Chapter 14 #2
“Your mom’s a lucky lady,” I said, bagging the nine jars—including one blackberry thyme—he’d chosen. “Hand-delivered jam is quite the treat.”
“She’s going to lose it when I tell her I met the beautiful jam lady who personally guarantees each batch. What should I tell her your name is?”
Laughing, I said, “You can tell her Shay is the one sampling all the—oh!”
Noah wrapped an arm around my waist and yanked me into his side. “You can tell your mother you met the guy who creates the recipes too. I’m Noah.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s cool,” the customer replied, his eyes wide with the newfound knowledge that the beautiful jam lady belonged to the growly jam man.
“That will be one three five, period zero zero,” Gennie announced.
Fumbling for his wallet, he said, “Right. Thanks. Here you go.” Gennie shoved his card into the reader as he glanced at me and Noah again.
“Mom’s going to be thrilled to hear I met the—uh—couple behind Little Star Farms.” When Gennie returned his card and shifted the screen toward him, he added, “The whole family, even.”
“Send her our best,” Noah said.
It sounded like “Go fuck yourself.”
He kept his arm around my waist, his fingers splayed on the round pudge of my belly, while the customer stepped away from the table. I pointed toward the jars with the deep purple gingham fabric skirting the lid, each tied with twine. “Four more blackberries.”
“You have me beat by three,” he said, “but we have another hour until closing time. It’s anyone’s game.”
“Have you figured out what you’re playing for?” I shifted out of his hold and shot him a cheeky grin. “I know what I’m choosing.”
He ran his gaze over my long, gauzy sundress. It was like a bedsheet with straps, completely shapeless and far more comfortable than flattering. I resisted the urge to fidget or prop my hands on my hips to create the illusion of an hourglass figure hiding under the billows of fabric.
“I have a few ideas. What have you decided?”
“Well, since I’ve already had a quartet of ice cream scoopers in to set up my classroom, I could use some help tending to Lollie’s tulip field. I don’t even know where to begin.” I gave in to the desire to futz with my dress. “Thanks for sending the helpers, by the way.”
“Did they take care of everything? They weren’t supposed to leave until it was finished.”
I peered at him. “Is that legal?”
“Legal enough,” he replied.
“They did a great job. Thank you. Seriously. It was a big help. I hope they got their Friday night off.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He did that a lot. I couldn’t tell if it was a nervous habit or if he really needed a good rubdown. Not that I was offering anything like that. Just…an observation.
“They got their Friday night.” He shot a sidelong glance in my direction. “I heard you fed them pizza.”
“Of course I fed them pizza! They moved all the furniture in my classroom! The girls organized the shelves and started my bulletin boards. They were there for three full hours. And they’re growing kids.”
Noah laughed. “I’m glad they did a decent job but don’t let Schultzy fool you. He’s not growing. He’s just a bottomless pit.”
“The girls put away an entire pizza between them.”
“Also bottomless pits. Camille will take a spoon to the empty ice cream containers and scrape out the last bites at the end of the night. She won’t throw away one of those five-gallon barrels until it’s scraped clean.”
We shared a smile before I said, “I appreciate it, Noah. It was a huge help. Thank you.”
“It was no trouble.” He seemed poised to continue but then he breathed out a curse and rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome to interrupt the conversation to come with goat cheese and Provence,” he muttered.
I followed his gaze toward a man in outrageously bright plaid shorts and a blazing yellow polo that might’ve been the actual sun. The man was headed straight toward us. “Why? What’s happening?”
“Regional chamber of commerce,” Noah said under his breath.
“He lives in Friendship too. Always has some new initiative to get off the ground or an event in need of sponsors. Never has it adequately staffed or funded. Not great at taking no for an answer.” He glanced at my iced coffee.
An inch of water from the melted ice sat on top of the cold brew.
“Tell me you’ve had more than a pudding cup today. ”
“That’s not for you to worry about.” I waved him back to his end of the table as another customer approached.
I did my best to listen to Noah’s conversation with the polo shirt while helping another small wave of customers. I was almost at the end of my blackberry thyme supply. Victory was in sight.
