didn’t keep up with our traditions.”

Kate shook her finger at Sloan. “And only if you go to church with us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled. “It’s pretty special for this rough old soldier to be escortin’ four lovely ladies around in a vintage car.”

Back at the Banty House, Sloan parked at the curb and opened the back doors for the ladies, then made sure they were in the house before he and Ginger drove away. Kate kicked off her shoes and peeled off her pantyhose right there in the foyer before she headed to the living room to stretch out in one of the recliners.

“I can’t believe you let Sloan take our car out for a drive,” Betsy fussed. “Are you losin’ your mind? Mama would be furious. She never let anyone but us three drive the Lincoln.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist.” Connie flopped down on the sofa, removed her shoes, and stretched out for a nap. “Are you blind? You said you wanted Ginger to stay, didn’t you? Well, if she and Sloan are given a chance, they might find that they like each other. Why do you think I had them clean Mama’s room with me yesterday? I don’t usually do her room until the very last when I start spring cleaning.”

“What’s your cleaning got to do with Sloan and Ginger?” Betsy grabbed a fluffy throw and sat down in the second recliner.

“Do you want Sloan in your bedroom?” Connie asked. “When I do spring cleaning in y’all’s rooms, I don’t move furniture because there might be something he don’t need to see. Like your weed, Betsy, or your dirty books, Kate. I figure if I throw them together enough, maybe some sparks will start to fly. I’d be willin’ to bet she’s the reason he went to church, and if she stays, he’ll start going all the time. We’ve got to encourage them a little by insisting they go for a drive like they’re doin’ right now.”

“I don’t have dirty books,” Kate protested.

“Don’t tell me that.” Connie giggled. “I’ve opened those romance books in your room and read a few pages. Honey, most of them would make a sailor blush with shame by page one hundred and forty.”

“How do you know that if you’ve only read a few pages?” Betsy asked.

“I may have borrowed them on occasion, but I haven’t gotten into Kate’s bottom drawer, where she keeps all her private toys.” Connie winked across the distance at her older sister.

“I haven’t used those in years,” Kate declared.

“Well, if you don’t want them, I’ll take ’em,” Betsy said.

“You touch anything in my room, and I’ll break your arm,” Kate told her. “Just go to sleep and stop talking. I know what I’m doing.”

“Evidently you do from what I saw in that drawer when I was cleaning your room last year,” Connie said.

“Why were you snoopin’ in my stuff anyway? How would you like it if I got into your things?” Kate asked.

“I wasn’t snooping. I was trying to get all the dust bunnies from under the dresser and the drawer just slid open when I pulled the dust mop out. If you touch anything in my room, I won’t break your arm. I’ll drown you in your moonshine,” Connie told her.

“What a way to go,” Kate muttered and pretended to be asleep for about three seconds until the doorbell rang.

“Dammit!” she muttered as she padded barefoot across the room. “We’ve got to get Ginger a key made so she can come and go as she pleases.” She slung open the door, kicking aside her pantyhose in the meantime, but it was Edith Wilson standing on the porch, not Ginger.

Of all the people in the whole county, Edith was the last one she would’ve given up her Sunday nap to see that afternoon. Since she’d been taught not to be rude, she took a step back and said, “Come right in, Edith. I figured you’d be home taking a nap like all the rest of us old ladies.”

Edith opened the screen door, entered the foyer, and just stood there like a statue in her cute little black-and-white polka-dotted suit and black nylons that had to be making her thighs sweat in all the humidity. “I need to visit with you and your sisters.”

“They’re asleep, but we can talk in the kitchen.” Kate headed that way. “Can I get you a glass of lemonade or maybe a nip of apple pie? Either one is chilled and will cool you right down.”

“Liquor has never touched these lips”—Edith pointed to her mouth—“but I’d gladly take a glass of lemonade. I should’ve driven up here, but it’s only three blocks. I didn’t realize how hot it was.”

You might be a more pleasant person if a drop of my apple pie got past those lips, Kate thought as she poured lemonade into two glasses. “Please have a seat at the table. Kick off your shoes and cool your toes.”

“My toes are fine.” Edith threw a go-to-hell look at Kate. “You know my poor Max has been gone for years, but I’m just now gettin’ around to takin’ care of his things. I just couldn’t bear to give them away at first.”

Kate sat down with a bit of a thud. Surely Max hadn’t saved anything from their days together. She had burned all his letters and pictures and had always figured he’d done the same.

“I came across these hidden in an old cigar box out in the garage.” Edith pulled a small bundle of letters from her purse. “From the dates on them, I’ve figured out that you two were having some kind of fling when I was engaged to him.”

“We saw each other a few times, but . . .” Kate shrugged.

“For the whole six months that we were engaged.” Edith’s voice went all high and squeaky. “My daddy would have killed the both of you if he’d known. He always held Max in the highest esteem, and . . .”

“What’s going on in here?” Connie and Betsy came into the room at the same time.

Edith raised her voice a little higher. “Your sister had an affair with my husband.”

“Bullshit,” Betsy said.

“You weren’t married to him at the time.” For more than fifty years, Kate had kept her secret, but now a few letters that Max probably thought he’d thrown away had floated to the top of the stream of life. “You were only engaged, and, honey, I was the one that broke it off. He wanted to be a preacher like your father, whom he admired very much. He couldn’t have done that with me as his wife. I gave him his dream rather than preventing him from having it.”

“Why couldn’t he . . .?” Connie slapped a hand over her mouth. “The Banty House?”

Kate nodded.

“I hate you,” Edith said. “You’ve marred what I thought was a perfect relationship between me and Max. From what I read in these letters, you were sleeping with him while I was saving myself for our wedding night.”

“That was your choice,” Kate said. “But don’t give me that bullshit, Edith. You had your first child seven months after y’all married, and he weighed well over six pounds. No one thinks he was premature.”

Edith popped up like a little banty rooster, but then that was only fitting considering the place she was in. “I did not . . .” She snapped her mouth shut and blushed.

“Aha!” Betsy grinned. “So if you weren’t having sex with Max, then who does your oldest son, James, belong to anyway?”

“Looks like we both have some skeletons in our closet,” Kate said.

“Y’all are crude, but then given what your mama did for a living . . .” Edith didn’t get out another word.

Betsy doubled up her fist and slung a mean right hook into the woman’s face. Edith reached out and got a fistful of Betsy’s dyed hair with one hand and slapped her across the face with the other.

Connie wrapped her arms around Edith from behind and tried her best to pull them apart. Kate did the same with Betsy, but good Lord, her little sister was strong. She kept kicking and screaming that Edith better watch her tongue when it came to Belle Carson or Betsy would cut it out and feed the damn thing to her kittens.

As if on cue, both cats came running into the room, and all four of the women got tangled up with one another’s feet as they tried not to step on the kittens. They went down in a pile of flying elbows and swearing that could have blistered the paint on the kitchen cabinets.

When Kate and Connie finally untangled them, Betsy glared at Edith. “Don’t you ever set foot in the Banty House again, not for any reason. You aren’t one bit better than my sister, so don’t judge her—or my mama.”

“Your mama was a hooker.” Edith spewed out the words.