Free Poster Boy by Dede Crane Page B

awful lot of work. I’ve always wanted to grow vegetables but it’s hard to find the time.” Mom rattled away, holding a bouquet of chives to her nose. She had a stiff plastic smile on her face but I didn’t think she realized it.
    â€œI’m Julia, by the way, and this is my son, Gray.”
    â€œJulia,” she repeated with a nod. “And Gray.” She was studying me with her calm two-tone eyes when this chicken shot out of nowhere, leapt on my foot and banged its beak into my knee.
    â€œOw!” I yelled, shaking it off.
    â€œCla-rence,” said Nacie slowly, and the bird tucked in its red neck, guilty as hell, and ran off, ass feathers trembling. “Means he trusts you,” she said as I rubbed the front of my knee. Clarence, I guess, was a rooster, not a chicken. “He’d peck you in the back of the knee if he didn’t.”
    Flattering. Knee throbbing, I checked my jeans for blood. Nacie just smiled at me.
    Up the lane, I could see their farmhouse with its sweeping front porch and a laundry line of swaying sheets that ran from the porch’s corner to a tree. Nice, I thought, not using a dryer. There was an orchard to the right of the house and a pond with a giant weeping willow whose branch tips swept the water’s surface. Farther up the slope were the growing fields and a couple of outbuildings painted bright red, which looked cool against the green.
    I wished I’d brought my camera. I’d take a picture of this woman’s wacky eyes for starters. And a close-up of that rooster’s butt. The pond would be dope with all the reflections and shit. I had a sudden urge to bolt up the hill and climb that big-ass tree.
    Coming down the lane toward the house was a gray-haired guy and what looked like a small horse. The man was dressed in a tweed cap, khaki pants tucked into high rubber boots, white button-down shirt and stretched-out brown cardigan. He looked like someone out of one of those English TV dramas.
    The horse looked our way and barked a deep booming bark that echoed up the hillside. A dog? The man hushed him and turned in behind the laundry, the freak-dog following.
    Mom bought some of each vegetable, some pickled beets, a couple of jars of plum jam and three of tomato sauce. Nacie didn’t provide any bags — I think you were expected to bring your own — but she sold crocheted cotton ones. Crocheted by her, we found out. A clever way to make a few more bucks, I thought, but also decent. These old people lived clean.
    â€œWould be good to stop using plastic bags,” I said to Mom. “Producing them is real polluting and incinerating them a huge source of dioxins.”
    Nacie smiled at me. “Is that so?”
    I nodded and smiled back.
    â€œOkay,” said Mom, and she bought every last crocheted bag, twenty some in all.
    Nacie picked up one of the little pillows and slipped it into a bag.
    â€œFor you,” she said to Mom.
    â€œThanks,” said Mom without asking what the hell it was for. She started down to the car.
    I looked at Nacie and was about to ask myself when she said, “It’s a sleep pillow, made of lavender and flax seeds, to lay over the eyes at night. The flax has a cooling effect and the lavender calms, helps you sleep.”
    I nodded. “Thanks.” If anyone needed sleep it was my mother.
    In the car, my knee still hurt. I pulled up my pant leg to see a purple and yellow bruise starting.
    By the time we got home, Mom was exhausted and went right to bed. I made her take the sleep pillow, told her how to use it. Dad helped me put the groceries away but kept making these stupid comments.
    â€œGoat’s milk, huh? Don’t goats eat tin cans?”
    He picked up the new shampoo. It was a leafy-green color. Organics was the name, the label claiming seventy percent organic ingredients.
    â€œIt’s the other thirty percent you have worry about,” said