And then, the bread.
Bread everywhere. Ciabatta and bagels and rustic peasant loaves. Sourdough and buckwheat and pretzel twists. Not to mention sweeter baked goods like pies and lemon-blueberry pound cakes.
I had stopped to look closer—purely business interest—when the scent of forests and rain blended with the almost steamy aroma of freshly-baked bread, and a warm presence loomed behind my shoulder.
“I knew you’d want some,” Berron said.
“Yeah, yeah, like it takes a genius to know I love bread.” I took my time turning around, only to find him waving a hot soft pretzel at me, studded with gems of salt.
He took a bite and rolled his eyes in a dramatic show of ecstasy, moaning aloud to really drive home the effect.
“Give me that.” I seized his wrist and pulled the pretzel closer, pulling Berron closer, too. Gave me a better look at his corduroy blazer, thick multicolored knitted scarf—Poppy again—and the cranberry felt fedora perched at a rakish angle on his dark locks.
He looked good and he knew it.
I tore a hunk of pretzel off with my teeth.
“Like it?”
“Mm,” I said, shortly, not willing to show how much I liked it. We walked on, passing the pretzel back and forth.
“They make really good sourdough, too. Hundred-year-old mother.”
I laughed. “Older than mine. She showed up today, by the way. Out of nowhere. Said she wanted to ‘visit.’”
“‘Showed up’? As inhere?”
“Yes, here. At the shop. She’s going to stay with Poppy and me.”
“Is she on vacation or something?”
“Oh, no, nothing that normal. She just decided to show up… and here she is.”
“I thought you two weren’t that close.”
“We love each other, but we’re just sodifferent.” I shook my head, shook away the thoughts. “We should get back to Gramercy Park.”
“What’s the rush?” He gestured toward the market, a move that seemed to encompass all the baked goods that could be sampled and shared.
“‘What’s the rush?’” I punched his arm. “Let’s just let those plants overgrow everything. That’s not suspicious atall.”
Berron shrugged. “So there’s plants on the buildings. So what?”
“Green plants halfway to winter draw attention, especially when they’re literally climbing the walls. You don’t want attention. You want to stay hidden in your nice pocket universe, not have a bunch of maniacs trying to exploit it or take it over or burn it down.”
Berron’s brow contracted, and his lower lip edged slightly out.
“Why are you pouting?” I said.
“ I wish—”
“You wish what?”
“I wish it were different. Everything green in this city is hemmed in. No one grows anything here. When you want real food you have to have it trucked in from hours away.”
“What do you want, a farm? The days when Sheep Meadow was actually a meadow filled with sheep are long gone.”
Berron stopped at an organic apple-seller. He picked up a large, red apple. “I want to see the tree this came from. I want to lie down under the shade of its branches. I want to drink from the stream that watered it and I want to pick the fruit with my own hands.”
