The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas Page A

bother of making syrup, since she’d always set a can of molasses on the table for Addie and her girls and for Ned, too. Then Addie realized Welcome was putting on airs. Most likely, she had worked for gentry once. Addie didn’t know, because in the business she was in, you didn’t inquire into a person’s background. For sure, Welcome thought Emma was more refined than a house full of whores, and Addie was offended. “We don’t need napkins.”
    Welcome didn’t reply. She flipped over the hotcakes and put them on a plate, pouring syrup over them. Then she set down the plate in front of Emma.
    “I expect that’s Ned’s plate,” Addie said.
    “Ladies first,” Welcome told her.
    “Then it’ll be for me.” Addie hoped she’d made it clear that this was her house, and she came first. She wasn’t sure she had.
    Emma smiled and pushed the plate toward Addie, but the smell of food gagged her, and she felt foolish, remembering she had told Welcome she didn’t want breakfast. “No, you take it,” Addie said. The plate sat between the two of them until Ned put down the ice and reached for it and began to eat.
    Welcome set down another plate before Emma, then brought coffee. She picked up Ned’s empty plate and stacked half a dozen flapjacks on it and handed it back to him. While Ned and Emma ate, Welcome leaned against the kitchen wall, watching Emma, who took tiny bites and chewed delicately. When she finished, she put the fork upside down, the tines in the center of the plate.
    “When do the other boarders eat?” Emma asked as Welcome removed her plate.
    Welcome shrugged. “They sleep till noon. Sleep after noon, too. Sleep all the time except when they’re working.”
    “That’s very accommodating of you. If I ran a boardinghouse, I would insist people ate at regular hours.”
    Ned laughed and looked up at Addie. “I know you got boarders, but I never knew you to call The Chili Queen a boardinghouse.”
    Addie mouthed the word “no” at him.
    Emma looked confused. “It’s a boardinghouse. The Chili Queen takes in boarders. What else would you call it?”
    “A hookhouse,” Ned said with a grin.
    “A what?” Startled, Emma looked at Addie, then back at Ned.
    Addie shook her head at Ned, but he ignored her. “Honey, you must know what this place is,” he told Emma, as he moved his empty plate aside. He folded his arms on the oilcloth that covered the table.
    “Ned!” Addie said, but Ned ignored her. Maybe he was getting even for the knot on his head.
    “Ma’am, you just spent the night in a whorehouse and no mistake,” he told Emma.
    “Addie here’s the head—” Ned stopped at last when he saw Addie glaring at him and finished, “She’s the madam is what she is.”
    Emma didn’t move a muscle, but the blood drained from her face until Addie wondered if the woman might faint dead away. Being left at the railroad station would be nothing to her compared to spending a night in Nalgitas’s only whorehouse. Addie glanced at Ned, who seemed pleased with himself. He put the tip of his finger into a drop of syrup on the oilcloth, then licked the finger. Emma continued to stare at him, then slowly she turned to Addie, who quickly glanced away. Emma looked at Welcome then. The big black woman folded her arms across her chest and grinned. “I guess you are bad mortified,” she said.
    Emma blew out a breath. “I am. I am mortified, indeed,” she said. “What will people think of me?”
    “What do you expect they think of you anyway, coming here like you did to marry a man in a picture?” Addie asked, offended.
    Emma’s lip trembled. “You should have told me. Yes, you should have.”
    “You expect me to stand up in the train and announce what I do and maybe get thrown off? You chose to sit next to me. I didn’t ask you. I didn’t invite you to The Chili Queen, either. You did that yourself. I fed and homed you. You had my bath, and you were so busy feeling sorry for yourself that you