Chapter 14
Shay
Students will be able to sell jam and jealousy.
I sat in my car for twenty-five minutes, switching back and forth between continuing to die of embarrassment and hoping Jaime’s roommates wouldn’t mind when I moved in with them again.
That was the only smart solution. I had to go back to Boston.
No one could get caught ass-up in a cloud of cleaning products without immediately going into hiding.
I’d start over—one more time—and do it from the safety of Jaime’s cozy apartment. I’d make myself useful by doing everyone’s laundry and keeping the kitchen cupboards stocked. I’d sort the mail and preview new reality TV to know which episodes were worth watching and which to fast-forward through.
Maybe I’d do that. I’d leave. No one would mind.
Noah would notice, but after seeing me in the least flattering position known to humanity he’d probably appreciate my disappearance.
Gennie would notice and the school too but they’d replace me within an hour or two.
Someday, they’d understand that I didn’t have a choice.
Though instead of screaming into pillows or preparing for my exit, I was parked outside the Mount Hope farmers market. To this point, I hadn’t been able to convince myself to go in—or get the hell out of here.
After wasting another five minutes, my need for coffee won over my desire to flee.
I was out of pudding cups—Cheez-Its too—and while I had a dozen eggs from Noah and Gennie’s henhouse, I didn’t like eggs enough to bother with making them for breakfast. They were too much of a reminder of how I’d choked down soft-boiled eggs and flavorless turkey breast for lunch every day in the name of fitting into my wedding dress.
In the name of making myself smaller and smaller and smaller until I could barely find the true threads of myself, the ones I’d abandoned in my quest to be perfect.
I could still taste the bitter hollowness that came with forcing myself to eat things I loathed because I’d convinced myself the struggle was worth it. That I could deal with it. That I deserved it.
Alas, coffee was my only hope this morning, and I could see the tents and flags of several coffee vendors to choose from at this market.
Knowing that, I couldn’t justify leaving now.
Well, I could but I’d accomplish nothing more than making myself hangry and I was finished with being starved and salty.
The first thing I noticed when I crossed the field toward the market was the long line at the Little Star table.
The blue-gray pop-up tent had at least twenty people waiting and that was substantial as far as these events went.
Naturally, I based this knowledge on attending all of one previous market but I’d paid attention that day with the girls. I was observant.
I grabbed a coffee and pastry, and wandered toward Little Star. I approached from the side, playing a good game of being too preoccupied with my drink to make eye contact with anyone else.
But I noticed Noah right away. He was a blur of motion as he unpacked a crate of jam, pulled bread from baskets behind the table, reached into the cooler for cheese, tapped at the point of sale system.
His hat shielded his eyes from view though a tight grimace twisted at his lips.
Gennie had her eye patch on her forehead as if it was concealing a third eye.
She was busy organizing the jars Noah had set on the table.
They usually had more help. And they definitely needed it now.
Without much thought, I hurried toward the table, waving to catch Noah’s eye. He didn’t notice. He was occupied with the tablet which didn’t seem to be working the way he wanted and a customer who didn’t seem happy about the shortage of seedless raspberry jam today.
I stepped behind the table, saying, “Put me to work.”
He watched as I set down my coffee and pastry, wiped my hands on the skirt of my dress, and quickly scanned the setup.
For a second, it looked like he was prepared to argue, to send me off into the market while he slogged it out here.
But then he realized that was bananas and said, “We’ll make two lines.
Gennie will run the point of sale for you.
Everything is labeled. It’s not difficult, it’s just—” He glanced at the line. “It’s not usually this crazy.”
Gennie bounded toward me, empty milk crate in hand. She took her place behind the second tablet, saying, “I’ll show you the ropes, matey.”
And with that, we plunged into the wild world of working the hottest table at the farmers market.
It didn’t take long to get the line under control but the people never stopped coming. They never stopped asking for seedless raspberry or strawberry jam either. In fact, they seemed to take it as a personal offense that we’d sold out of both in the first hour of the market.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Noah between customers.
His gaze on his tablet, he said, “This one is always busy. We usually have four people working the table but there were issues this morning.” He glanced up, pointed at the jam jars in front of me. “Where did all the blackberry thyme go?”
