The Honey Has Already Been Decided

July sixth. I want to tell you about the farmers market, not the one by the rec center, which I have walked past approximately one hundred times, but the Saturday one in the east-side park, the outdoor version with the long row of white canopy tents that I had somehow never actually gone to despite naming that neighborhood in posts going back almost a decade. Simone is the one who said we should go. Of course she is.

We got there early enough that the crowd was still the serious kind, people with actual lists, people who knew the vendor names. I had a tote bag and vague intentions. Simone had a plan she hadn't told me about yet. The honey stall was the third one in.

What happened at the honey stall is that Simone asked questions. Not casual questions. Procedural questions. Where from, what season, what the bees had been working, whether the lighter jar or the darker one would hold up better with something savory. The vendor was charmed. I stood two feet to her right and watched it happen like I was observing a skill I hadn't known was a skill. She bought one jar and the decision had clearly already been made before the tasting portion. The tasting portion was due diligence.

The negotiation was formal and I was not part of it.

We went through the rest of the stalls slowly. I bought peaches because they were there and it was July and the right answer was obvious. Simone pointed at something in the bag afterward and said something specific about how to use them and I was already planning to eat them over the sink. Both things are fine. On the bus home she had the honey jar on her lap and I had the peaches and neither of us said anything for a few stops, and it was the good kind of quiet. I have been to a lot of places with Simone. I don't know why this one felt like a first, but it did.

The honey is hers. The peaches were a group decision.