“Thank you,” I say as I reach for some blueberries.
“I’m bringing in the field produce by the end of next week, just so you know,” Prince says, then grabs another paper bag and points at the raspberries. “Do you want some of these, too?”
“Yes, please. Oh, and the strawberries look really nice.”
“We worked hard to recreate the natural conditions inside our greenhouse over the winter,” Prince says while filling up a bag. “And, as the Lord is my witness, our berry crop has turned out close to nature’s own perfection. Here, have a taste.”
He gives me a raspberry, and as soon as I eat it, I’m surprised by the freshness, the soft flavors, and the burst of the pulp against my tongue.
“Oh, my days, you’re absolutely right. These will work so well in my yogurt bowls,” I tell him. “And I’m definitely making a strawberry cheesecake this weekend.”
“The reinvented one you bragged about last week?” He wiggles his white, bushy eyebrows at me.
A sour taste settles in my mouth as I remember where I first introduced the reinvented cheesecake. It was supposed to be a sweet memory, but recent events have made me doubt pretty much everything.
“No, I’m going for the classic this time,” I say to Prince. “How is your darling hubby, by the way? I don’t see him around.”
“Oh, he’s back at the farmhouse. Our apricot trees needed a little extra care this season,” he says. “He’ll be joining me next week, though.”
I give him the blueberry bag and start filling a strawberry bag while he weighs everything for me and gingerly sets each wrapped package into a complimentary woven basket of my own. Prince, ever the thoughtful man, knows I collect these for gift baskets and home décor ideas.
“Say, Prince, I’m curious. How did you deal with… you know, people and your private life? Your relationship with Ben and all that? I imagine you grew up in a more conservative era, right?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that much,” he says with a soft chuckle. “For a long time, we had to hide our love from our friends and our families.”
“Weren’t you both married?”
“We had wives, yes. But the girls knew. They helped us. And we took care of them,” Prince says. “When my wife passed away, Ben cried for days. It damn near broke his heart. We were a family, in a way, the four of us. Then the Nineties came around, and Ben got an amicable divorce. Shelly, his ex-wife, lives with us. She works the farm with us, the reliable old gal.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet.”
“Yes. And she was our maid of honor at the wedding, too,” Prince replies, fondly remembering that particular moment. “I’ll tell you one thing, Miss Redford, it wasn’t what we wanted at the time, but society was harsh, and our lifestylecould have cost us our careers and our future. We had to play along. Today, it’s not like that anymore.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
He shakes his head and smiles. “Oh, no. Sure, there are some societal pressures. But if you hold on tightly to what you’ve got and stop living according to the opinions of others, I promise you’ll never regret it.” He tilts his head. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just trying to understand, to make some choices of my own, I suppose. Love isn’t always conventional, right?”
Prince shrugs and nods at the same time. “Love doesn’t care about who’s who. Love just happens. We don’t choose who we fall in love with. We choose what we do about it. And Ben and I had choices to make. Every choice we made kept us close in a world that would’ve done everything to keep us apart.”
He goes on to tell me about signing their marriage certificate and inviting their children and grandchildren to the wedding, and I can’t help but feel a little sad for him and Ben that they couldn’t live their true lives the whole time.
“How can I get through to someone in my family—my only family member, for that matter, about my choices then?” I ask Prince as he swipes my card through the POS machine and pulls out the receipt for me.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I told my son. He had a hard time accepting who I really was at the time,” he says. “I told him, ‘Connor, I’m not asking you to be happy for me. I’m not even asking you to be happywithme. I’m asking you to respect my wishes, just as I have always respected yours.’ No one isgoing to live our lives for us, so why should they have a say in how we do it?”
It comes with a tinge of irony considering their younger years, but I do understand. And it makes all the sense in the world. After I thank Prince and take my basket, I move toward the eastern side of the market, where I find the Jeffersons’ honey stall fully loaded and waiting for me to take some of the acacia honey jars off their hardworking hands.
A familiar voice draws my attention. “Fancy running into you here.”
I turn around to find Deanna standing behind me, dressed in a dark green Gucci velour tracksuit and white sneakers, her hair pulled into a loose bun, and a wry smile on her face. A purse and a bag of fresh vegetables hang from her arm.
“I thought you were off to warmer lands after Haus,” I say, trying to summon a smile of my own, but out of all the people in the world, she’s one of the last I would’ve wanted to deal with today. I can only pray this exchange ends quickly.
“I was, but then I changed my mind,” she says, then slowly looks around. “Any chance I can buy you a coffee and work things out? I feel bad about how we ended things.”
“You do?” I sound surprised.