“I’m proposing a summer street fair,” Sunshine Polo said. “Early in the season. June, most likely. But I need big-name involvement to get it off the ground.”
“Sounds great,” Noah said, his arms folded over his chest and his jaw rigid. “You can connect with my marketing crew for—”
“You can’t pawn me off on the little girl who runs your social media accounts, Barden. You know that’s not how your father handled things—and for damn good reason.”
I was certain I heard knuckles crack though it might’ve been molars.
“Marina is a marketing pro. She’s better at all of this stuff than I am and she has the patience for it, which is a gift I don’t possess.”
Sunshine Polo seemed to ignore all of this. “Now, if I could get ahold of the boys with the oysters—”
“They don’t do markets.”
“But this is a street fair. Completely different.”
“You’ll need to convince them of that,” Noah replied.
Sunshine Polo slumped back as if wounded by Noah’s response. “Things really have changed,” he muttered.
“Probably for the better, yeah.”
He slumped even more. “Well, I’ll be in touch with you. Thanks for the talk.”
Not even thirty seconds had passed since Sunshine Polo turned his attention on the babka vendor when a woman bustled up to the table, calling, “I don’t usually see you here, Noah Barden. To what do we owe this pleasure?”
Noah reached for the back of his neck again. “Schedules change,” he said. “I go wherever they send me.”
“It’s a good thing they sent you here today.
” She pulled off her mint green bucket hat and set it atop the goods in her compact wagon.
“We’re starting up a new program with the Narragansett Bay senior centers.
Boxed meals for the shut-ins. We wanted to run it out of Middletown or North Kingstown but we can’t find a commercial kitchen big enough for the volume we need.
Then I remembered you have a brand spanking new kitchen over there at Little Star.
Is there a day we could come in to prep the meals?
We’d need four or five hours each week. I promise, we’d clean up after ourselves.
We’d be the perfect guests.” When he didn’t respond immediately, she went on.
“It’s for a good cause. Some of these seniors don’t have much.
No one looking after them. It’s heartbreaking, really.
At least the Reverend has your aunt keeping her company. Some of these folks have no one.”
“I recognize that,” he said, his words straining for serenity. “Though I can’t commit to anything without talking to my bakehouse manager.”
“Oh, we won’t get in her way.”
“We have an overnight production run for our breads and a full daytime production run for everything else. I can’t tell you off the top of my head when— if —we have five hours of downtime available.
” He shook his head. “I’ll have to take this back to the farm and talk it over with Ny before I can tell you one way or another, Winnie. ”
“We could probably pull it off in four hours,” she said. “I might have to whip the troops into gear but we can get it done. You can count on me for that!” She dropped a hand on the table, leaned toward Noah. “Wednesdays are good for me but I can swing Fridays too.”
“Winnie, I really need to talk with—”
“We can’t have the seniors going hungry, Noah. You don’t want that any more than I do.”
I pushed a pair of jams across the table to my customer while Gennie processed the payment.
Stepping toward Noah, I pressed my chest to his side and held out my hand to Winnie McGuiltTrip.
“Hi. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Shay. It sounds like you have an amazing plan in the works.
I know we’d love to be part of it though we might not be able to give you everything you need to make this program shine.
And that’s the most important piece, Winnie.
You don’t want to kick-start this and not hit the heights you have in mind.
That would be devastating. For everyone.
” I patted Noah’s chest until he nodded in agreement.
“Here’s what I can do for you today. Send us an email with all the details.
Every last one. What you’ll need—space, equipment, time, all of it—and we’ll sit down with the right people to see what we can do.
” I reached into Noah’s back pocket and pulled out his wallet.
I knew he kept a few business cards in there from the last time I went pawing around.
“There’s the email address. I know this is going to be great, even if we aren’t the ones to make it happen with you.
You have a passion inside you and I can tell it’s unstoppable. ”
She took the card while giving us a warm, appraising look.
“Aren’t you two something. Noah, you didn’t tell me there was a leading lady in your life.
” Before Noah could respond, she continued.
“And it’s about time you have one! It’s long overdue as far as I’m concerned.
You’re such a handsome fellow now. I remember when you were younger. What a little meatball!”