“I don’t have that big an imagination,” Beth says.
“Now, that is unfortunate. The true survivalist—someone who has truly made survival their primary preoccupation—will find an imagination more handy than bullets or beans. The lack of one often leads to avoidable misfortune.”
“Do I have to pay extra for all the wisdom?” Beth asks. “Or is that on the house?”
The old woman lifts a metal cashbox from under the table and counts out Beth’s money. She offers it over with her great hungry grin. “Good conversation is even better than quail eggs, and sitting out here by myself so long, I worked up an appetite. I hope you didn’t find me too tiresome.”
While the ladies spar, Jack moves along the table of produce. He admires a few boxes of button-size wild strawberries and a carton of oily green peppers. He picks through a wooden box full of tiny envelopes of seeds. He pauses at one for “Candy Corn” with a doodle on it that shows an ear of corn with orange and yellow kernels.
“You can’t plant candy corn,” Jack says to himself.
The old lady replies as if he’d been talking to her. “You can plant anything. You can plant an idea. I used to live near a power plant—who knew you could grow one of them? Killers sometimes plant evidence to throw the police off the track.”
Jack shoots her a startled look, his heart hurrying in his chest, but if she meant anything by that last statement, there’s no telling it from her daffy smile and bright eyes. He picks through the seeds some more. Another envelope is marked “Rocket.” The doodle shows the tip of a missile sticking out of the ground.
“You can’t plant that either.”
“There’s rockets planted all over this country. Enough to kill everyone on the planet ten times over.”
The next envelope is marked “Mums.” The doodle shows a sunny golden flower with a smiling face peeking out of it. The flower wears a dress and holds a child’s hand.
“Twenty-five cents,” the old lady says. “Go on and grow yourself a mum. Grow yourself lots of ’em. All the mums you could ever need.”
“Come on, bud,” Beth says, carrying her purchase away in a brown paper bag, hugging it to her lovely bosom.
The old lady picks the envelope of mums out of the box and holds it out to him. “Prettiest mums you ever did see. Pretty and hardy. Give ’em something to drink, a little sun, a little love, and they’ll shoot up and love you right back, Jack.”
Jack’s shoulders jump in a nervous jerk of surprise. It alarms him to think she knows his name. But no—wait. She doesn’t (can’t) know it . . . she just liked the rhyme, “back” and “jack.” Any boy can be a bud or a mac or a jack.
He fishes a quarter out of the pocket of his bib overalls. She snatches it like a bird snapping a seed out of the dirt. She gazes avidly down at it, then turns it so he can see the raised image of President Washington.
“Why, it’s my portrait!” she caws. “A perfect likeness!”
“Jack!” Beth shouts. She’s at the truck, one foot on the running board. “Come on!”
Jack takes his envelope of mums and trots after her.
“Everything good must be paid for,” the old lady says. “And everything wicked, too . . . everything wicked, especially. Reaping time always comes round. The corn falls to the scythe, sure as water runs downhill! Ha-ha!” She claps her hands as if she has said something quite clever.
“Psycho bitch,” Beth says when the truck is moving again. “I ought to be glad she didn’t bite one of us.” She sees Jack turning the manila envelope over in one hand. “What’d you get? You buy yourself some flowers?”
“Dad said I could plant something for Bloom,” Jack says. He has taken to calling his mother by her first name, same as the others.
“Aw,” Beth says. “You are a darling. Can I help?”
He nods and is grateful when she puts an arm around him. She holds him all the way to Cordia Agricultural, where Jack climbs out to help Connor pile forty-pound sacks of ammonium nitrate into the flatbed. After Connor clangs the tailgate shut, Jack and Beth buy tarts from the quarter candy machine.
“Mm,” Beth says, crunching a tart in her small white teeth. “Sour. Love these. They taste like radioactivity. Like they ought to glow. Does that make sense?”