The farmers market is a happy commingling of Playa Bonita’s hippies and the upper crust. We’ve been here an hour and I’m already burning up under the hot afternoon sun, because my mom forgot the pop-up canopy for our booth. There’s a sheen of sweat collecting along my hairline, and I discreetly wipe it away with the back of my hand as I make change for a customer who purchased a bundle of rosemary. The heat must be making my brain fuzzy, because it takes me three times to count out the right amount.
My mom hands me a ten from her apron when I’m done. “Do me a favor? Go grab tomatoes from the Central Farms booth for tonight’s spaghetti sauce.”
I scramble up quickly, untying my apron and shoving the cash into the front pocket of my shorts. As I weave my way through the crowd, I bump into strollers and push past lines of people waiting to make purchases.
The hand-painted banner of the Central Farms booth is easy to spot among the professionally printed signs of the other booths. Mary is working today. I’m glad. She gossips more than her husband, who wears his hair in a long, stringy gray ponytail and always talks about how he spent two years following the Grateful Dead around the country in the seventies, but I’ll take her gossip over those concert stories any day. Mary and her husband are old-school hippies. Peasant skirts. Birkenstocks. Fringed macramé vests. No Wannabe Woodstock for them. They’re the real deal. Which is probably why my mom was instantly drawn to Mary from the moment we set up shop. Thankfully, Mary was friendly, taking my mom under her wing and making sure she felt welcome.
“Juniper Jade!” Mary says. “Whatcha looking for today, sweetheart? Strawberries? Avocados?” She leans in conspiratorially. Nudges my elbow. “Something more exotic?”
“I’m always looking for something more exotic than this.” I toss a look over my shoulder at the crowd. “But today I’m stuck with tomatoes. For Mom’s spaghetti.”
“Healthiest spaghetti in town.”
“So I’m told.” My mom makes her noodles out of zucchini spirals.
“Well, get to it. You know what to do.”
I sort through the tomato bin, squeezing one plump fruit after the other to find the right amount of ripe while Mary handles the next customer, a woman with a baby tucked tight against her chest in a pale yellow sling with ladybugs on it.
“She’s here!” Mary says, clapping her hands together and twisting her body across a bin of peaches to get a better look.
I glance over and see the baby’s squishy pink face. She has a little white bow in her nonexistent hair. It looks vaguely ridiculous, and I feel bad that she’s too tiny and brand-new to have a say.
The woman bends forward so Mary can peek inside the sling. “Four weeks today.”
“Bless,” Mary says. “And look at you out and about. Supermom!”
“It’s our first adventure. My husband went back to work this week, and the cabin fever was getting to me.”
I quietly bag my tomatoes so I won’t disturb the schmoozing Mary’s up to with this mom and her baby.
Another woman walks up. She stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the crowd because she’s wearing a way-too-professional navy-blue business suit. When Mary greets her, the woman offers a strained smile, like she’s physically incapable of banal niceties when she has important phone calls to make and big meetings to take. But I scrap that assessment when she heads to the bin of peaches and I see she’s wearing flip-flops. A suit and flip-flops. I like her. She buys one peach, bites into it immediately, and walks away.
I swipe at my forehead. I’m still sweating in the shade. It’s collecting on my upper lip and behind my ears. I twist my hair into a knot on top of my head, but the fresh air against my neck doesn’t cool me off like I want. And I don’t have anything to keep my hair in place, so it falls back down immediately. I notice Mary isn’t sweating like me because her stand has shade.
The woman with the baby looks at me. Smiles.
I hold up my bag of tomatoes and hand Mary my money.
“This here is Juniper Jade,” Mary says, counting out my change. “You might want to take down her info if you’re ever looking for a babysitter. She’s got littles in her own family, and I gotta say she’s a natural.”
Poppy and Sequoia aren’t exactly littles anymore, but whatever Mary might be able to do to help me get a normal job makes me happy, so I nod enthusiastically.
“Oh, thanks,” the woman says to me. “I’m not looking quite yet. New mommy nerves and all. But how do I find you when we’re ready?”
“I’m over there at the herb bundles booth every Monday.”
“Oh! I love that booth.”
I smile as I shove the change into my pocket. “Thanks. That’s good to hear.” The baby stirs, lets out a tiny whimper. “What’s her name?”
“Katherine. Kat with a K for short. When she stretches, she looks like a kitty in the sun, so the nickname has already stuck.” She smiles down at her baby. “Isn’t that right?”
“She’s really cute.”
Kat fusses, and her whimpers grow to a full-fledged angry-faced cry in five seconds.
“Oh, shoot.” The woman does that same sway my mom always did with Sequoia. He needed to be held 24/7 due to my mom’s attachment-parenting philosophy. “I think I have to feed her.” Her eyes dart around the market in a panic. It’s a parking lot. No benches. No tables.
“There will be no hungry babies on my watch. Have a seat,” Mary says, pointing to the folding chair in the shady corner of her booth.
The woman blows her bangs from her face. “Oh, thank you, Mary. I’m still getting the hang of this.”
She spins around in a flustered circle, trying to juggle all her bags and untangle a screaming baby from her sling all at the same time. I jump in to help, grabbing the woman’s diaper bag and a canvas sack filled with fruit as she sits down. Once she’s settled, I bend down to set the bags by the chair. The baby reaches out, and before I know it, she has a tangle of my curly brown hair in her tiny fist.
“Oh no,” the woman says. “Whoops!”
“It’s okay.” I push the baby’s fingers free, but she grabs hold of my index finger in the process. She has a fierce grip for a newborn. I let her give me one last tug before I pull myself free, and she instantly shoves her fist into her mouth. “It was nice to meet you. And when you’re ready for a babysitter, don’t forget the herb bundle booth. Every Monday.”
“Thanks. I’m sure I’ll be in touch.” She has sunk into the chair now, prepping herself to nurse. Her eyes fill with the relief of having a calmer baby.
“You say hi to your mom for me,” Mary calls out before I’m lost to the crowd.
“Will do!”
I get back to our booth, plop the tomatoes by my mom’s reusable BPA-free water bottle, and put my apron back on.
My mom looks at me. Touches my cheek with the back of her hand. “You okay? You don’t look well. You’re all flushed. And warm.”
“It’s from the sun,” I say. “It’s hot today.”
I don’t mention the tickle in my throat. I’m probably just thirsty.