The Jaguar Versus the Wolf
Chapter 36 - Business is Good
Orbiting Satellites Book Two, Chapter 36 - Surprising Developments companion
Everything was all set up. It was fairly early in the morning so Esme was able to help me get everything ready at my very first Farmers Market, before the sun came up; not that she needed to, it wasn't that difficult. But it meant less time cooped up in the car for her.
We'd purchased a white 10' by 10' pop up tent that the organizers insisted all booths have. In it fit three tables that I place my items on. Alice had suggested I put some of the items in my baskets, and Esme had found some styrofoam heads to model some of the jewelry on. And then also, since I had made a lot of them, stacked more of my baskets on the ground, in front of the tables.
"Might as well sell them as well," Alice had said. They were overflowing in the house, too.
We'd given ourselves plenty of time to set up. Too much in fact, the market didn't officially open for another 46 minutes. The sun was starting to come out so Esme had to disappear. I on the other hand decided to use the time and wandered around to some of the other booths by me.
There was a sausage cart to the left of me that I definitely wanted to try later, but they were just beginning to set up and the two pimple faced teenage boys hadn't started cooking yet.
To the right was a booth similar to my own. The middle aged woman setting up was a hat maker. At least I presumed she was the artisan. She might just be here to sell someone else's products. Her glasses were so think I didn't see how she would be able to see well enough to embroider the delicate detail on the hats. Whoever made them, I was worried that we would be competing for each other's business, but they only seemed to make hats, something I hadn't thought to do.
Further down there was another food stand. This one sold berries of all varieties - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. I couldn't see who was working there, they must have stepped out for a minute, but Renesmee would have loved it.
After that there were a few more jewelry stands, but nothing like mine. One seemed to be filled mostly with pearls and another I assumed was some sort of hand blown glass. They were unconventionally pretty, but not my taste.
On the other side was some sort of baked goods booth that carried a variety of loaves of bread, muffins, bagels, and whatnot. It looked like it must have taken a small army to bake all of that, and they were all here to sell it.
Next to them was an older man who fancied himself a photographer. I didn't. His presentation was... well he tried. Some of his pieces were framed, others matted, but they looked like he must have printed them himself and the colors seemed off. Some were out of focus, but it didn't seem intentional. And then the subject matter - who would want to look at puddles of oily water?
Next to him was another food booth. This one was run by a couple, who bought all five of their children with them. Not that they helped sell the baskets and baskets of fruits and vegetables the parents were setting up. The parents seemed like... what was the word? Hippies! They just let their kids run wild and never said a word to stop or control them. Not even when two of them were fighting and knocked over an entire basket of corn.
And then I was back up to me. I'd have to see if I could look around to more booths next time. Right now some annoying little woman with a high screeching voice came yelling down the road that they were opening the Farmers Markets and everybody needed to get ready.
Time to begin.
It was hard letting my creations go, but also fun, and the hours flew by. Esme had set me up with a cash box filled with ones, fives, tens, twenties, and a variety of change, if I needed it. She also offered to install something called a Square on my phone to take credit card sales but I declined that. I hated technology so if someone didn't want to pay cash I didn't want to sell to them. It's not like I needed the money that badly.
After awhile I noticed that my booth started to get emptier and emptier. Judging by my stomach I assumed it was lunch time. Looking over to the now packed Sausage stand I guessed I was right.
"Don't do it!" the goggle eyed woman from the hat tent next to me yelled. Her voice was harsh and raspy.
"What do you mean?"
"I saw you looking over there. First time?" she asked me. First time? "At the Farmers Market?" she clarified.
Oh. "Yes. How did you know?"
"You didn't bring any food with you to eat and now you're hungry. But you're alone. And there's no one to watch your booth. Here," she said while perfectly tossing me what turned out to be an energy bar. I guess she could see.
"Thanks," I replied and then took a bite. Yuck! That's disgusting. Cardboard would taste better.
She started laughing when I spit it out. "I didn't say they were good, but it'll hold you over until you get home and can have a real meal."
"So, you do this a lot, I take it."
"Every other week. And I also do the one down in Manchester, but that one's only once a month. I like your stuff. You make it?"
I nodded.
"The baskets are a nice touch. Where'd you get them?"
"I made them."
"Really?" I couldn't tell if she was impressed or thought I was lying. "Pretty good set up, but you're missing one thing."
"What's that?" Between Alice and Esme I didn't see how those two missed anything… except food for me, but they didn't eat as I did, so that was understandable.
"A model. Someone to bring customers in. To show them what your stuff will look like on them."
"I have mirrors," I told her as I gestured with my arm to the sets on each table. "And you don't have any other women in your booth with you. Or are you your own model?" She was wearing one of her hats, but hadn't changed it all morning.
She picked up one of the frames in her booth that I hadn't noticed before. "Of course I do." Wow! The woman in the photograph was beautiful. Not Vampire beautiful, but for a human she was a knockout. "She's unusually here with me, but had to work at her real job today," she said holding two fingers up on each hand and bent them when she said the word real.
"Friend of yours?"
"Sort of, we work at the same bar. I can um… give you her number if you're interested."
"Oh… I… don't…" Mating was the last thing on my mind right now. I didn't need any more dead humans on my hands.
"Relax. I'm not trying to set you up on a date. I barely know you. This is purely professional." She started writing something down on a piece of paper. "Call her if you'd like her to model for you too. I'm sure she'd do it. She's always up for making a little extra cash. Just don't try booking her on one of my days," she warned. The paper she gave me had what I assumed was the models name and phone number on it.
