A Second Bite at the Apple (16 page)

If there is an upside to my being the third wheel on Heidi's date with Sam, it is that I have an easy excuse to leave early and crawl into bed by ten o'clock. It being the first weekend in April, the Dupont farmers' market now opens at eight thirty in the morning, meaning I need to meet Rick by seven at the latest. I could pretend this is the reason I'm in pajamas at ten on a Saturday night, but let's be honest: I was doing this long before I ever heard of Rick or Wild Yeast Bakery.

The next morning I show up five minutes ahead of schedule, wandering up Twentieth Street in the dull morning light, the sky a muted gray. To my surprise, I've arrived before both Rick and Heidi, so I sit on the edge of the curb, pulling the sleeves of my charcoal gray sweatshirt over my hands to keep warm in the chilled spring air.

“Did you get everything you needed Friday?” asks a voice over my right shoulder.

I glance up and see Maggie standing above me. I get to my feet and rub my hands together. “I did. Thanks.”

“When do you think it'll be online?”

“By the end of the week. I think we're aiming for Friday.”

“Very cool.”

I'm about to ask whether Drew is working today, but before I can, Rick's truck charges down the street, the wheels rattling and clanking as Rick attempts—unsuccessfully—to maneuver around all the potholes. He careens toward his station like some sort of wild cowboy, and Maggie and I jump out of the way as he races headfirst into his parking spot.

“Morning, ladies,” he grunts as he rolls out of the front seat. He tosses the stub of his cigarette to the ground and stomps it out with his foot as he hikes up his pants. “Where's your blond friend?”

Given that Heidi has worked for him for more than two years, I don't know why he insists on referring to her as “your blond friend.” Then again, “your blond friend” is better than “Tits McGee,” one of his other favorite epithets.

“She'll be here any second,” I say, unsure if this is true. If I had to guess, she spent the night with Sam, so her ETA could be any time between now and never.

“Likely story,” he says. He unlocks the back of the truck and sends the door flying upward with a loud rip. “C'mon, sweet cheeks. Let's get this party started.”

Maggie heads back to her stand, and I help Rick unload the cases of bread and pastries. He rattles off the new items at market this week—almond poppy seed muffins, rhubarb streusel tea cakes, asparagus and goat cheese quiche—and instructs me to push the olive bread because it didn't sell well yesterday and he needs to move it.

“Any luck with getting an intern or two from L'Academie?”

He heaves the cashbox onto the center table. “Yeah, actually. Hired two guys yesterday.” He sneers. “Let's see how long they last.”

“At least you'll have a few extra hands.”

“Assuming they don't screw everything up,” he says. “But yeah. It'll help. Especially since this Green Grocers thing looks like it might actually happen.”

“That's what I heard, too.”

He throws a crate of cookies next to a rectangular wicker basket. “I'll believe it when I see it.”

I unload the almond poppy seed muffins into a cloth-lined basket, and their sweet, vaguely nutty perfume fills the air. Unlike his sturdy raisin bran muffins, which are dense, dark, and chockablock with plump raisins, the almond poppy seed muffins are delicate and cakey, their crumb so light and tender they threaten to float right out of the basket. When Rick isn't looking, I sneak a bite of one of the broken muffin tops, and before I know it I've eaten the entire thing, the flavor as rich as the texture is light, bursting with sweet almond essence.

“You have crumbs on your face.”

Heidi throws her canvas bag beneath one of the tables as I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. “Where have you been?”

“Sam's place.”

“Predictably.”

She grins. “Oh, come on. You met him last night. He's cool, right?”

“He is. That said, you don't exactly have the best track record.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Pots and kettles, my friend . . .”

“Hey, your dubious track record is much longer than mine.”

“At least I never dated someone who made national headlines for some journalism scandal.”

“What about Drew? You're the one who set me up with him because he's supposedly ‘nice.' ”

“He is nice.” She casts a sideways glance as she places a sign in front of the rhubarb streusel cakes. “Speak of the devil . . .”

