I answer before he does. “Oui, merci.”
The vendor wraps my bunch first, then his, but her eyes move between us as if she is placing bets with herself. I pay for mine. He pays for his. No one reaches for the other’s purchase. Good. A man can be interesting without becoming invasive. It is rare enough to note.
He slips the tarragon into a plain canvas bag already carrying leeks, citrus, and what looks like a bundle of sorrel. I notice the sorrel. He notices me noticing.
“The sorrel is good here,” he says.
“The sorrel?” I ask.
“The stall,” he says. “The sorrel is excellent.”
I look back at the herbs. “You say that like there was a trial.”
“There was,” he says.
“Who presided?” I ask.
“I did,” he says.
“That must have been very impartial,” I say.
His mouth curves again, more clearly this time. “I never claimed impartiality.”
“No,” I say. “I suppose you didn’t.”
A pause settles between us.
Not empty. Not awkward.
It lands with the strange weight of two people deciding whether a conversation is finished or only waiting for one of them to stop pretending it should be.
The market moves around us, brightening by degrees. Sunlight slips under the awning and catches the edge of his cheekbone, the silver at his temple, the strong line of his hand as he shifts the canvas bag over one forearm. He looks at home here. Not comfortable exactly. Comfort implies softness. He belongs in the market the way a knife belongs in a kitchen drawer, useful because it is sharp and because someone knows better than to leave it out carelessly.
I should move. I have tomatoes to assess, cheese to find, a bakery two streets over that may or may not be worth the walk, and a day I planned carefully enough before this man put his hand on my tarragon.
Instead, I say, “You’re very serious about herbs.”
He says, “Herbs deserve seriousness.”
“That may be the most French thing anyone has ever said in a British accent,” I say.
He looks down at me, and this time there is noalmostabout the smile. It is small, controlled, and somehow more intimate for what it refuses to become.
“I’m not French,” he says.
“No,” I say. “That much is clear.”
His eyes narrow slightly, not offended. Interested.
“Is it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Why?” he asks.
“A French man would have taken the tarragon and then told me I’d chosen poorly,” I say.
He laughs once. The sound is low and real, gone almost as soon as it arrives. It moves through me in a way that has no business happening in a market before the city has fully woken.
