Before the Fall(48)

Sarah knew all the farmers by name. She had watched their children grow from toddler to teen. She walked beside weekenders and locals, not shopping as much as feeling part of the place. They were going to catch an afternoon ferry. It would be pointless to buy more than a single peach, but she couldn’t not come to the farmers market on a Sunday morning. Those weeks when it rained and the market was canceled, she felt rootless. Back in the city, she would wander the streets like a rat in a maze, looking for something, yet never knowing exactly what.

She stopped and studied some watercress. The fight she and Ben had had after the dinner—his cold shoulder, the mid-meal walkout—had been short but fierce. She let him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to put up with his selfishness anymore. The world did not exist to satisfy the needs of Ben Kipling. And if that’s what he wanted—to surround himself with people that he could walk on as he pleased—well, then, he should find another wife.

Ben had been uncharacteristically apologetic, taking her hand and telling her she was right, that he was sorry and would make every effort to make sure it never happened again. It took her off guard. She was so used to fighting with the back of his head. But this time he looked her in the eye. He told her he knew he had taken her for granted, that he’d taken everything for granted. He’d been arrogant. Hubris was the word he used. But from here on out it was a new day. He actually looked a little scared. She took the fear to be a sign that her threat had actually landed, that he believed she would leave him and didn’t know what he would do without her. Later she would realize that he was already afraid—afraid that everything he had, everything he was, was on the verge of eclipse.

And so today, having witnessed her husband’s contrition, having lain with him in their marital bed, his head between her breasts, his hands upon her thighs, she felt a new chapter in her life begin. A renaissance. They had talked into the late-night hours of taking a month off and going to Europe. They would walk the streets of Umbria, hand in hand, newlyweds again. Sometime after midnight he had opened his mahogany box and they had smoked some pot, the first she’d smoked since Jenny was born. It made them giggle like kids, sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the open refrigerator, eating strawberries straight out of the crisper.

She wandered past English cucumbers and baskets of loose-leaf lettuces. The berry man had arranged his wares into a trinity—green baskets of blueberries grouped with blackberries and gum-red raspberries. She peeled back the rough husks of summer corn, her fingers hungry to feel the yellow silk below, lost in an illusion. Here on the Vineyard, at the farmers market, at this precise spot, in this moment in time, the modern world vanished, the unspoken division of our silent class wars. There was no rich or poor, no privilege, there was only food tugged from loamy earth, fruit plucked from sturdy branches, and honey stolen from the beehive bush. We are all equal in the face of nature, she thought—which was, in and of itself, an idea born of luxury.

Looking up, she saw Maggie Bateman in the middle distance. The moment was this: A young couple with a baby stroller passed through her center of vision and in their passing, Maggie was revealed in profile, caught in mid-sentence, and then—as the couple with the stroller cleared completely—the man she was speaking to was, himself, revealed. He was a handsome man in his forties, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, both paint-stained, the T-shirt covered by an old blue cardigan. The man had longish hair, swept back carelessly but creeping forward, and as Sarah watched he reached up and swept it back again, the way a horse swats flies with its tail, distracted.

The first thought that hit Sarah was simply recognition. She knew that person (Maggie). The second thought was context (that’s Maggie Bateman, married to David, mother of two). The third thought was that the man she was talking to was standing a little too close, that he was leaning in and smiling. And that the look on Maggie’s face was similar. That there was an intimacy between them that felt more than casual. And then Maggie turned and saw Sarah. She raised a hand and shielded her eyes from the sun, like a sailor searching the horizon.

“Hey there,” she said, and there was something about the openness of the greeting, the fact that Maggie didn’t act like a woman who’d just been caught flirting with a man who was not her husband, that made Sarah rethink her first assumption.

“I thought you might be here,” Maggie said. Then, “Oh, this is Scott.”

The man showed Sarah his palm.

“Hi,” said Sarah, then to Maggie, “Yeah, you know me. If the market’s up I’ll be here squeezing avocados, rain or shine.”

“Are you going back today?”

“The three o’clock ferry, I think.”

“Oh no. Don’t—we’ve got the plane. Come with us.”

“Really?”

“Of course. That’s what it’s—I was just telling Scott. He’s got to go into the city tonight too.”

“I was thinking of walking,” said Scott.

Sarah frowned.

“We’re on an island.”

Maggie smiled.

“Sarah. He’s kidding.”

Sarah felt herself flush.

“Of course.”

She forced a laugh.

“I’m such a ditz sometimes.”

“So that’s it,” said Maggie. “You have to come. Both of you. And Ben. It’ll be fun. We can have a drink and, I don’t know, talk about art.”