Chapter 13: Curtain Pickles

By breakfast, half of Harlan Falls had watched somebody's video of Lena setting down that speaker.

I sat on the edge of my childhood bed with my phone face down and my shoes off.

I was not going to the market.

Mom opened my door without knocking.

"Get dressed," she said. "I need you on the beans."

"Mom, everybody knows."

"Everybody knew by ten last night. Stanley's neighbor heard it through the fence and called her sister."

"I can't stand at that table."

"You can, and you will, with your head up." She dropped a cardboard sign on my quilt. "And you'll stand behind that."

I turned it over.

She had lettered it in red marker on the lid of a pickle crate.

CURTAIN PICKLES. BITE DOWN. SIX DOLLARS.

"Mom!"

"They're going to talk either way," she said. "They might as well buy something."

I laughed so hard I had to put my face in the pillow.

Then I got dressed.

The market was full by eight, and every head turned when we unloaded the truck.

Nobody said a word.

Mom stood the sign against the jars and began counting change into the cash box, out loud, with her lips moving.

The first customer was a man in a feed-store cap.

He picked up a jar and looked at me over the top of it.

"Heard you had a real thorough checkup, sweetheart."

My stomach dropped.

"I did," I said. "Want a jar?"

He blinked.

"The sign says six dollars," Mom told him, "not your opinion. Cash or card?"

He paid cash.

He took two jars and left, and the woman behind him was already holding out a ten.

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