Mindy set her canvas bags filled with produce on the concrete floor of the farmer’s market while Damandeep counted out her change.
It seemed like a simple thing, setting one’s bags on the ground, but this was a bit of an innovation for Mindy.
Very soon after moving to Dunnock Bay, she became absorbed in the farmer’s market culture. Mindy had only ever been to a farmer’s market while on vacation or as a novel something to do on a sleepy Saturday morning. Life in Dunnock Bay seemed to revolve around the farmer’s market, and Mindy loved it.
The only problem—one which seemed to be unique to Mindy—was she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands while exchanging money for goods.
Her first purchase of the day wasn’t so hard. She often bought bread from Dieter, whose stall was right near the market’s front doors. Open bag, insert bread, hand Dieter cash: no problem. After a few more purchases, she had two or three heavy, full bags. Handing someone money meant shifting all the bags to one hand, which was a lot of weight to manage. And even then, if she needed two hands to manipulate change or dig into a pocket for something, it just felt like chaos.
For a while, she started looping the full bags around her forearm, giving herself two open hands, but the straps dug into her skin and just reminded her there had to be a better way.
It was Damandeep who one week saw her struggling and offered a simple solution.
“Why don’t you just set your bags down?” she had said.
And of course, it made perfect sense once she said it out loud. Mindy felt a little silly she hadn’t thought of it herself. It wasn’t as if some nefarious villain was waiting to rush up and steal her bag of cabbage and baguette. Once she became a keen setter-downer of full grocery bags, she became a much happier market patron.
Damandeep handed Mindy her change—a twoonie and a loonie. Mindy grabbed a paper bag filled with heirloom tomatoes from the scale and carefully tucked it into one of her canvas bags.
“Have a nice week, Mindy,” said Damandeep with a smile.
“You too!” said Mindy. “Maybe I’ll see you at the library?”
“Yes!” said Damandeep. “It’s knitting club week! See you Wednesday.”
“See you then!”
Mindy picked up her bags and walked up the bustling aisle.
Damandeep was Mindy’s last stop in the market, and she’d made it through this morning in fairly record time, despite being a little later than usual. She looked at her watch. It was already past eleven. The day was getting away from her.
Mindy smiled at a few familiar faces as she pushed through the crowd towards the door. When she stepped outside, she stopped and let the mid-day sun shine on her face.
What a beautiful day.
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. The smell of early June was delicious. Absolutely everything was growing. Life overflowed around her, with birdsong in the rustling leaves and a faint smell of the ocean on the breeze. It was a lovely moment of peace in the middle of her busy day of scheduled errands.
“Mindy, hi!” interrupted a male voice into her private moment.
Mindy opened her eyes and looked around. In the warmer months, the market overflowed to its side yard with many farm and craft booths set up under awnings. Picnic tables dotted the landscape, with familiar folks from around town enjoying a meal or coffee together. She scanned the crowd, trying to find who was calling her name and spotted a single gentleman sitting alone at a picnic table in the open sun. He smiled and waved at her, beckoning her to his table.
It was Lars Nilsen.
It wasn’t unusual to bump into an acquaintance at the market and fall into an impromptu visit or lunch together. What was unusual was for it to be the number one chess player on the planet.
“Come, sit!” he said, motioning to the empty seat across from him.
Mindy smiled and approached his table. She didn’t mean to linger at the market today, but she could afford a few minutes for a world champion.
“Hi, Lars,” she said. “How are you?”
“Great!” he said. He gestured around himself. “The sun, the breeze, the smell of the sea. What more could we want? Please. Sit!”
“Thank you,” she said, setting her bags in the shade of a nearby tree. “I will. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you without Muriel.”
“Ah, I left her working on a handful of chess puzzles,” he said. “Older than 80, and she has a stamina for tactics I can barely keep up with. Do you like tea?” He held up a plastic thermos. “I made lemon tea this morning.”
“I do,” she said. “Thank you. That sounds lovely.”
Lars poured hot, fragrant tea into the lid of the thermos and set it in front of her.
“You’re just in time for matpakke,” he said with a bit of a mischievous grin.
“My Norwegian is a bit rusty,” she said. “You’re going to have to help me with that one.”
“I think, in English, it’s ‘food package’, but it just means lunch,” he said. “Care to join me?”
“I would be delighted,” she said.
“Good,” he said with a sparkle in his eye.
It was just this moment Mindy realized how nice-looking Lars was. How had she not noticed this before, in all the hours he’d spent in her library these past few weeks playing chess with Muriel?
Lars explained about the ritual of matpakke in his native Norway. No one needs to put much thought to lunch, since it’s identical every day. A few slices of good bread made into simple, open-faced sandwiches with cheese, meat or pâté, and a few fresh veggies.
“Easy to eat, easy to carry, and always a bit of a disappointment,” he said, laying out a few slices of Dieter’s hearty bread.
He looked up at Mindy’s face, who looked concerned by his description.
“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s a joke. Matpakke is very tasty, if a bit predictable. Luckily, your market has everything we need for a very passable matpakke. Do you eat meat?”
Mindy nodded.
Lars smiled again. There was that sparkle.
“Good!” he said. “You’ll like this.”
