“I’ll take carrots, potatoes, and leeks,” she finally decides.
While Mrs. Murray bags them, Mary turns toward me.
“You want anything?”
I stare suspiciously at the vegetables.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you want vegetables?”
“I don’t know which ones to choose...”
Mary rolls her eyes dramatically.
“You’re a doctor. Aren’t you supposed to know what’s healthy?”
“Knowing what’s healthy and knowing how to pick fresh vegetables are two very different skills.”
What I don’t tell her is that I’m irrationally worried about the villagers’ reactions if I pick the vegetables McKinnon hated.
Or the ones he loved.
For all I know, every single choice I make here is somehow wrong.
Mary looks at me like I’m hopeless.
“Okay. Lesson number one: vegetables.”
We spendthe next forty minutes wandering from stall to stall.
Mary teaches me how to pick tomatoes—firm but not hard—carrots—bright color, not soft—and cheese, which apparently involves an absurdly complicated set of rules depending on the type.
I listen despite myself, oddly fascinated.
We run into Duncan Fraser near the meat stand.
“You two shopping together?” he asks with a grin that’s far too wide.
Mary answers without hesitation.
“Finn doesn’t know how to choose vegetables, so I’m teaching him.”
Duncan laughs.
I brace myself for a comment about my former city life, but instead he surprises me.
“Nowthat’slove right there. Teaching a man the basics.”
Then he walks away before I can point out that:
a) this is not love, and
b) I’m not completely incompetent.
Mary looks at me with amused satisfaction.
“You want to argue?”
