Further Joy by John Brandon Read Free Book Online Page B

under a series of huge shade trees, which gave Kim the feeling of driving through a tunnel, and when they came out into the sun again Franklin raised his hand and pointed excitedly.
    â€œThe red pickup means she’s home,” he said. “This is our day. Luck is playing nice with us.”
    He pulled onto the pale dirt drive and put the car in park. The house had a shingled roof and beige siding. There was a chimney on one side that seemed too big. Franklin squirmed in his seat, getting at one of his pants pockets, and yanked out the money Rita had given him.
    â€œYou don’t mind if lunch is vegetarian, do you? I know some people like a more substantial midday meal.”
    â€œWhatever floats your boat,” Kim said, sounding odd to herself. This wasn’t an expression she ever used.
    â€œI have a picnic spot in mind, but maybe when we’re out there we’ll see something better. A covered bridge or some such, or a broken-down tractor. Something in that ballpark.” He unfolded the cash. “Thirty bucks. That ought to do it. Two people like us ought to be able to have a rewardingday for less than thirty dollars. There was a show on TV like that, where this lady tried to do a day in different cities for thirty dollars. I think it was thirty. She had to leave a crappy tip if she went to a restaurant.”
    Kim thought she remembered the show Franklin was talking about. For years she’d been trying to get herself to watch more TV, but none of it seemed intended for her. She wasn’t a target audience, she supposed—there wasn’t a spinster-in-training-of-above-average-intelligence demographic. She hardly even watched movies anymore.
    Franklin led her around the back of the house, past a latticework apparatus covered in ivy. In the yard they found an old woman sitting in a lawn chair. The woman set her book aside, but didn’t stand up. She told them everything was the same price and sold by the bin, and you could fill your bin as much as you could manage not to spill. The old woman wore her hair up in a soft bun, and her jewelry was all of a set, silver with large scarlet stones. Franklin went and grabbed a bin, and stepped over to a row of crates that contained different sorts of onions. He picked a few up and sniffed them with gusto.
    Kim heard music from inside the old woman’s house—dreamy electric guitar, Hawaiian-sounding. She let Franklin wander off by himself to choose the fruit, and stood by the lawn chair as the woman began talking as though continuing a conversation that had been interrupted an hour before. She told Kim she was taking a class at the junior college about the Mayans and the Aztecs. She was able to attend the class for free because she was old. The teacher was a handsome Spanish guy with an accent, who often told hunting stories. The woman said the seasons had been perfect lately. Fall and winter and spring, all perfect. Right on time, like the movements of a symphony. Franklin was at the far end of the crates now, holding in one hand a vegetable Kim didn’t recognize. He was spindly, too tall, but she liked that there wasn’t a bit of put-on in his mannerisms, no practiced reluctance, no breeziness, no mope. Perhaps he’d given up on being something other than himself.
    â€œYour boy there’s a spitting image of my first husband. When I first met him, I mean. In those days, you got married young. You didn’t waituntil you had a million dollars and all your towels matched. And of course people dressed different. He was always wearing a pressed white shirt and a vest and good shoes.”
    The old woman cautiously pulled a stick out of her bun and let the hair fall in sections down her back. She set the stick on the table beside her. It was a regular stick from outside; it looked like a twig from the oak tree that was shading this portion of the yard. Kim had no idea if the woman thought Franklin was her son or her