I waved at Gennie. “We sold it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” I laughed.
“We never move much of the blackberry thyme.” He narrowed his eyes, giving me a close study. “How are you doing that? What’s your secret?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “No secret. Just telling everyone it’s my favorite. It’s easier than dealing with the raspberry rage. Speaking of which, why don’t you have more raspberry if it’s the fan favorite?”
“Because we only have so many raspberries, Shay.” Arching a brow, he asked, “Have you tried the blackberry thyme?”
“No, but they don’t need to know that.” With a shrug, I added, “I’m sure you could do it too if you gave it a try.”
He leaned a hip against the table. “What do you have in mind?”
I tipped my head toward the jars of blackberry thyme. “Choose your favorite underdog. I’ll stick with mine. We’ll see who sells the most.”
“What does the winner get?” He glanced at the wave of customers heading toward the tent.
“Other than pride? Other than bragging rights?” I tapped a finger to my lips. “Winner’s choice.”
“Oh, that’s dangerous.” He scanned the crates behind the table. “I’m choosing—hmm. How about strawberry nectarine?”
“That’s your dark horse?”
“Yeah. Nectarines seem—I don’t know—foreign.
They’re not as familiar as plums or as popular as peaches.
We get a lot of strawberry purists who won’t even entertain a blended option.
I only make it because the nectarine adds amazing dimension to the strawberry.
I keep waiting for people to figure that out. ”
“All right.” I gave a single, confident nod. “Let’s do this.”
At first, we were mature about our competition.
We redirected requests for strawberry and raspberry with gentle efficiency and talked up our jams like they were our first-born children.
But we kept it clean. Honest. The way a jam sales sprint between people posing as husband and wife was meant to be played.
But then I took a good look at the people queued in Noah’s line. The clientele there clearly skewed feminine. The couples, the families, and the people who didn’t require a side of beefcake with their jam came through my section of the line. And few of them wasted their time flirting with me.
Few but not zero.
On the other side of the line, the flirting was cranked all the way up.
Every time he mentioned hand-selecting the nectarines that went into every batch, or how the strawberries were his springtime babies nurtured from little shoots in his greenhouse, his customers edged in closer, touched his arm or his wrist, and sighed out laughs that said my panties are in my pocket and I’d be happy to bend over this table right now .
Something spicy flared in my chest when one woman leaned in so far as she examined the jars that I didn’t have to guess whether she was wearing a bra.
“That’s another one of my favorites,” I said, sidling over to Noah.
I dropped my head against his bicep and skimmed a hand down his back.
His ears were burning red. “It’s great with a little goat cheese too.
Have you tried that? Cheese, a touch of jam, some crusty bread? It’s a whole Provencal moment.”
Free Boob glanced between me and Noah, stopping at the spot where I used his arm as a pillow. She straightened, saying, “Umm, no, I haven’t tried that. It sounds…great.”
“I’ll grab some for you.”
As I turned toward the cooler, Noah let his fingers trail down my arm. “Thanks,” he said softly.
Once Free Boob moved along, I put more effort into keeping an eye on Noah’s customers.
Most batted their lashes at him and cooed over his recommendations, and I took no issue with that.
He was one fine farmer and he deserved the attention, though he didn’t appear to know what to do with the attention, even if it was clearing out his stock of strawberry nectarine.
His ears were still burning and his cheeks were flushed from more than the heat.
It was cute. My husband, the cutie.
“Do you make the jam yourself?” my next customer asked.
I smiled at him as I showed Gennie the labels of the jars he’d selected. “I do not make the jam though I have a hand in quality assurance. No batch goes unsampled.”
What was a white lie here and there when it came to jam sales? Nothing at all.
“Important job.” The customer gave me a winning grin.
He was a bit older than me, probably in his early forties if the lines around his eyes could be trusted.
His hair was blond and wavy, and he wore an untucked blue Oxford with shorts and boat shoes.
“My mom loves your products. Every time I visit her up in New Hampshire, I have to bring as much as I can carry or she doesn’t give me the time of day. ”