Hens and Chickens (6 page)

Rebecca accelerated onto the gray ribbon of road. “I don’t understand why you’re so
mean
to men, Lila,” she said. Her tone was gentle, but there was implied criticism in the remark. The car passed through a puddle of melted snow and water
plashed
against the underside.

Lila absently ran her fingers through her short black locks. “Am I?” she said. “I guess I am,” she continued, without waiting for a response. “Guys bug me. They always look at me like I’m some kind of raw meat.”

Rebecca sighed. “Men admiring women is a very natural thing,” she said. “How else do you …”

“Puh-leeze, Becca,” Lila interrupted, hazel eyes flashing. “Spare me the, ‘How else do you expect to find a husband?’ lecture. Why can’t men just like me for ME?”

Rebecca almost pouted. “Well, maybe because you don’t give many men the
opportunity
to get to know you for
you
,” she pointed out. “Like that Mike back there; he was perfectly friendly and helpful and …”

“… and practically jumped my bones on that old hardwood floor!”

“I didn’t see it,” said Rebecca, somewhat primly.

“You weren’t standing in my shoes,” Lila said. “Listen, I’m sorry if I was rude and embarrassed you …”

“You didn’t embarrass me – well, not much anyway. I’m just worried about
you
for your sake, Lila dear!”

Humbled, Lila realized that it was true – Rebecca’s concerns were never for Rebecca, they were always for Lila. Since Lila’s mother had died, Rebecca had stood the place of parent to her, a fact for which Lila was eternally grateful.
It’s about time I started acting grateful,
she thought;
instead of fighting her like an immature child all the time!

“I’m sorry,” Lila apologized. “I promise—I’ll try to do better.”

Mollified, Rebecca fell silent, allowing the subject to dissipate naturally on its own accord. If she had known the jumbled mass of thoughts and feelings in Lila’s breast, however – feelings of anger, confusion, and frustration – perhaps she might have continued the conversation.  

There were times – such as this evening – when it infuriated Lila that she was born a woman, not a man. She regularly threw on oversized clothes or tried to hide her sexuality beneath a man’s shirt, desperately wanting to be treated as a person first and foremost, not as a desirable woman. Unfortunately, no matter what she did, Lila couldn’t disguise her vulnerable feminine allure from any man aged 12 to 112. Sometimes she longed to go and live someplace where she could just be known for herself – Lila Woodsum – not as a potential “piece of ass.” 
But unless I move to a place without any men at all,
she thought,
that isn’t likely to happen.

“Isn’t this beautiful countryside?” Rebecca gushed. “I love the fields; the farm land. It’s so romantic, isn’t it, Lila?”

“Uh, totally. Just what I pictured . . . oops,” Lila said as they drove by the intersection for Route 7, the Moosehead Trail. “I think we’ve gone too far.” Lila regarded her phone. “We should have taken a right turn a couple of miles back onto Russell Hill Road, sorry—I spaced it.”

Rebecca turned around at the next driveway and within five minutes they were lumbering slowly up the Russell Hill Road, a secondary back road that was lined with snow-covered stone walls and ancient maple trees. The sun had set, and Rebecca proceeded cautiously as the light quickly evaporated from the evening sky. “I didn’t realize how dark it is in the country without street lights,” she said, laughing nervously.

Lila spotted the shoulder of a full moon pushing its way up the eastern horizon. “Don’t worry, there’s a full moon on the way up,” she said. As Lila gazed at the ethereal moon, all her negative thoughts evaporated. Instead, she felt a germinating sense of wonder and belonging.

“How do you know the moon is rising, Ms. Nature?” Rebecca teased.

Lila tittered, like a jubilant chickadee. “ ‘Cause I can see it through trees!” She pointed to the crest of the moon now clearly visible through a stand of pine trees halfway up the hill. The waxen moon was rising fast, and looked like a roving spotlight as it glided up the hill. Lila’s heart skipped a beat. “Stop a sec, will you?”

Rebecca obliged, and Lila rolled down her window and breathed in a lung-full of sharp, fresh winter air. “Ahhhh!” she exclaimed. “Now THAT is the smell of liberty!”

“It’s certainly a far cry from Boston,” agreed Rebecca. “Or even Roxbury, for that matter.”

While the two friends sat companionably in the parked car, the fat moon slipped up beyond the outstretched fingers of the treetops and floated majestically in the night sky. Lila spied a pair of white tail deer cavorting under a gnarled crabapple tree in the sparkling snow-covered field to her right. She pointed the deer out to Rebecca, exclaiming; “I haven’t seen a deer since I was a kid!” The two deer, hearing Lila’s high-pitched voice through the open car window, scampered off to the safety of the thick woods that lined the far edge of the field.

