The Dish and the Paperback

Eight forty-five and the block sale was already well underway. Someone had taken the corner spot with a folding table of ceramics and a hand-lettered sign I didn't quite read, and we were already past it before I registered what it said. Simone doubled back. I followed.

There is a specific posture Simone gets when she is negotiating, head slightly forward, one hand on the surface, the cadence of someone letting the other person think it is still a conversation. She got the ceramic dish for ten dollars. I watched from two tables down and did not say anything because there was nothing useful to add. The October light was doing something good to the sidewalk and I had the camera out before I realized I had it out. That felt right.

I ended up with a paperback from a cardboard box near the curb. Three dollars. Simone had a complete opinion about it before I had properly read the back cover, not the plot, something about the cover design, and she was not wrong, but I'm still going to read it. We stood there between the tables for a moment, the way you do when the errand has finished but the morning hasn't, and someone at the next stall over took a picture of us without making it a production.

Simone had a opinion about the book before I'd read the back cover.

On the walk back I carried the book in one hand and thought about the prints still leaning against the kitchen wall at home. Not the same thing as a ceramic dish, Simone's dish has a place, it went straight to a shelf, but adjacent, something about the act of carrying an object home and then figuring out what it wants to be. The October air was doing its particular thing: cold at the edges and warm in the direct light. It felt like the morning was taking its time on purpose.

October light at a block sale. Paperback undecided.