“Deduct it from my pay,” she snaps.
“You don’t get paid.”
“Most sought-after spirit medium in one of the wealthiest areas of DC to unpaid farm intern.” Gretchen continues straightening the soap into neat little stacks, despite Hannah’s warning of Charlie’s preferences. “My, how I’ve fallen in life, and so quickly.”
Charlie reaches under the table and drags something over—the closed large cooler by the sound of it—and says, “Ankle.”
“Huh?”
“Sit and rest your ankle. I’m not going to let you overuse it today so you can get out of doing work again tomorrow.”
She obeys the order, despite her instinct not to, because her ankle is starting to twinge ever so slightly. That and because this looking-out-for-her thing Charlie’s been doing, however begrudgingly, is kinda nice.
They sit in silence as customers start to mosey onto the lot. None are heading toward the Gilded Creek table yet, focused more on the booths toward the market’s entrance.
“Why did you do it that way?” Charlie’s voice startles Gretchen with how close it is. He must have leaned toward her at some point while she was watching an elderly couple holding hands as they made their way up the row.
“Do what what way?”
“Stack the soap like that. You barely put any out. I brought thirty bars and you only put out, what, seven?”
“Scarcity,” she replies, returning her gaze to the shuffling little elderly couple. Looking at Charlie from this angle, mere inches away, feels too intense for a Sunday morning. It makes her heart swallow its next beat, as if she were standing directly in front of an amp at a concert.
He leans back in his chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Especially somewhere like this, people walk through and browse, and they say, ‘Oh, I’ll come back and buy this later,’ but how often do they really? Not that often. They get distracted, or tired, talk themselves out of it, forget about it completely.” Gretchen adjusts the way she’s sitting to get more of her leg on the cooler under the table. “But if it seems like the thing they want might begone if they don’t jump on it now, they’re more likely to buy it on the spot.”
“Mm, and how do you know this?”
“My dad works in sales.” It’s a lie she told hundreds of times growing up. Sometimes she changed what Ned sold to suit the conversation, or just on a whim. Insurance, cars, hot tubs, even space shuttle parts when they lived near Cape Canaveral one summer. “He taught me a few tricks of the trade.”
“Did he.” Charlie says it flatly, not really a question.
Gretchen’s never worked retail, exactly, but she assumes she’d be a natural. Sales and bullshit artistry really aren’t that different; when it comes down to it, both require convincing someone that you understand their needs and can offer them a solution to a problem—even if the problem is one you created for them. And she’s always been excellent at that.
Well, usually. As long as the someone isn’t Charlie Waybill. She can’t even seem to convince him there’s a problem to solve in the first place.
“Anyway,” she says, “I’ll replenish the stock as we go so we don’t actually run out.”
“I don’t usually sell more than a couple bars. Mostly people want cheese.”
“Leave it to me,” she says with a smile. “I’m gonna move some fuckin’ soap today. Just watch.”
“All right. You do that.”
After a minute more of silence as they wait, Gretchen finds herself asking, “What’s the deal with Hannah?” It wasn’t her intention to bring it up, and she usually doesn’t say things without thinking them through. But something about the woman and theway she keeps glancing over at the Gilded Creek Goat Farm booth like she’s trying to catch Charlie’s eye makes Gretchen feel a little... impulsive? Sure. Let’s go with that.
“What’s thedealwith her? I don’t know that she has a deal. Her family owns an apiary in Lovettsville. Her uncle takes care of the bees, her mom and aunt make the products, and she does all of their selling and marketing stuff. We trade sometimes to get local honey for the honey chèvre and the oatmeal soap.”
“It seems like you’re... friendly.”
Charlie gives Gretchen a mean little smile—not crooked. “I’m friendly with most people.”
Gretchen sighs. She thought his asking her to come to the farmers market with him was a sign he was thawing, but apparently not. Annoyingly, his hostility does nothing to dissipate her desire to learn more about his relationship with Hannah.
“Have you ever gone out with her?” she asks. “Like on a date?”
“Not sure how that’s any of your business, but no.”