I look up and see Drew ambling toward our tent, his hands tucked into the center pocket of his hooded navy sweatshirt. His stubble appears about as thick as it did on Friday, which makes me wonder how much effort must go into maintaining a vaguely unkempt appearance. He hunches his shoulders and smiles sheepishly as he stops in front of my table, leaning back on his heels.

“Hey,” he says. “Apologies about last night. Heidi told you about my grandma?”

“She did. I'm so sorry. Is she okay?”

He waves his hand back and forth. “Unclear. She's improved since yesterday, but she's been in poor health for a while now, and she's eighty-seven. We have to be realistic.”

“I'm sure Maggie would give you a pass on working the market today, given the circumstances.”

“Honestly? Hospitals really freak me out. The docs don't think the end is as imminent as they did yesterday, so I'm happy to have an excuse to do something else for a few hours.” He brings his hands out from within his pocket, one of them clasped around a fat golden apple with a light pink blush. He tosses it back and forth between his hands. “But I feel really bad about bailing on last night, so I was thinking . . . What are you doing after the market?”

My heart flutters. “Finishing up this week's newsletter and editing more of the cold storage video. But that's about it.”

“Wanna grab a cup of coffee or something? I have to head back to the hospital at three, but we could hang for a bit before that.”

My palms begin to sweat. Part of me felt relieved when he didn't show up last night. There was no reason to feel guilty anymore for dating behind Jeremy's back, and I didn't have to choose between them. But my parents aren't the only ones who hope I find Zach 2.0. Part of me hopes so too, and at this point, Jeremy has a lot more cons going for him than Drew does. And besides, we'd only be having coffee. What's the harm in an innocent coffee?

“Sure—coffee sounds great,” I say, with so much enthusiasm I fool even myself.

 

Heidi and I finish packing up the truck after the market is over, and Rick slips us each one hundred dollars.

“Those poppy seed muffins were unreal,” I say. “They were seriously some of the best muffins I've ever eaten in my life.”

“They're basically cake,” he says.

“Call them whatever you want. I could eat a whole batch in a single sitting.”

“But then you wouldn't have that cute ass,” he says, flashing his tobacco-stained smile. He clears his throat as he heads back toward the truck and spits a huge hunk of mucus onto the ground. The man has a seemingly inexhaustible repertoire for making my skin crawl.

As Rick seals up the truck, Drew wanders over, a big crate of apples resting on his arms. “Today's leftovers, courtesy of Maggie.”

Heidi's blue eyes brighten. “Come to mama,” she says, waving Drew in her direction.

She grabs a dozen and tosses them into a plastic bag, and I do the same. “So where are we heading?” I ask Drew.

Heidi tucks her bag of apples into one of her totes. “Who's heading where?”

“Sydney and I are going to grab a quick cup of coffee,” he says, his eyes shifting between the two of us. “You're welcome to join us, if you want.”

“Oh—no. I'm . . . Never mind. You two have fun.”

She gives me a gentle nudge and waves to Drew before disappearing behind Rick's truck.

“So where to?” I say.

“If it's okay with you, I wanted to drop these apples at my apartment first. I live just off Columbia Road on Biltmore.”

“Sure. Isn't that right by Tryst? We could go there after.”

“Perfect,” he says.

I grab my bag and head up Connecticut Avenue with Drew, breathing in the fresh spring air as I huff and puff my way past Dupont Circle's myriad shops and cafés. The walk from the market to Drew's apartment in Adams Morgan is mostly uphill, and though I try to conceal my acute lack of fitness, it quickly becomes clear I possess the athleticism and vigor of a Care Bear.

“You okay?” Drew asks as we pass a French café on Columbia Road, whose tables spill onto the sidewalk around it, each one filled with young Washingtonians enjoying their Sunday brunch.

“Fine,” I pant, calculating how much farther we have to go until we reach his apartment. We've been walking for about fifteen minutes, so by my estimation, we have about another block ahead of us.

