Page 61 of Freak
Dom laughed and sent an affectionate punch into Mel’s shoulder. “That should be our fuckin’ club motto. Paint it on the clubhouse wall.”
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~oOo~
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Apparently, Badger’sfirst punishment for Mel was to keep him away from Abigail. He’d found shit for him to do all through the setup, so he couldn’t get over and help her get her booth arranged, then he’d sent him back to the clubhouse for supplies they didn’t need right as the Horde family gathered at the club BBQ booth for the traditional beer toast to get everything going. And when he’d returned with the unneeded boxes of compostable cups and plates (not because the Horde were so eco-conscious, but because Lexi had organized the club kids into a protest group, and they’d all nagged the shit out of their parents about the dying planet until Badger had finally caved), Badger allowed him about one sip of beer before he’d put him on patrol duty first thing.
Fucker.
But there was a flaw in the president’s obnoxious scheme: patrolling the festival meant going by all the booths and attractions. Mel smiled now as he approached Abigail’s booth. It was as perfect a nest for her as the house in the hills was.
The main feature was a canopy tent like the dozens of other canopy tents out here: white, about ten by ten feet, with removable vinyl walls. Three old folding banquet tables made sales and display counters. At its base, Abigail’s booth was exactly like everyone else’s.
But Abigail, of course, couldn’t bear to leave anything unadorned. So she wove seasonal garlands all around the metal frame of the canopy, draped seasonal flowers over her tables, which were covered with brightly patterned, seasonally appropriate, tablecloths. She had a big ol’ rocking chair, painted a yellow so sunny it nearly generated heat, at the sales counter, where she rested during lulls.
Her wares were neatly arranged on the tables: lotions, soaps, perfumes, and such on one; jellies, jams, and baked goods on another; and on the third, the one she used as a sales counter, she’d arranged various pretty things she’d made from elements she’d found in nature or discarded things she’d recycled.
Any time she found a colored bottle anywhere she brought it home—she’d once had him pull off the road so she could dig one out of a trench. Any colored glass, in fact. And bits of pottery. Stuff most people would think of as trash. She’d collect it all in a big tin bucket, and when she had enough, she’d wrap it in layers of burlap and bust it all to bits with a hammer. Then she’d make pictures from the shards. Today she was selling a run of similarly themed framed pieces, all of them with mosaic vases and flower pots on backgrounds of deadfall timber sanded to satin. The flowers and plants coming out of those pots were pressed real flowers, from her own gardens. They were charming as hell. Like the woman who made them.
Planted at a front corner of the tent was her sign: a wooden board on a stick, painted white and covered in painted flowers and bees, with only one word, in bright pink calligraphy:Abigail’s. It looked very much like the stickers she put on her jams and lotions and such. On those, the words to describe the contents were always handwritten, in the same hand that the wordAbigail’swas written. Her own.
She didn’t have a fancy name for her business; Mel had been shocked to learn that she wasn’t a business in any official sense. She didn’t have an LLC or anything. Business and finance weren’t his deal, but he knew enough from his own misfire at entrepreneurship to wonder how she managed to get around the licensing and other bureaucracy even a one-person shop was required to arrange.
She worked mainly in barter, but she earned enough actual money to pay her utility bills, property taxes, and other budget items for governmental departments and other businesses that surely weren’t willing to accept anything but conventional American dollars. Still, she got around it somehow. Knowing Abigail, she did it simply by doing her thing and not worrying about it, assuming she was small enough not to be noticed. And probably she was.
Or maybe she simply didn’t earn enough to worry about it. Or hell, maybe the Intercounty Electric Cooperativedidlet her pay her bill in goods or services. He could imagine her convincing those leathery old farts to make a special arrangement for her. Probably with a basket of treats on her arm.
She was talking now to Ashlyn Carrothers, who was wearing her newborn boy on her chest and her three-year-old girl on her back. Both seemed to be asleep. Ashlyn was doing that mom thing, bouncing nonstop while she talked. She was smiling but still looked a little harried. He’d passed Brad Carrothers, a ways back, at the No Place booth, tossing back a few. He’d noticed because Brad had a distinctive laugh—he literallyyuk-yuk-yuk-ed.
He didn’t know Brad or Ashlyn well enough to know what went on inside their home, but from the view out here, Brad was coming off like a dick. He was probably one of those assholes who thought they were ‘babysitting’ their own kids when the wife got any time to herself.
Slowing up so he could fill his eyeballs up with Abigail before she noticed him, Mel watched her chat with Ashlyn as she completed a sale of a few jams. When the baby began to wail, Ashlyn increased the speed and intensity of her bouncing until the toddler’s head rocked back and forth in a way that looked at least uncomfortable if not unsafe.
As Mel did a brief calculation to decide whether there was anything to do to help over there, Abigail opened a small vial, tipped some of what it contained onto her fingertip, and touched the baby’s forehead. Three seconds later, the baby was quiet and heading back to sleep. Ashlyn reached out and grabbed Abigail’s arm, like the closest thing she could do in that moment to a hug. Abigail smiled and patted the hand that held her—and gave Ashlyn the little vial.
As Ashlyn walked away with her purchases and apparently magical potion, Mel headed to the booth. He didn’t know what he’d just witnessed, but he knew one thing: Abigail was the best woman he’d ever known.
And he loved the fuck out of her.
