Billy surveyed the contents of the truck bed with his lantern. Strawberries and lettuces and summer squash. Tomatoes and basil. Buckets and buckets of flowers. Three wooden folding tables and some canvas tarps. A cashbox and two scales. “Looks like we’re all set,” he said.

He hopped down and dangled the keys toward Liz. “You or me?”

“You there, me on the way back?”

He nodded and got into the driver’s seat. I didn’t know what to do—whether Liz would want to sit next to Billy or whether she’d prefer to avoid the narrow middle seat.

“Go ahead,” she told me. So I did. I pushed a first-aid kit under the seat to clear space for my feet and Liz climbed in after me. Billy, me, and Liz, our shoulders touching as I knew they would. She handed me a thermos for Billy and a thermos for me and shut the door. Billy started the engine and rolled down the drive. Liz jumped out to open the gate and then closed it behind us.

“It takes about forty-five minutes,” she told me as Billy turned onto Highway One. She reached across my body to turn on some music. Out of the speakers came a man’s voice, raspy and calm. He sang like he was tired, and Billy drove us up the coast as we sipped our coffees and the sun rose.

___

Mendocino greeted us with its tiny business district, its weathered fences and pristine bed-and-breakfasts, its narrow streets and wildflowers and bluffs overlooking crashing waves. Billy and Liz said hi to the other vendors as we passed them—some older farmers, a few people our age. “This is Mila,” they said, over and over, and told me the vendors’ names and what goods they were known for. We set up the tables and the tent cover, and then it was time to unload the truck. Out to the street and back, over and over, buckets and crates in our arms. We walked carefully, over the curb and through the market, but when we were almost finished Liz tripped over our neighbor’s tent pole and fell, holding tight to her bucket of flowers. I set mine down and took the bucket from her so that she could stand.

“Shit. Are they okay?” she asked. Half of her shirt was soaked, but the flowers were unharmed.

“Yeah, they’re fine,” I said. “Are you?”

“Yeah.” But she grimaced and tugged down one side of her jeans. She’d scraped her hip. I remembered the first-aid kit from the truck, so I grabbed the keys from Billy and ran to get it. I came back to find her sitting on a folding chair with a bag of ice from the cheese stand. I showed her the kit. She nodded.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I told her.

“I’ll just ice it for a couple more minutes first,” she said.