There were the comfortable Sparks and the struggling Sparks, but they were all Sparks.
“Where you headed, Junior?” Carter asked.
“Eno. Picking up a load of Brangus. After I stop at Walmart.”
Carter frowned.
“You just ruined her day,” Grady said.
“I’m looking to buy a cell phone.” Junior craned his neck in a mock survey of the store. “Don’t see none of those in here.”
“Long as that’s all you buy.” Carter opened a new bundle of tens and counted out Junior’s change. “Roy says that Pizza Hut would have doubled up our business.”
“Good old Horace,” Grady said. “Like they say, nothing wrong with Kiser that a few funerals wouldn’t fix.”
“Trouble is,” Junior said, “his sons aren’t no different.” He stuffed the tens into his wallet, which he slipped into the pocket of a leather jacket so new Carter could smell it in the air that stirred when he turned to go. Some people were doing okay.
Grady dropped two quarters in the coffee tin. “Grandbaby coming soon?”
“Two more weeks at least,” Carter said. “You know how first babies are.” Or maybe he didn’t, with none of his own. At forty, Carter was startled by the granny talk. She still had a pretty good figure—a little thicker in the middle now, but she looked okay in a pair of jeans with a top tucked in. Roy encouraged her to show off her ass. “But mostly I’m sitting down,” she would tell him. “You stand up often enough,” he said. “You got to pull the lever up front to clear the pumps.” Carter drew the line at cleavage, but she wore the clingy tops that Roy liked to buy her. Her breasts were still finely shaped, though she thought them a bit small.
Grady took two noisy sips from his coffee. He’d always been a slurper. “You want me to stay for a while, in case Newland shows up?”
“I know you got things to do. The creep doesn’t scare me. Anyhow, I see Teeter Minkins out there. He’ll be in soon as he tells Junior about the whopper bass he caught last week.” Grady was looking at her, like he was trying to figure, stay or go. She was wearing a V-neck top; maybe he was admiring. “Really,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“You need me, you call me. I’ll be at the barn.”
She watched him go. If it were Grady MacFarland she were married to instead of Roy Bostic, she wouldn’t be in this fix. Carter opened her Cather book and read about winter settling in over the Divide.
Early in the morning, most of the customers at Bostic’s store were men—truck drivers stopping in before they hit the road, or farmers and small-time ranchers hoping to skip the drive to town. As towns went, Kiser didn’t offer much. It was the county seat to a friendly place that fortune had not smiled on. A few antebellum houses stood on the outskirts of town because cotton had once been king, but that heyday expired with the arrival of spindle pickers that worked best on flat land. The softly rolling hills of East Texas had lost out, and the tide of America’s industrial prosperity did not come again. The logging trucks that rumbled past Bostic’s were headed to mills in other places. The six smelly poultry farms north of town sent every chicken to Eno for slaughter. Kiser was left with a shrinking population, a stagnant tax base and people on the public dole. The new mayor called welfare the town’s biggest employer.
Carter had tried working at the Tyson plant when she and Roy were first married. She’d been a plucker. The money was paltry and after six months, when her wrists and shoulders began to give out, Roy persuaded her to quit. Then the three babies came, and now there was the store. Porta-Chow had been a dream compared to the store. There were rules at Porta-Chow: no alcohol, no swearing, no dates with the crews who were searching for shuttle debris. Jerome was fair, and people who broke the rules were dealt with. After Jodie Tulane took a married firefighter from Oklahoma home with her, Jerome fired her and got his whole outfit sent home. Jerome was a good boss by Carter’s standards, one who laughed easily and treated people like they mattered. He’d let Carter bring in a radio to get the good country station from Shreveport, though Jerome—a black man with roots in East St. Louis—didn’t care for the music. One day Carter wore a white ball cap that she’d given to Roy but he’d never worn, and she got the idea to have an astronaut sign it. Jerome said that was okay, so when Air Force Colonel Charles Bradley came through the food line, she asked him. He’d flown one of the Columbia shuttle flights and he had a kind face, though she could see he was grieving. When he handed the cap back to her the next day, there were eight astronaut signatures on it. She figured the cap was worth some money now, and she thought of it like an ace in the hole. She wanted to help Beth and Dave with the baby, maybe buy a nice stroller. If Roy didn’t let her go to Louisiana, she was going to get on eBay and sell the cap. It would break her heart.
“Something’s on your mind.” Teeter Minkins plopped a bottle of headache pills on the counter and looked Carter over with approval. She gave him a smile, though no amount of feminine charms would result in him having more money to spend. His diabetic wife waddled on givenout knees and Teeter wasn’t in great shape himself.
“You smelled the wood burning?” she said. “I’m just wondering what to fix Roy for his supper.” Over Teeter’s shoulder, through the front window, she saw Newland Sparks looking in, laughing at something. He had a loud laugh and a speech impediment. His r’s didn’t come out hard enough, like baby-talk. Caw-teh, and even his own last name: Spawks. No one mocked him, and that was a sure sign no one liked him. Last week he’d discovered a new way to torture Carter. She’d taken out an ad in the Penny Pincher, hoping to to sell her Halloween decorations and the costumes she didn’t need any more since the kids were grown. The phone number she gave was for her new cell and now Newland Sparks had it. He’d called at least four times, from different phones so she’d think it was someone about the ad. He always hung up without speaking, but she knew it was him.
“Teeter,” Carter said. “Get you a cup of coffee and stay a while.” Maybe it was better to have company. Newland might give up and go do something else.
“Eleanor’s bad off,” Teeter said. “I ought to get these pills home to her.”
“A cup on the house? I just brewed it.”
“I guess one cup wouldn’t hurt. Her blood pressure’s high, and it gives her these headaches. Between that and the diabetes, keeps her running to the doctor.”
Newland slinked through the door. The pit in Carter’s stomach burned more. “Who’s she go to?”
“Doc Meadows.”
“Roy used to go to him. He didn’t like him.” Meadows was married to a Sparks, a pretty woman named Beryl. Half the town went to him because he didn’t charge as much and didn’t run as many tests. Roy thought he was lazy.
“I owe him too much to change off now,” Teeter said. “Besides, Eleanor likes him.” He lowered his voice. “Though he got some slime for kin.”
Newland came towards the register with a pack of Bugles. He laid two dollar bills on the counter and fixed Carter in his sights. “Carter looks mighty nice today, don’t she, Teeter?”
“Carter looks nice every day.”
“I had a dream about Carter last night. Want to
