Chapter 25: The Farmers Market — Part 2
Two vendors had set up in the same spot.
I watched the confrontation from across the square—Carol with her homemade preserves and Jim with his honey, both claiming the shaded corner near the community center entrance. Their voices carried through the morning air, sharp with the particular frustration of people who'd been right about something for years and couldn't believe they still had to argue about it.
"I've had this spot since 2008!"
"The signup sheet said corner booth. This is a corner."
"There are four corners, Jim!"
Nobody had coordinated vendor placement. Nobody had assigned specific locations. The signup sheet Ray mentioned was apparently more suggestion than assignment, and now two people who should have been selling their products were instead arguing about real estate that neither of them technically owned.
My binder of plans sat in Ray's filing cabinet. Inside it, a vendor map that would have prevented exactly this.
I stayed where I was.
"You going to fix that?"
Stevie had materialized beside me, coffee in hand, her expression the particular blend of amusement and resignation that seemed to define her relationship with Schitt's Creek events.
"Not my place."
"Since when?"
"Since Ronnie made it clear that helping without being asked is just arrogance with good intentions."
She studied me over the rim of her cup. "That sounds like growth."
"Or exhaustion."
"Same thing sometimes."
The vendor dispute resolved itself eventually—Jim moved to an adjacent corner, Carol kept her spot, and both spent the next hour glaring at each other across twenty feet of pavement. Not optimal, but functional.
The rain started at noon.
Not a downpour—just steady drizzle that turned the market into a exercise in improvised cover. Vendors pulled out tarps they'd brought from home, creating a patchwork of protection that leaked at the seams and pooled in unfortunate places. Customers hurried between stalls, clutching their purchases against damp coats.
My contingency plan had included rental canopies from Elmdale, positioned to create continuous covered walkways. Cost: maybe three hundred dollars for the day. Benefit: customers who could browse without getting wet, vendors who didn't have to worry about rain damage.
Nobody had wanted to hear about contingency plans.
A delivery truck blocked the main path for forty-five minutes. The driver hadn't known about the market; nobody had thought to put up signage warning about the event. Cars backed up on Main Street while volunteers scrambled to find the driver and convince him to move.
Roland appeared, wearing his mayor's hat with literally questionable enthusiasm.
"Great turnout! Despite the weather!"
"Despite a lot of things."
"That's the spirit of community, Mutt. Making it work anyway." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Your mother says you've been helping at the motel. Johnny's impressed."
"I'm learning."
"Learning's good. Learning keeps you humble." He surveyed the chaotic market with evident satisfaction. "This is what community looks like. Imperfect but real."
I wanted to argue. To point out that imperfection wasn't a virtue when it could be avoided. That "making it work anyway" was just another way of saying "accepting failure because improvement requires effort."
But I remembered Ronnie's assessment—you're playing a game nobody else knows the rules to—and kept my mouth shut.
"Yeah," I said. "Real."
The Roses arrived at one o'clock.
Johnny walked through the stalls with genuine interest, stopping to examine produce and ask vendors about their methods. He understood something the other customers didn't: these weren't just people selling vegetables. They were small business owners, each one a potential case study in community economics.
Moira swept through in full regalia, her sunglasses protecting her from what she probably considered aggressive normalcy. She paused at a jewelry booth, examined a handmade bracelet with theatrical scrutiny, and declared it "charmingly provincial" before moving on without purchasing.
David followed at a distance, his expression suggesting he'd rather be anywhere else but was contractually obligated to experience authentic small-town life. His eyes met mine across the crowded square. I nodded. He didn't nod back, but he didn't glare either.
Progress.
Alexis drifted through like she was at a museum—curious about everything, committed to nothing. She stopped at the soap vendor who'd done well despite the rain, sniffed several samples, and had what appeared to be a genuine conversation about lavender extraction methods.
She's adapting faster than David, I thought. Different coping mechanisms for the same trauma.
"They look like aliens visiting Earth," Stevie said, rejoining me near the coffee booth.
"They're trying."
"Are they? Or are they just... existing until they can leave?"
I thought about Johnny's questions to the vendors. About Alexis's interest in the soap. About Moira's attendance at council meetings, however theatrical her participation.
"Some of them are trying. The others might surprise you."
Stevie made a noncommittal noise. "You seem to know a lot about them."
"I pay attention."
"You pay attention to everything." She said it like an observation, not a compliment. "It's a little unnerving sometimes."
"Should I stop?"
"No. Just..." She shrugged. "Be careful what you see. Not everyone wants to be noticed."
The market wound down at three.
Vendors packed up their remaining stock, folded their damp tarps, and loaded trucks for the drive home. The square slowly emptied, leaving behind scattered debris and the particular melancholy of temporary events returning to permanent absence.
Carl found me while I helped break down the coffee station.
"Not bad, considering." He handed me another turnip—apparently his standard form of payment. "Rain killed some of the foot traffic, but we moved product."
"The location dispute didn't help."
"Carol and Jim?" He waved dismissively. "They fight about that spot every month. It's tradition at this point."
"Tradition or dysfunction?"
"Same thing, around here." He loaded the last box into his truck. "You made plans for this, didn't you? Coordination, contingencies?"
"Ray has them filed."
"Yeah. He would." Carl climbed into his truck, paused with the door open. "Thing about plans is, they only work if people want them to work. This town..." He gestured at the emptying square. "Most folks here have been doing things their way for so long, they can't imagine doing them different."
"Even when different is better?"
"Especially then. Better implies wrong. Nobody likes being told they've been wrong for fifteen years." He pulled the door closed. "Keep making plans. Eventually, someone will be ready to hear them."
He drove away, leaving me with a turnip and the particular wisdom of someone who'd learned to accept imperfection without endorsing it.
Stevie found me at the edge of the square as the last vendors departed.
"You didn't fix anything."
"No."
"You saw things going wrong. The vendor spot, the delivery truck, the rain situation."
"Yes."
"And you just... stood there."
I turned to face her. "What would fixing it have proven? That I'm smarter than people who've been running this market for years? That I know better than everyone else?"
"It might have proven the market could work better."
"Or it might have proven that an outsider with ideas is more interested in being right than being helpful." I watched the last truck disappear around the corner. "Ronnie told me to prove I can follow before I try to lead. Today was me following."
Stevie's expression shifted—surprise, maybe, or something adjacent to respect.
"That's... actually mature."
"Don't sound so shocked."
"I'm not shocked. I'm..." She searched for the word. "Impressed. Most people who think they're smart can't stop themselves from showing it."
"Maybe I'm not as smart as I think I am."
"Maybe." But she was almost smiling. "Or maybe you're figuring out that being smart isn't the same as being useful."
The square stood empty around us, imperfect and real, and I understood something that no plan could teach—that optimization without invitation was just arrogance with a better vocabulary.
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