We pass a few more restaurants and cafés and round the corner onto Drew's street, which is just one block shy of the infamous intersection between Eighteenth Street and Columbia Road. That's where the rowdy strip of bars on Eighteenth begins, as if a slice of Miami Beach somehow made it to Washington, DC. On Saturday nights, cars and raucous crowds fill the streets and sidewalks, as the intoxicated masses make their way from one bar to the next.

Drew's building is an eight-story brick structure, dappled with air-conditioning units, which jut out from the windows like pushbuttons. He leads me beneath the green awning above the entrance and into the sparsely adorned lobby, which looks as if it hasn't been updated since 1979. We ride the elevator to his studio apartment on the fourth floor, and when I step inside, I think, for a moment, that I have entered a seventeen-year-old boy's bedroom. Random socks and T-shirts litter the floor of the apartment, and empty glasses and dirty plates cover his coffee table, whose blond wooden surface is streaked with coffee and wine stains. I had thought Drew carefully constructed his haphazard appearance, but given the state of his apartment, I am seriously questioning that assumption.

“Sorry the place is kind of a mess,” Drew says as he kicks what appears to be a crumpled wad of tinfoil beneath his futon. “I didn't expect to have company.”

“That's okay. . . .”

I notice a pizza box sitting on a side table and wonder how long it has been there.

Drew nods toward the futon. “Have a seat. I'm just going to throw these apples in the fridge.”

I push aside an old T-shirt and sit down as I survey the rest of his apartment. A large, grid-shaped bookcase stands across from the futon, lined with books on US history and environmental policy, with a few books by Tom Friedman thrown into the mix. I also notice several framed photos of Drew dressed up as various animals: Drew as polar bear, Drew as moose, Drew as wolf, Drew as seal. I grab the framed photo on the table beside me, next to the pizza box, in which he appears to be dressed as some sort of whale.

“That's me as a beluga,” he says, sitting beside me on the futon.

“As in the caviar?”

“No. I mean, yeah, the name is the same, but caviar comes from beluga sturgeon. That's me as a beluga whale.”

“Right. Sorry. Dumb question.”

“Can you guess which beluga whale I am?” He raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“There's more than one kind . . . ?”

He widens his eyes. “Uh . . . yeah. There are like twenty-nine subpopulations.”

I hunch my shoulders. “You've got me. Which kind?”

“Cook Inlet. There are only like four hundred of them left in Alaska. They're on the critically endangered list.”

“So . . . what's with all the other animal costumes?”

“That's part of my job.”

“Your job is to dress up like animals?”

“Well, I mean, that isn't the main part of the job. Most of the time I work on conservation issues. But at fundraisers and stuff, I dress up as animals to increase donor interest.”

“Oh.” I glance down again at the photo of him dressed as a beluga whale. “So what's your favorite costume, then?”

He scratches his chin. “Tough call. The polar bear tends to get everyone pretty excited. And most people can't pass up a good sea otter. We all agreed the porcupine was a mistake.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah, that didn't go over so well. And some of the costumes are kind of uncomfortable. The sandpiper was pretty tough because of the beak.”

I start to laugh, but stop myself when I notice Drew isn't smiling. I clear my throat. “I can see how that would be . . . difficult.”

He takes another glance around the apartment. “So should we head to Tryst?”

“Sure,” I say, happy to relocate to someplace that doesn't make me question his hygiene.

We head down Eighteenth Street, passing all of the bars that twelve hours ago were probably packed to the brim with drunk twenty-somethings. The façades of the buildings burst with color—red, blue, gray, yellow—and a few are covered by giant murals, from the bawdy, redheaded “Madam's Organ” to the scarf-clad Frenchman à la Toulouse-Lautrec. Adams Morgan always reminds me of a girl you might meet one night at a bar who comes across as vibrant and wild and fun but who, the next morning in the daylight, seems a little worn, a little garish, a little partied out. The sidewalks around me are littered with receipts, gum wrappers, and grease-stained paper plates, remnants of the so-called Jumbo Slice, a culinary abomination in the form of an oily piece of pizza the size of one's torso.