Page 56 of Zeppelin
“When we start them early, it doesn’t take long for them to hit the garden and get huge. We have good soil. Lots of compost and fertilizer. Most things aren’t ready yet. This is just the first of the early stuff.”
The day I helped her plant some things feels literally like freaking yesterday, but it’s been well over a month. It’s crazy how the days seem so long, but then they lump up together and time just seems to vanish.
She takes up a crate of preserves. I don’t argue, even though I want to.
I follow her into the arena.
While we’re walking, I hear one guy talking to another. “That’s the guy with Satan’s Angels. Doesn’t Rose Beth know about all the good things the club has done for Hart? I wish we had a club here that would take care of things like they did. No drugs, low crime, events for the community… they’re a decent club and I heard the guy in charge of it is a good man. Homegrown and reared to take it over. They make Hart a safe community that they can be proud of. It’s more than we can say for this place some days.”
“Huh,” Ginny says as she sets her crate down under the square of tables she’s set up inside. There are eight of them that she had to carry in by herself. That makes me want to punch myself for not leaving twenty minutes earlier this morning. “At least public sentiment is sort of on our side.”
Our side.
She really just said that. I’m going to be walking around here with an ache in my chest and a swelling head. Not necessarily just the one on my shoulders either.
After a few more trips, I state firmly that I’ve got the rest and suggest that Ginny work on setting things up on the tables the way she wants them. She doesn’t like it, but I guess she sees the practicality in it, because she only offers basic resistance before doing what I suggested.
By the time the market opens at nine, she’s ready to go.
I lock up her trailer and truck, placing my vest on the backseat to keep it safe. I still feel half naked without it, and paranoid, even if I know it’s going to be fine.
The first few hours are crazy. Just pure chaos. Ginny handles herself remarkably. She’s efficient, handling money and getting clients paper bags for their purchases. She tallies things with a speed that makes me dizzy. I resort to doing the bagging for her so that she can take the money and answer any questions.
After the rush is over, it’s mostly just stragglers. Many booths are mostly empty, including ours, if I can go so far as to call it that.Oursfor today.
All the vegetables are gone, and all the baking. The jars of anything pickled are long, long gone. There are a few different kinds of jams and some straggler other preserves, but it’s slim pickings.
Ginny apologizes and encourages people to keep checking in the coming weeks, as they’ll have lots more vegetables ready.
I’m not exactly known for bright ideas, but in the first ten minutes of actually getting to sit in a chair beside Ginny and make sure she’s drinking water and nibbling on a homemade granola bar, something pops into my head.
“Have you ever thought about doing hampers on a by order basis?”
Her nose wrinkles adorably, but not in ashit, that’s such a terrible idea that it literally stinkskind of way. “Like, how so?”
“People in Hart, or even in this place, could order them. You could fill the orders once a week, or once every two weeks. You could use your truck and the trailer, if needed, to deliver. That way, people could get exactly what they wanted, and they could either pick up from the market or have it delivered. In Hart, I could get the club involved with delivery. They could hand out the flyers too, or make a post somewhere.”
“I- I’m not sure. It’s- yeah. Maybe.”
“I just thought, you wouldn’t be entirely dependent on having to do the markets.” She knows I’m talking about the old woman who nearly tore me a new asshole when I arrived. She could cancel Ginny if she wanted to, and it sounds like she’s the kind of person who would do just that because she gets her nasty old rocks off on a power trip of that sort. “And when the baby comes, it might be easier for you and your mom to do that instead of the markets. If she can’t do them by herself, or if you can’t find anyone else to help you. You could make a website and have your clientele built up by next season.”
“We do orders for berries and apples. Berries are coming up. Raspberries and saskatoons. The apple trees always have a good crop. We bring some to the markets, but it’s easier doingorders and dropping them off or bringing them and having people come pick up here.”
“I just thought, lots of people in Hart don’t have gardens, and I remember you saying that this place, it’s pretty much the same. The club would be happy to help you organize it. You could include baking too, in the off months, and preserves. Or just one with bread and buns, or cookies. Whatever you think you could reasonably do.”
Ginny runs her finger in a circle over the gray plastic table. She won’t meet my eye, which means that she hates the whole concept and has no idea how to tell me, or she feels bad about something. I hate the way her shoulders slump.
“Anyway…” I exhale too loudly. “It’s just a thought. Something you might want to discuss with your family, but you don’t have to. Don’t worry. I’m used to people thinking my ideas are shit.”
Her head snaps up, eyes blazing like she wants to make me apologize for being mean to myself. The way she looks at me… it’s a cramp in my stomach and an immediate hard-on under the table. No one else has ever looked at me that way.
“I should just be working online,” she admits, guilt etched into her face. “I should be teaching English. Why did I get a degree if I’m not even going to use it? Do you know how much money my parents spent sending me to college, paying for an apartment, all my groceries, my car—everything.”
“I can imagine it wasn’t cheap.”
She nods emphatically. “You’d be right.”
“Ginny. I don’t think they’d ever see it as a waste. You shouldn’t either—and besides that, you’re helping them out rightnow, it’s not like you’re going off and doing something frivolous with your time. Anyway, you could do both, if you wanted to. You’re smart like that. Probably the smartest person I know.”