He withdrew a small plastic tub from one of his shopping bags and removed the lid. The smooth, brownish pâté had a smell of warm spices, like all-spice and cinnamon.
“Your market butcher doesn’t have leverpostei, which is a real shame,” he explained. “What can you say about a culture that doesn’t eat liver pâté? But there’s a nice Acadien lady who introduced me to corton. Which is nice also in its own way. Here, try some.”
He spread a thin layer of spiced pork pâté on a slice of Dieter’s heavy sourdough bread. He dug into his bag and pulled out a tomato.
“Oh, you have to let me step in here,” said Mindy.
She jumped up to grab one of her own bags from beneath the tree and returned with one of Damandeep’s heirloom tomatoes.
“No offence to Jerry’s tomatoes,” she said, gesturing to the ripe red specimen Lars held in his hand. “But they cannot hold a candle to Damandeep’s.”
She offered him the fruit: oddly misshapen and variegated different shades of purple. He leaned his head in deference.
“You’re the expert,” he said.
He took the tomato and sliced it thinly on top of the corton. From his bag, he pulled out a tiny plastic container of salt, which he sprinkled atop of Mindy’s sandwich.
“For you,” he said, offering it to her.
“Why, thank you,” she said, receiving it graciously.
“Please, go ahead,” said Lars. “I’d hate for you to wait. I’ll make one for me, too.”
Mindy took a bite. It was simple and tasty. The corton was a bit surprising in its flavours, but she enjoyed it. She wasn’t used to this type of spice mixture in meat, but it was pleasant and warm. The acidity of the tomato balanced it nicely. Any more of any one ingredient, and it would have been too much. Even a second slice of bread would have felt over-complicated.
“So?” said Lars, spreading corton on his own slice of bread.
“Hardly disappointing at all,” she said.
Lars laughed.
Mindy put her sandwich down and took a sip of tea.
“Oh, that’s nice too,” she said. “Fresh lemon. That’s nice.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it,” said Lars.
Mindy held her teacup and thought for a moment.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course,” he said, slicing tomato onto his sandwich.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
Lars smiled again and sprinkled a bit of salt on his sandwich.
“I’m enjoying lunch in the sun with a new friend,” he said.
“No, really,” said Mindy. “Like, the world’s number one chess player. Surely there’s some chess tournament in Madrid or something you should be at. Not here on this little island, eating lunch with a librarian.”
Lars held his smile and looked at her.
“Zagreb,” he said.
Mindy tilted her head.
“Sorry?”
“The tournament,” he said. “It’s in Zagreb. In Croatia.”
He took a bite of sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing.
“I sent my regrets,” he said.
“But why, though?” he said.
He shrugged.
“OK,” he said. “It’s a fair question. Look, I’m not trying to brag, but I’ve been the best chess player in the world for 15 years. There are a lot of great players who have come in that time, and some of them have surged at times to be very good. But in the end, I’m still on top. And over that time, things can get a bit…”
“Boring?” suggested Mindy.
“Not boring, exactly,” said Lars. “Repetitive. There are a lot of different styles of chess, but I tend to see the same group of players, saying the same style of chess, every time I sit down at a board. But something happened a few months ago at a Tournament Tuesday I’d never expected. I was paired against a little old lady, from a place I’d never heard of, and she played a style of chess I’d truly never experienced before. And she beat me.”
Mindy gasped.
“Muriel,” she said in a whisper.
“Muriel,” he confirmed. “After that tournament, I felt something I don’t think I’ve truly felt since I was a teenager. I was afraid.”
“Afraid… of Muriel?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m no super genius. But I know chess. When I close my eyes, I see chess. When I sleep, I see chess. Even now, as we’re talking, I see chess. But what Muriel does with 16 pieces? I’ve never seen it before, and I don’t understand it. I knew I had to drop everything and seek her out.”
“So you came to Dunnock Bay…”
“Yes,” he said. “I had a hard time finding it on a map, to be honest! But I have had a wonderful time playing with her, learning from her, living with her. She is a terrible cook, by the way. Please don’t ever tell her this.”
Mindy laughed.
“But I am having a wonderful time here, having fun playing chess for the first time in years. And,” he said, motioning to the crowd of people sitting and eating all around them, “I get to spend some time in a place where no one knows me. Where no one hounds me for autographs. Where I can choose to eat my matpakke all by myself, if I feel like it. Or, I can invite Mindy to enjoy it with me.”
Mindy blushed slightly, in spite of herself.
“It’s a nice place, this Dunnock Bay,” he said.
Mindy smiled.
“It sure is,” she said.
“So the question is,” said Lars, slicing a bit more tomato onto his sandwich. “Mindy enjoyed a not entirely disappointing lunch with me. Will she join me for supper as well? For a real date?”
Mindy sat up straight.
“Oh!” she said. “I… um….”
Gasp! Mindy!
Thanks for hanging out with me in Dunnock Bay again this week. It really is lovely this time of year.
Be sure to also check out my weekly newsletter The Quack where I have a lot of fun writing about not much at all.
Have a great week. <3 Davy
Mindy and Lars, can this really be happening?
As always, a great start to Sunday!
"Twoonie"? Not "toonie"? I am intrigued and questioning my spelling now... loving my weekly dose of Dunnock Bay, thank you for the lovely escape each Sunday morning.