make my way into the cash register line, studying the pies in the glass case while I advance, one satisfied customer at a time, toward the African American woman at the counter, whom I hear others addressing as Granny T. White-haired with hazel eyes and the stocky look of many of the people I’ve met in Augustine, she’s decked out in a pink church dress and hat. She cuts up with customers as she flies through tickets, adding totals in her head, doling out lollipops to kids, and commenting on who’s grown at least an inch since last week, I do declare.
“Benny Silva.” I introduce myself and she reaches across the counter to shake my hand. Her thin, knobby fingers compress my palm. She’s got a good grip.
“Benny?” she repeats. “Your daddy want a son, did he?”
I chuckle. That is the most oft-invoked reaction to the nickname my father saddled me with before deciding he didn’t really want me, after all. “Short for Benedetta. I’m half Italian…and Portuguese.”
“Mmm-hmmm. You got that pretty skin.” She narrows one eye and looks me over.
I offer, “Well, I don’t sunburn too much, at least.”
“Watch out,” she warns. “You best get you a good hat. This Louisiana sun, she is wicked as sin. You got your ticket so I can ring you up, sugar?”
“Oh, I didn’t eat.” I quickly explain the roof problem and why I’ve come. “The old white house out by the graveyard? I tried going by the real estate office yesterday, but the note says there was a medical emergency.”
“You’re lookin’ for Joanie. She’s laid up in the hospital up in Baton Rouge. Got misery of the gall bladder. Just get you a bucket of pitch tar and smear it round that pipe for the stove vent. On the roof, you know? Just smooth it on over the shingles in a good thick layer, like butterin’ bread. That’ll hold out the rain.”
Suddenly, I don’t doubt that this woman knows what she’s talking about and has buttered many a shingle in her day. She probably still could. But I’ve lived in apartments most of my life. I wouldn’t know roof tar from chocolate pudding. “I’m told the house probably belongs to one of Judge Gossett’s heirs. Do you know where I could find the owner? I’d just keep a bucket under the leak, but the thing is, I have to teach tomorrow, and I won’t be there to empty it. I’m afraid of it spilling over and wrecking the floors.” One thing the old house does have is beautiful cypress-plank flooring and timbers. I love old things and can’t stand the idea of letting them go to ruin. “I’m the new English teacher at the school.”
She blinks, blinks again, rolls her chin back in a way that makes me feel like someone has just made bunny ears over my head. “Oh, you are the Ding Dong Lady!”
There’s a snicker behind me. I glance back to see the surly girl who rescued the little grade-schooler on my first day. Even though she’s in class only about half the time, I have now connected her with a name—LaJuna. It’s pronounced as La plus the name of the month, but with an a on the end. That’s about all I know. I’ve tried to make headway with her during my fourth-period class, but the hour is dominated by football guys, which leaves girls, nerds, and assorted misfits with no hope of getting sufficient attention.
“You’d best quit feeding them boys cakes. Especially that Lil’ Ray Rust. That one will eat you into the poor house.” Granny T is still talking. Lecturing, actually. She’s got a craggy index finger pointed at me. “Children want to eat, they can get their skinny behinds up out of the bed and down to the school cafeteria in time for breakfast. That food is free. Those boys are lazy. That’s all.”
I give a half-hearted nod. Word of me has gotten all the way to the Cluck and Oink. I’ve been dubbed in honor of a snack cake with a name that makes me sound like a ditz.
“You let a child be lazy, he’ll grow up to be lazy. A young boy needs