Market Monday | Lunes de Mercado
"A weekly visit to the farmers market becomes a reason to wake up early when a certain vendor catches her eye"
Market Monday
Lunes de Mercado
Every Monday at 6 AM, I went to the market. For vegetables, I told myself. Not for her.
"The usual?" she asked, already reaching for my favorites.
"You know my order?"
"I know all my regulars."
"But I'm special, right?"
"They all think that."
Her name was Daniela. She'd inherited the family farm after her parents retired, turned it organic, and now sold the best produce in the city.
"How do you make tomatoes taste like this?" I asked.
"Love. And good soil."
"In that order?"
"In that order."
I started arriving earlier to beat the crowds. Then earlier to help her set up. Then earlier because I couldn't sleep anyway, and her face at 5 AM was better than any dream.
"You don't have to help," she said.
"I know."
"Then why do you?"
"Because you're here."
She noticed. Of course she noticed.
"You're not buying as many vegetables," she observed. "But you're spending more time."
"The company is better than the produce."
"Careful. That's almost an insult to my tomatoes."
I kissed her behind her truck, surrounded by crates of peppers and the smell of fresh herbs.
"I've been wanting to do that for weeks," I admitted.
"I've been wanting you to do that for weeks."
"Why didn't you say?"
"I'm old-fashioned. I wait to be asked."
We dated between markets. Weeknights at her farm, weekends at my apartment. The transition was strange—vendor and customer becoming something more.
"Is this weird?" I asked.
"Weird how?"
"You still sell me tomatoes. I still pay you."
"Love doesn't make business disappear." She smiled. "But you do get the discount now."
I learned to farm. Badly at first, then better. Her land became ours; her truck carried both our names.
"Partners?" she asked.
"In everything."
"Including the 5 AM wake-ups?"
"Including those. Especially those."
We still go to the market every Monday. Together now, selling what we grew together, building something that started with tomatoes and became everything.
"The usual?" she still asks customers.
"You know them all?"
"I know the regulars." She winks at me. "The special ones, anyway."
Mercado Monday—where fresh starts are sold by the pound, and love grows in rows.