“Well, hello there!” one of the ladies calls. “Back already?”
“Of course,” Miles says. “Barb, Lenore, this is my friend Daphne Vincent. Daphne, this is Barb Satō and Lenore Pappas.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
“Daphne’s newish to town,” Miles goes on, “and she’s never had your asparagus before.”
“Is that so?” The smaller of the two women, Barb, perks up. She starts rustling through the crates. “Let me find you the best of the best.”
“I’m sure there’s no bad stalk to be had,” I say.
“No, no, of course not,” the other woman, a head taller than the first, says, “but Barb does have a knack for picking the best, and we want our first-timers to come back, so let her work her magic.”
“I appreciate it,” I say.
Lenore leans across the table. “How’ve you been holding up, honey?”
“Good,” Miles says. “I’m good.”
She squeezes his forearm. “You’re a good boy, and you deserve to be happy. Don’t you forget that.”
“These are the ones for you.” Barb lifts a bundle of asparagus that must contain at least twenty-seven stalks.
“Oh, yeah, those look good,” Miles agrees, holding open the tote bag he brought from the truck. She drops the asparagus in, and he slides his wallet from his pocket.
“No, no, no,” Barb says. “Your money’s no good here.”
He shoves the ten in his hand into their tip jar to much protestation. “It would be a crime not to pay for this.”
“Theft, technically,” I put in.
“You take care of our boy,” Lenore tells me sternly, but with a wink. “He’s one of the good ones.”
“I’ve been picking up on that,” I say.
They coo and fawn over him as we wave our farewells and trek back to the dirt-smeared truck, my cheeks aching from subconsciously matching their sunny smiles. As soon as we’re in the car, and out of earshot, I drop my voice to a murmur. “You weren’t kidding about that beard’s effect on our honored elders.”
He laughs. “No, they hate the beard. They just like me because I spend a fuck-ton on their asparagus. And their corn, later in the season.”
A guffaw rises out of me as we glide back onto the road. “Miles, I’m pretty sure they would’ve given you their entire surplus, and everything in the tip jar. How much corn can one man possibly eat to earn that kind of adoration?”
“It’s not one man,” he says.
“Damn,” I say. “A modern Walt Whitman.”
“No, I mean, we source from them.”
“We?” I ask.
“Cherry Hill,” he says. At my blank response, his eyes dart to the road, then to my face and back a couple more times. “I’m their buyer.”
“What does that mean,” I say.
“It means our chef, Martín, makes a few different menus every season, and I get the best stuff I can find for him. So I go to the butcher, and the farm stands, and the olive oil store, and the cheesemonger—”
“Cheesemonger!” I say. “You have a cheesemonger on speed dial?”
“Since it’s not 1998,” he says, “no, I don’t have her on speed dial. But we text whenever she’s got something special in.”
“Wow,” I say. “Who knew I was moving in with the most well-connected man this side of Lake Michigan?”
“Probably everyone that I’m connected to,” he replies. “So, like, half of Waning Bay?”
“So if I was in need of, like . . . strawberry preserves.”
“Reddy Family Farm,” he says. “But if they are low, Drake is good too.”
“And if I wanted butternut squash,” I say.
“Faith Hill Sustainable Farms,” he says. I open my mouth and he adds, “No connection to the country singer, sadly.”
I frown. “Too bad.”
“I know,” he says.
“What about if I needed green beans?” I ask.
“Ted Ganges Green Bean Farm,” he says.
