Fruit Slinger

"Those black raspberries aren't for sale, are they?"

"No, sorry. They've been set aside for a restaurant."

She looked disappointed. "But take a look at that table on the end," I told her. "We have a lot of black raspberries out for sale."

"Yeah, I know," she said. She scrunched up her face a little bit and walked toward the berries on the table.

"But these don't look as good," she said.

I didn't say anything. But she did.

"Why don't these look as good?" she asked. "Why do those over there look better?" She pointed at the ones set aside for the restaurant.

"Honestly, if I tell you why those look better, do you promise not to get mad?" I was clearly delirious from lack of sleep.

She was waiting for the answer, so I continued: "Those look better because I told you that you can't have them."

Her husband let a smile creep onto his face.

"The ones here are probably in better shape," I said. "Because we go through them all before we put them out on the table."

She wasn't convinced. She fussed over the berries. I would pick a pint, she would screw up her face a bit, her husband would tell her they were all the same, she would pick a pint, and then the next pint she picked after that would be the one I had picked a pint before.

She went back and forth but decided to get 9 pints of berries —4 pints of red raspberries, 4 pints of black raspberries, and then one pint that was half and half. I told her that for what we would charge for 9 pints, she was better off just getting the full flat of 12 pints. It would come out to less.

"And then, you know, if you can't use them all right away, you can freeze them," I said.

"You can't freeze these!" she exclaimed. "They're not like blueberries!"

I flashed to the raspberries in my freezer in years past. I guess if no one tells you it's impossible, you just start doing wild, impetuous things — like freezing black raspberries!

Shortly after this a woman went through I-don't-know-how-many pints of cherries to find a quart or two with the stems still on so that she could brandy them. "You have to brandy them with the stems on," she said. I flashed to the cherries I brandied a few weeks back — stemless, all of them!

Again, I had to feel lucky I didn't know I couldn't do that.

An hour later, a woman I had never seen before in my life showed me her vacation photos. I mean, not all of them. Just like a dozen. Which is a dozen more than I might show a total stranger.

But what do I know? I'm the one brandying stemless cherries and freezing raspberries.