“That’s useful to know,” I said.
He leaned forward across the table and selected a tomato from a different crate. “This is what you want if you’re actually planning to eat them.”
The one he handed me had a deeper color and faint green shoulders around the stem. I pressed it gently. Firm. When I lifted it close, the smell that rose was clean and slightly sharp.
“Creole,” he said. “Came in from Plaquemines Parish this morning.”
“How long will they hold?”
“You’ll want to eat them in two days, maybe three.”
“I’m cooking tonight.”
“Then you’re fine.”
My father would have approved.
He believed that you could solve most food problems with patience and olive oil. His salvage work had trained him to trust materials, and he approached ingredients the same way he approached a beam pulled from a condemned building: respect the structure and let the thing reveal what it wants to become. I had learned early that good tomatoes punished impatience.
“You’re pressing too hard,” a voice said behind me.
I turned.
Bridget Marchand stood at the end of the stall with a canvas bag looped over one shoulder. She stepped up beside me and confidently reached into the tomato crate.
“This one,” she said.
She pressed the skin lightly with her thumb, then placed it into my basket. “You need three, and this one will hold together when you cook it.”
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning.”
The vendor looked at the two of us. “You two know each other?”
“We work together,” Bridget said.
He nodded, satisfied, and moved down the aisle toward a woman examining peaches. Bridget picked up another tomato, studied it, and set it aside.
“You’re cooking tonight?”
“Yes.”
“For Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“How is he pacing himself this week?”
“Predictably. He considers rest a form of moral weakness.”
She laughed. Then she asked whether Dominic had stayed late after rehearsal the previous afternoon, and whether he was still planning to arrive through the backstage entrance on Saturday.
“Yes, he is.”
“That’s what I thought.” She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”
Before leaving, she touched my arm lightly as she stepped past me.
