Page 20 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

It’s nice of him to say “haven’t really.” The truth would just be “haven’t.”

I don’t need him to sugarcoat it, but I appreciate the gesture.

“I’m not on the Julie train, Tyler,” I tell him, pronouncing ‘Julie’ like my first curse word.

I couldn’t be on the Julie train if I wanted to be. That train left the station with me still holding my luggage.

“I just think that woman across the street looks like her.”

Tyler lowers a heavy hand on my shoulder in a gesture more appropriate for someone who’s just lost a pet hamster.

“Grief will sometimes make you see someone everywhere you look.”

I turn to him with a look that I hope portrays my disgust accurately.

I stand up and throw the rest of the lukewarm drink I’ve been nursing down my throat rather than taste it. I set it down and tuck a five dollar bill under the empty cup.

“Do me a favor, and the next time you want to say some lame shit like that to me again – don’t.”

“You can’t ignore it forever! You’ve gotta deal with it eventually!” he calls after me.

I don’t wait to respond but make my way down the shopping center. The breeze is in my hair, and the sun on my face is a reminder of how lucky I am to live in a place like this.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see the fine wrinkles sprouting on my forehead, years of sun and very little sunscreen. There are always two ways to look at things.

I walk through the farmer’s market, stopping to admire the particularly large vegetables that farmers have managed to produce. I grab a few onions as big as my hand and multicolored carrots still attached to the stems.

Halfway through, I’m holding the vegetables in the bottom of my shirt like a child collecting acorns. I have to buy a reusable market bag made of cotton mesh just to hold it all.

A younger farmer is standing behind the strangest assortment of mushrooms. They look like the roots of trees and then there’s something that looks like a white carrot, and another that appears to be the leafiest, greenest cabbage I’ve ever seen, with a long stem to go with it.

I’ve only ever seen it uncooked in pictures. “Is this bok choy?” I ask him, pointing eagerly.

“Sure is,” the man says, tucking his hands into an apron he’s wearing.

He’s got an accent that borders on being Appalachian, and his mustache is slightly uneven. He doesn’t seem like he belongs here in the heart of LA, where everyone’s hair is perfect and they try to disguise their accents as soon as they arrive.

“How do I cook it?”

“Stir fry, steam, all the same ways. Just be quick about it or it turns to mush real quick.”

He smiles. “Here, this one’s on me. Practice round. You come back next week and get more if it doesn’t go right.” A twinkle shines in his eye.

“No, no, let me pay you.”

I scramble to find my card in my pocket, but he puts his calloused hand out and lowers my wallet from his eye line. “Nope, not this time.”

“Well. Okay. Thank you.”

Definitely not from around here.

“Where’s are you from? I can’t place your accent,” I ask lamely as I take the head of bok choy that he deems to gift me.

“Oh,” he laughs gaily. “Pennsylvania. My wife got a job out here, so we compromised and now we live out in Mariposa County. I still get to farm my days away and stay away from the hub bub of, well, you know.” He gestures widely as if to gesture to the entire city.

“Oh, I know.” I smile. “Thank you for this.” I lift the bag and nod at him.

“Oh, no worries, you’ll be back for more.”

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