Fiction
Beneath This Noise, Another DAVE BARRETT
S
aturdays, April through September, Priscilla Mep sold honey out of a booth at Pike Place Market in Seattle. MEP APIARIES HONEY: from the Bees of Thomas and Priscilla Mep, P.O. Box 533, Cedar River, WA, 98017. Blackberry. Huckleberry. Fireweed and Wildflower Honey. The 1, 3 and 5 lb. jars were stacked in a neat pyramid atop an old card table: with fresh cut ferns and daisies on either side: and several dozen backup jars in an old wooden LOGGER’S DYNAMITE crate at Priscilla’s feet. The Meps were retired: Priscilla after 25 years as an elementary school teacher for the Cedar River School District, Thomas after 35 years with the U.S. Forest Service. They had one child: a 42year old son, a Professor of Entomology at the University of Iowa, recently divorced. No grandchildren.The Meps had raised bees on their five acres of land since the early days of their marriage, but it wasn’t until retirement that Thomas’s hobby morphed into a fullfledged cottage industry. It was noon, the first week of May, and business was brisk. Priscilla’s booth was at the north end of the market, midway between the two fish markets, with big warehouse windows opening on Elliott Bay a quarter mile below and plenty of foot traffic. Thomas was due to relieve Priscilla at the booth at 12:30, but already Priscilla knew he would be late. Today was the opening of Chinook salmon season. Thomas and a few of his V.F.W. buddies were meeting at a nearby Elliott Bay pier to “throw out a plug or two.” But Priscilla didn’t mind, really. The truth was Thomas was a shy man: painfully so at times. And in their business, as in life, the people side of things had fallen largely upon her. Priscilla was glad she’d worn her Pendleton wool jacket today. In spite of the clear Seattle sky, and 70-degree heat, a steady stream of frigid air had been blowing down the rows of market stalls all morning. It chilled her long elegant hands, and caused her to bury them deep into her pockets when she wasn’t shuffling jars or exacting change from an old tackle-box she’d converted into a makeshift cash register. And she’d just hoisted the tray of the tackle box to make change for a twenty-dollar bill when she caught a glimpse of them. Her new Cedar River neighbors. The young couple from Montana with the adorable three-year-old daughter. They lived across the highway from the Meps—at the end of a long old gravel road—in a tiny two-bedroom rental house fifty
Liubomir Paut-Fluerasu
NEW READER MAGAZINE
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39
