Xander #2
A couple of people look up when they recognize me. With curiosity. Interest. The kind that comes with everybody already knowing at least part of your business because Julian sang in a bar.
I ignore that thought too.
Bill Smith spots me first. He’s standing behind a table stacked with jars of pickled something and produce fresh from the farm.
“Well,” he says as I get close enough. “If it isn’t one of the new guys.”
I stop at the table. “Good to see you, too, Bill.”
He snorts. “Don’t get comfortable. I haven’t decided how much I like you yet.”
“I didn’t realize there was a ranking in this town.”
“Oh, there’s always a ranking,” he mutters, shifting a jar half an inch. “Some of ’em wave too much. Some of ’em don’t wave at all. One of ’em tried to pay me with a card like we’re in the city.”
“I’m assuming that didn’t go well.”
“Machine’s been broken since 2008,” he says. “And I like it that way.”
I nod.
He eyes me again, recalibrating. “You buying anything, or just here to walk around and make the rest of us feel underdressed?”
“I feel like that says more about you than me.”
“Mm,” he grunts. “That’s what people say when they don’t have a better answer.”
“I asked a question, actually.”
“You did,” he says. “Didn’t like it.”
I glance down at the table, because this is clearly not going to be a quick interaction. “What’s good today?”
“Well,” he says, leaning forward, bracing his hands on the table.
“Depends what you mean by good. Tomatoes are early, which means they look better than they taste, so don’t let anyone talk you into those unless you enjoy disappointment.
Corn’s decent if you cook it right, which most people don’t.
Someone over there’s trying to sell zucchini the size of a baseball bat, which is just showing off and not in a useful way—”
“I don’t need a lecture,” I cut in. “I need something I won’t ruin.”
“That narrows it,” he mutters.
He reaches over, taps a crate with the back of his fingers, checking it’s still there. “Peaches.”
I pick one up.
It’s heavy. Soft without being mushy. Smells like it’s supposed to.
“Those are good,” I say.
“They’d better be,” he replies. “Took me forever to grow.”
I turn the peach in my hand, then look back at him. “How many should I get?”
“That depends,” he says. “You planning on eating them, or letting them sit on your counter until they go soft and you feel guilty about it?”
“Eating them.”
“Six, then. Maybe seven if you’ve got someone else hovering around your kitchen acting like they don’t want one and then taking it anyway.”
I don’t comment on that.
“Six is fine,” I say.
He starts picking them out himself, muttering under his breath as he goes. “Not that one… That one’s got a spot… This one’s fine if you eat it tomorrow… People don’t pay attention to timing, that’s the problem…”
He drops the last peach into the bag and sets it on the table as a completed transaction he doesn’t entirely trust.
“That’ll be…” he pauses, squints at me again, recalculating something invisible, “ten dollars.”
“That felt like a guess.”
“It was,” he says. “Close enough.”
I hand him the cash.
He takes it slower than necessary, like he’s expecting it to disappear halfway through the exchange.
“Huh,” he says.
“That’s all I get?”
“Well, I don’t hand out compliments for basic competence,” he mutters, tucking the bills away. “But you paid without arguing, didn’t ask for a discount, and didn’t try to make small talk about the weather, so you’re doing better than most.”
“I feel honored.”
“Don’t,” he says. “That’s how it goes to your head.”
I pick up the bag, glancing back at the table. “See you next week, Bill.”
He grunts. “We’ll see.”
I start to walk away.
“And don’t put those in the fridge,” he calls after me.
I glance back over my shoulder. “I wasn’t going to.”
“People always say that,” he mutters. “Then they do it anyway and wonder why they taste like nothing.”
Tommy Bennett’s by the coffee stand, and the owner looks mildly irritated about it from behind the counter.
Sheriff Aidan Grant’s next to him, posture straight, coffee in hand, scanning the market in that habitual way of his.
Tommy spots me first. “There he is,” he says, bright as anything. “Town’s favorite problem.”
Aidan doesn’t even look at him. “You’re projecting.”
Tommy ignores that completely, pushing off the counter and clapping a hand on my shoulder as if we’re old friends who’ve already had this conversation three times today.
“You look rough,” he says, stepping back to look at me fully. “You sleeping, or just pretending to?”
“Encouraging,” I reply.
“I try to keep morale high.”
“That’s not what you’re doing.”
“Depends who you ask.”
Aidan finally looks at me. Just a glance, but it remains half a second longer than most people would let it. “Studio keeping you busy?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Tommy mutters into his coffee because I’m sure he’s already got opinions about that. “Busy’s good. Busy means things are happening. Things happening means people start talking. People talking means—”
“You get more customers,” I cut in.
He grins. “See? You do get it.”