“Omigod, look at that tree, Becca!”

A hundred yards up, on the left hand side of the road, an ancient maple tree was split dramatically in half and stood like a sentinel, with one thickset arm raised to the sky and the other bent graciously to the ground. Into the devastated grounded limb, some imp had carved steps into the wood, creating a set of stairs that led up into the leaf-less canopy of the tree. 

“The tree is welcoming us!” cried Lila.

“It
is
very unusual,” said Rebecca, putting the car in gear and proceeding cautiously up the hill toward the split maple tree.

“Hey, there’s a big old house in back there,” Lila continued eagerly, leaning forward in her seat. “I don’t see any lights, though. Maybe it’s a foreclosed home?”

Rebecca’s gaze moved beyond the broken maple to examine the darkly-shadowed mass of multiple large buildings set back 50 feet from the road. “It looks pretty run down,” she said, hesitantly.

“Omigod, this must be the old homestead Miss Hastings wants us to buy! Pull in the driveway!”

“Oh, do you think we should? Isn’t Miss Hastings expecting us?”

Lila felt a struggle within herself. Part of her wanted the immediate gratification of seeing the possibilities that awaited them. The other part, however – Lila’s better nature combined with her long-standing habit of timeliness – won out. “Keep going; we’re late already,” she said, dropping back into her seat. “I told Miss Hastings we’d be here by 5:00 and it’s nearly 5:30, now!”

“I think it’s best to see the place tomorrow, in the daylight. Maybe it will look … better. And we certainly don’t want to keep Miss Hastings waiting.”

“You’re right, Becca, as usual.”

A half mile further up the road, just beneath the crest of Russell Hill, Miss Jan Hastings’ shingled two-story cottage hove into view. The former music teacher’s residence was an awkward design, looking as though two very different houses had grappled for the same foundation, and, neither having won, agreed to share the same spot, cold-heartedly embracing one another. Frozen snow
crunched
beneath the car tires as Rebecca pulled carefully into the narrow curved driveway. Light spilled cheerfully from multiple windows in the antique cottage as though a merry party was underway inside. Rebecca parked the car next to an attached side shed near an obvious break in the snow bank, which – although not the front door – signaled the common entrance. Before she and Lila could unbuckle their seatbelts, however, the side door flew open allowing bright light to escape and spilling a short black shadow across the white snow.  

“Hello, dahrrrlings!” a full-bodied woman’s voice called, by way of a greeting. “I’d offer to help you with your things but I’ve got my slippers on!” Loud gleeful laughter followed. “Come in, come in, you DAHRRRLINGS!”

Lila and Rebecca exchanged glances. Was this—Miss Jan Hastings?

Rebecca obediently picked up her purse, exited the car and crunched up the snowy path to the shed. Lila, however, took a moment to gather her overnight bag from the trunk, and, as her eyes became accustomed to the light, surreptitiously examined her Twitter friend. If this was Miss Hastings, the woman was nothing like Lilia had pictured! Jan Hastings was closer to
80
than
60
, with an elfin frame and wiry gray-black hair that looked like wriggling worms trying to escape a fork of turned up earthen sod. Most astonishingly to Lila, Miss Hastings was dressed in a smart black wool suit complemented by a frilly white blouse, and sported oversized chicken slippers on her nylon stocking feet. Miss Hastings was so obviously a singular character that, even if Lila hadn’t known anything about her at all, she would have warmed to her immediately.

“You must be SO tired, poor dahrrrlings,” Miss Hastings gushed, shooing Rebecca into the house. She stood vigil at the door stoop, however, awaiting Lila. “Matilda and I thought you’d nevvver get here!”

When Lila reached Miss Hastings’ outstretched arthritic hands at the shed door she was moved by an inexplicable feeling of tenderness. She dropped her bag on the shed floor, reached down and hugged the tiny woman. “I’m so glad to meet you, at last,” Lila said, sincerely.

“Dahrrrling!” cried Miss Hastings, squeezing Lila’s cold fists affectionately with her warm, knobby hands. “Let me look at you—you’re even lovelier than I thought! Come in, dahrrrlings! Come in!”

Lila felt hot tears fill her eyes, and she brushed them away.
I’m home,
she thought.
I’m safe!

“Here’s Matilda, waiting for you!” said Miss Hastings, leading them from the shed into a small mudroom.

