Hens and Chickens Read Free

back up the elevator shaft.
    When Lila finally exited the office building, the sidewalk was largely empty. A car with a shot muffler blasted by and she smelled the vehicle’s foul exhaust. She grabbed for her phone and punched in Rebecca’s name. The call went straight to Voice Mail; her friend had shut her phone off.
    “Becca, I know you’re upset, but don’t do anything, yet, OK?” Lila said, into the impersonal VM box, as she walked mindlessly toward the train station. She stopped, and glanced over her shoulder at the steps to the T. “Wait. Don’t even go home. Meet me at Grass Roots Café as soon as possible. I’m going to get myself that coffee after all. I’ve got something IMPORTANT to tell you.”
    Lila dropped her phone into her purse and pulled out her CharlieCard. Within half an hour, she was settled comfortably with a large cup of steaming coffee into a quiet corner of Grass Roots, a boutique café situated in the ground floor of an office building on Arch Street. Lila inhaled the comforting scent of the hot Arabica bean coffee. “Ahhh! Life is good!”
    Lila practically grinned with satisfaction. Who knew? Who knew quitting a job could feel so good!
    But what to do next? What should she do? How could she help Rebecca?
    Lila was aware that her financial situation – which was actually the polar opposite of that described by Joe Kelly – gave her opportunities her older, widowed friend did not share. Rebecca’s daughter Amber still had a year left at UMass and Rebecca’s home in Roxbury was heavily mortgaged to pay for that education. Lila knew that Rebecca lived closely, almost paycheck to paycheck. Lila, on the other hand, was single, debt-free, rented a modest condo that could easily be given up—and had a bank account with more than $250,000, thanks, sadly, to the proceeds from her mother’s life insurance policy.
    What do I REALLY want to do with my life?
    Lila tried to imagine a future for herself and her motherly friend—and failed. An imaginative, creative person, she normally turned to her daydreams for inspiration. But lately Lila’s daydreams had all been nightmares.
    Maybe I should put the question out there to the Twitter sphere? Maybe some of my Tweeps will have some good ideas?
    She tweeted her situation to the 2,000+followers @PGleeful, cheerfully taking advantage of the social media avatar she had created for her former employer. “Heck, they won’t know what’s going on for weeks at Perkins & Gleeful,” she muttered aloud. “I don’t think Kelly even knows what Twitter is, and Queen Cora still thinks Facebook is where it’s at.”
    Within minutes, Lila had several replies from Twitter, but one in particular, from @MissJanHastings, stood out.
    “Old house next door falling down; take a chance – move to Maine. What have you got to lose, darling? We’ll show you how to raise chickens.”
    We’ll show you how to raise chickens.
    Lila felt the hair on her arm stand up. The image of herself gathering eggs and scattering grain to a flock of clucking chickens revived a faint, happy memory from her childhood and struck Lila now as something, well – something she would really like to do.
    “Omigod, I can see it,” she said, laughing aloud, hand tightening around her cup of coffee. “I can totally see it!”
    “I’m interested,” Lila tweeted back to @MissJanHastings. “What next?”
    Seconds later came the reply: “Come visit; this weekend. You and your friend can stay with me. I’ll put you up in the Rose Rooms.”
    The Rose Rooms …
    Lila pictured in her mind an old New England farmhouse with faded, rose-figured wall-paper and the scent of lavender potpourri wafting through the upstairs bedrooms. What have we got to lose?   An outdated paradigm that isn’t working anymore—except for corporate America?
    Lila felt more hopeful than she had since her mother’s untimely death. A few more tweets and a couple of Direct Messages to @MissJanHastings settled it. If