She looks down, then back at me.
“I’m listening.”
The answer lands too directly. I turn toward a crate of mushrooms because looking at her has become a poor use of discipline.
“Most people do not.”
“I know,” she says.
She looks at me then, and the market seems to thin around us for one dangerous second.
I ask, “What did you think of the carrot course?”
Her face changes immediately. Professional again, but alive beneath it.
“It worked because you did not try to rescue it from being a carrot,” she says.
“Most chefs would consider that an insult.”
“Most chefs should cook better carrots.”
I laugh once, despite myself. She smiles, and I lose a full second to it. A forklift passes behind us, loud enough to break the moment. I step closer to guide her away from the wheels, my hand briefly at the back of her arm. She goes still for only afraction of a breath, but I feel it. So does she. I release her as she looks toward the next aisle.
“Where now?”
“Coffee,” I say.
“You already bought me coffee.”
“Yes,” I say. “You’ve asked enough questions to earn better coffee.”
She slips her notebook deeper into her bag.
“That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me at a wholesale market.”
“It is probably the only romantic thing anyone has said to you at a wholesale market.”
She looks at me. “Don’t sound so certain.”
I look back at her. “Serena.”
She smiles before turning away. We walk toward the coffee stall, and for the first time in years, I’m less interested in what the market will give me than in what the woman beside me will ask next. I buy her another coffee anyway. She takes the cup, inhales, and looks toward the loading bays where daylight has started to press through the high windows.
“This was useful,” she says.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m not,” she says. “I’m recalibrating.”
“Good.”
She glances at me over the rim of the cup.
“You enjoy being impossible.”
“I’m efficient at it.”
“You’re efficient at many things.”