The shed had been bright, but the mudroom was lit by a single 40-watt incandescent bulb and Lila blinked to help her eyes adjust to the sudden dimness. She noted a Shaker-style coat rack, draped with several scarves and shawls, and a large dark object in the corner. The room smelled like sweet sawdust.

Miss Hastings pulled a dark cloth from the object in the corner, and a faint
chirping
could be heard. “Wake up, dahrrrling – we have visitors!” A caged, black and white hen blinked once or twice, and then hopped down from her perch onto the sawdust.

“Oh, she was asleep!” said Rebecca. “You shouldn’t have woken her up on our account!”

“Well, we won’t spend too much time with her because I just know you’re hungry and tired! But I just couldn’t resist introducing you.”

“Hey, Matilda,” said Lila, schootching down on the floor next to the large wire cage. “I’ve seen your picture and heard all about you!” The hen began hopping and clucking in response, sending sawdust flying everywhere. “Omigod, she’s so cute,” Lila added.

Lila stuck her finger into the cage and waggled it in a friendly fashion. Matilda cocked her head sideways and eyed the worm-like digit. She clucked disapprovingly, then darted forward and attempted to grasp Lila’s finger with her yellow beak.

“Hey, she BIT me!” Lila said, withdrawing her finger quickly with a disconcerted laugh.

“She probably thought your finger was a worm,” said Rebecca quickly, excusing the chicken.

“Poor dahrrrling! Did she hurt you? She just wants some treats—I’ve spoiled her. Here, like this,” said Miss Hastings. She mysteriously produced a shiny black seed from her suit pocket and pushed it through the wire bars. Matilda leaped forward, grasped the seed as though it was a bug, and immediately gobbled it down. Miss Hastings cackled with laughter; “Matilda LOVES sunflower seeds!”

Her words reminded Lila of the 50-pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds that the friendly Mike from Gilpin’s General Store had slung effortlessly into the back seat of the car. “I almost forgot – we brought you a hostess gift,” she said.

“You dahrrrlings! You didn’t need to bring me ANYTHING – just your wonderful selves!”

“It’s for Matilda,” Lila said. “A bag of sunflower seeds. Some guy named Mike – Mike Hobart – is going to come by tomorrow and unload them.”

“Mike Hobart—what a dahrrrling boy! He built the most WONDERFUL cabin in the woods on the other side of town. We’re so fortunate that he’s stayed on in Sovereign after he graduated from Unity College!”

“He built his own cabin?” asked Lila, becoming interested, in spite of herself.

“Oh, yes! From pine trees that he cut all from his very own land! He’s so industrious, just like the boys used to be in MY day,” said Miss Hastings. “Now THAT was a VERRRY long time ago!” Once again, she broke into a gale of hearty laughter.

Rebecca nudged Lila, her blue eyes carrying an unmistakable communication:
See? Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to judge him!

“He seemed very nice,” said Rebecca.

“A simply DAHRRRLING boy,” repeated Miss Hastings. “But tell me again, why is Mike stopping by tomorrow?”

“To unload the bag; it’s pretty heavy – 50 pounds,” said Lila.

“OOoo, my goodness, 50 pounds – haaaahaaaa!” Miss Hastings burst into laughter again. “OOoo, I see – well, it’s perfectly understandable!”

“Not to me,” said Lila, confused.

“I’m sorry, I’m not following, either,” added Rebecca.

“Dahrrrling, that 50-pound bag of birdseed will outlast both me AND Matilda!”

Lila felt herself blushing.
He had made them buy a 50-pound bag just so he could have an excuse to come over tomorrow!
 

Embarrassed, Lila leaned forward to hide her blush. She picked up a few black seeds that had somehow escaped onto the mudroom floor and tossed them back into the cage. Matilda immediately jumped on the sunflower seeds. The bird swallowed the seeds whole, cocked her head at Lila and squawked for more. Lila laughed. “Totally cute,” she said. “I can see why you love her!”

“Back to sleep, you little rascal!” said Miss Hastings, draping the black cloth over Matilda’s cage. “Come into the kitchen, dahrrrlings, and we’ll get you poor things something to eat, too!”

In the large, eat-in kitchen, Rebecca and Lila were met by a blast of dry heat from an antique black wood cookstove. A copper tea kettle steamed merrily atop the stove, while a pot of corn chowder, which had been set expectantly on the bun warmer, sent the sweet scent of buttery corn throughout the kitchen. A round oak table with matching pressed-back oak chairs was set cheerily for three diners.