Picking Blueberries by Anna Tambour Read Free Book Online Page A

Community, though Dick
never heard of any classes that he could recognize, like at school.
Nor did anyone say "faculty" except at meetings, when they said it
a lot.
    The recruiting team
seemed to be pretty important, though. It was Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who
went to universities and sang. Dick heard them once. They sang Puff
the Magic Dragon and Hava Nagila. Mrs. Fox didn't look like Mary
and Mr. Fox didn't look like Peter or Paul. Mr. Fox's hairy belly
showed through his shirt, Mrs. Fox's long Indian-print dress
dragged down in the front, and her long tightly corrugated hair had
bangs that jutted out in a big curl. But every time Mr. and Mrs.
Fox went recruiting, a few weeks later, some new recruits came in,
mostly pretty girls. They had to be approved and allocated living
quarters, but Dick didn't know of a time anyone was refused. Often
though, after a few months, one day a girl was here and the next
gone, with no explanation—to Dick, at least. Not that many of them
ever said hello to him, but some were nice for a while.
    At the Foxes' house,
which the Foxes commanded like all the other grownups did their own
houses, Mrs. Fox was usually the only one of the Mr. and Mrs. home,
always carrying on her wide hips one or two of her children. The
house smelled of sour milk, and Mrs. Fox usually had stains on her
clothes. When they went on recruiting drives, Ellen who lived in
the house took care of the children, but only because it was a few
days, and because she didn't do much except put the bottles on the
sofa, and diaper once a day.
    Ellen was a "life
model" in the college. "Rubens" was what Mr. Fox called her. Dick
wondered whether that meant that she talked about her model life,
and if so, did she tell the college students that her house
smelt.
    She looked like a
startled rabbit most of the time, and had a big belly all the time.
She got along well with Mrs. Fox though, although Dick never knew
why. No one else would take care of the babies.
    Dick knew that Mr. Fox
was hardly ever home from what he heard. Mr. Fox had been a
professor of English literature, and as Mrs. Fox said to Ellen, and
Dick overheard from Sara, who lived in the next door house to
Foxes, Mr. Fox had Miss Prescott to stay overnight with, and Miss
Prescott lived alone in her Community house, and what could Mrs.
Fox complain about. After all, Mrs. Fox had the children, "who were
no incentive to come home to." This is what Dick heard from Sara,
who wanted to be a life model, too, but possibly next semester, she
was told. Dick thought it unfair that she had to wait, because the
stories she told were better than Ellen's.
    Miss Prescott had been
a professor like Mr. Fox—anthropology. She was thin, hard, and
smelt like nothing, or at the most, typing paper. She wore
wraparound skirts and blouses that looked ironed. Her arms were
corded and tan, and her sandy blonde hair was cut off sharply to
the top of her neck.
    Mr. Fox and Miss
Prescott had set up The Community Project, the downtown poor area
café. The Community had bought it with some of the grant funds, and
deciding on that was a "process of meetings" that permeated Dick's
room—not really meetings as such, but more of a lot of talk, and
then everyone storming out, and then another meeting, and then,
worry about an ultimatum of the money being cut off if they didn't
have a Project, and then the café was brought up, as someone found
out it was for sale cheap.
    The day after The
Community bought the café, Dick was one of the work detail driven
out in the new van—Mr. Fox driving, Miss Prescott directing when
they piled out—to clean up the café from its previous owner, who
seemed to be an alcoholic chain smoker.
    The place opened up
the next day and a work detail went in to cook. Dick didn't know
who. Father and Mother were asked to contribute hours, but they
were busy. Father couldn't because he was a psychologist for the
state, and Mother couldn't because she was busy reading Anais Nin
and Henry