After the Farmers Market was over, everything was cleaned up, and packed back in the car, Esme and I drove home.
"It looked like you sold a lot of your accessories." Esme said to me as she drove. "Did you enjoy yourself?"
"Yes, I can't wait for the next one. I better get right to work when we get home. I only have a few scarves left. And the belts I made are all gone," though there weren't that many of those to begin with.
"What about the jewelry? Your necklaces and earrings are my favorites."
"I sold about half of them." To be fair I did go with almost two hundred of each. So I did sell a lot… I think. Maybe I should take hat lady's advice and get a model. While asking one of the Cullens to model seemed like the obvious choice, they were more gorgeous than any supermodel, today's weather was a prime example of why that wouldn't work.
I dialed the number hat lady had written down, but it went straight to voicemail.
"Hi… um, you don't know me but I got your number from…" Bosta! I didn't get hat lady's name. "… your friend," I stuttered, "at the Farmers Market today. She said you were open to modeling jobs and was wondering if you were available. I make necklaces, bracelets, ear…"
"BEEP!"
Huh? Oh, I think I got cut off. Was my message too long? Oh well. I think I told her everything I needed to.
She called back after dinner.
"Hi, um is this the guy who called me this afternoon and left a message on my machine about a modeling job?"
"Oh good, you got my message. I was starting to get worried when I didn't hear back from you."
"Yeah your message got cut off," she said then there was a long pause. "So what were you looking for exactly?"
I told her about how I was planning on doing the next Farmers Market but she was already booked, modeling for hat lady, whose real name I learned was Penny. She did agree to the next best thing and promised to model my jewelry in some photographs, just as she had with Penny's hats today. Her schedule at the bar was suppose to be posted in a few days and told me she'd call me then to set up a time for our photo shoot.
Imagine my surprise when she called back the next day. She still didn't have her work schedule but she said that she forgot to ask me about payment.
Oh. I hadn't thought about that and didn't have a clue what would be a fare rate. Thinking it was best to be honest, I admitted it to her, but said I would pay her anything she asked; figuring she'd know what was fair. She laughed, saying I needed to work on my business savvy, that I was leaving myself wide open to being taken advantage of. After that we ended up talking for a few hours, until she told me that she had to go to work.
It was so strange. I'd never even met her, yet we connected so easily. It was like talking to an old friend I had known for decades.
The next day I called her back. We had settled on a price the previous day, but I was thinking we could go over some posses I was considering to highlight my jewelry the best. At least that was what I told her. Really I just wanted to talk to her again.
Four hours later I had to end the call. My phones battery was about to die and I didn't want her thinking I had hung up on her. I found myself wondering where the time had gone. We'd just kept talking and talking to each other. About everything.
She told me how she had recently moved out here with her family, and spent almost all of her time at work but planned on going to college next year. While she enjoyed the lively atmosphere at the bar, she seemed less enthusiastic about starting school. The only reason she was going was because she promised her mother she would.
She liked scary movies, but only to laugh at them, pick-up basketball games, nothing too formal, and county music. I wasn't familiar with it, but after getting off the phone immediately went to find out. Finally, some music that didn't sound like it was trying to bore you to death. Some of it was upbeat, a lot was depressing, but it all had a beat, and you could dance to it. I loved it!
In turn I told her about myself. I told her about my family; how my parents had to split up before I was born and then my mother died in childbirth and my aunt raised me. My father didn't know anything about me until I was almost eight, but by then he had moved on and I had three step sisters. Okay, so it wasn't completely the truth but it was close enough. She found it sad that I never went to live with my father, but I assured her I had a happy childhood with my Aunt, and my father and I never really bonded anyway. I couldn't really get too into it, just alluded that he wasn't the best father figure.
Staying with the almost truth theme I told her how I'd moved up here when my Aunt got married, I didn't want to crowd in on her new life, and I was staying with some old family friends. Again she seemed concerned for me, worried that I was lonely.
It was sweet.
She was sweet.
I think I liked her.
She seemed so nice and we got along so well. We would talk for hours and hours and the time would just fly by.
"You know, I feel a little silly, but we've been talking everyday for the past week, but I don't think you've ever told me your name," she said to me a few days later.
"It's Nahuel." I admitted. She was right. Somehow it hadn't even occurred to me.
…
…
…
"Are you still there?" Did we get disconnected?
"Can you take a selfie and text it to me?" she finally asked. She sounded weird. But I did as she asked. It took me a few minutes and a couple tries but I figured out how to do it with my phone… all on my own. Maybe some technology wasn't so bad. It brought me her. That was good.
A few seconds later my phone beeped letting me know she had texted back. I wonder why. I already knew what she looked like. Why hadn't she just called back?
There was only one way to find out, but her text confused me.
July 21
I dont know what kind of a game youre playing but dont ever call me again
8:11 PM
She just told me not to, but I tried calling her anyway. It went directly to voicemail.
I called again and again but she wouldn't answer her phone so I eventually left a message. "Leah I don't know what I did wrong, but whatever it is I'm sorry." Did she think I was hideous looking or something?
I was going out of my mind waiting for her to respond, but I didn't get a text back until the next day.
July 22
Try to contact me again and I will KILL you!
10:19 AM
What had I done? I didn't want to upset her, so I didn't call again.
This is what I got for trying to embrace technology. Distraught, I ended up throwing my phone in my room somewhere. I didn't even want to look at it.
A.N. So what do you think?
Thanks for reading. Please please please review.
