The Cork Market Letters

Letter 1

Dear James,

You left the market paperwork on the kitchen table again, so I figured I'd write instead of texting. Feels more official. You can file these with the rest of the cork market minutes and pretend your wife is organized.

Here is my report, then. The medlar cellar is doing fine. Forty crates bletted this week, which is more than anybody needs, but the guy from the cheese stall takes what the fruit stand won't. You'd think a woman who keeps rotting fruit in a hole under the handicraft row would get some respect in this town. You'd be wrong.

That sign is the whole problem, by the way. Somebody painted RESERVED PARKING on the post by the north doors, and under it, in smaller letters, HANDICRAFT. Half the vendors read it as HANDICAP and leave it alone out of politeness. The other half read it right and still don't park there, because nobody wants the fight. The spot sits empty from seven in the morning to six at night, every market day, forty feet from my cellar door while I haul crates up the stairs like a pack animal.

I have a plan. I'm not going to tell you the plan, because you're the market manager and you'd say no. I love you, but you'd say no.

Say hi to the cork people for me. Those walls made out of old wine crates still smell faintly like a vineyard, and I like it.

Kimberly

Letter 2

Dear James,

The confrontation happened. I want you to know it went well, or badly, depending on whether you were me or you.

Tuesday, market setup day. I backed my van up to the north doors at six forty, the way I have for two years, and there was Doreen from the candle stall standing next to the empty reserved spot with her arms crossed like a crossing guard.

"That's not for loading," she said.

"It's for handicrafts," I said. "I am a handicraft. I blet medlars. That's a craft and it's handicapped by these stairs."

"That's not what it means and you know it."

"I know it's been empty for two years, Doreen."

Then you came around the corner with your clipboard, thirty-seven years old and calm as a lake, and I felt that little spark go up my spine that I get when I'm about to win something or lose something big. You looked at the sign, looked at my van, looked at me.

"Kim," you said. "It's reserved."

"Reserved for whom? Nobody uses it."

"That's not the point of reserved."

"It's exactly the point of reserved. The point is somebody uses it."

You wrote something on your clipboard. You didn't raise your voice, which honestly drove me crazy, and you said the market committee would review the sign language at the next meeting. Then you carried two of my crates up the stairs for me without being asked, which also drove me crazy, and went back to your paperwork.

I sat in my cellar after and thought about how good it felt to go up against you. That's a strange thing to admit to my own husband, but here we are. There's nobody I'd rather lose an argument to, and nobody I'd rather beat.

Kimberly

Letter 3

Dear James,

Report from the field. The smoke bomb is in position.

It's an old theater prop I got off Velma for five dollars, a faded paper cylinder that's supposed to pour out purple smoke for about forty seconds. It's been sitting in the cellar next to the sulfur candles for a year. Thursday night I moved it from the cellar to behind the cork stall, the one with all the cork trivets and bulletin boards, tucked under the table skirt where nobody sweeps. When it goes off, the whole north end will clear out, the reserved spot will be unwatched, and I will make my move Friday morning. Details to follow. You don't get details. Why are you still reading.

The other thing that happened Thursday: you worked late with the fire marshal about the stove in the food row, and when you came down to the cellar at nine to tell me goodnight, you saw me surrounded by crates and looking as if I'd lost a fight with a fruit shipment, and you didn't say a word about it. You went back up and came down fifteen minutes later with a plate of the leftover sausages and onions from the food stall, still warm, and two forks.

"You didn't eat," you said, like that was the crime here.

We sat on the crate bench and ate off one plate, and you told me about the fire marshal's opinions on extension cords, and I leaned against your shoulder and forgot for a minute that I was plotting against your committee. This is getting complicated, James. The plan was simple when you weren't in it.

Kimberly

Letter 4

Dear James,

The plan failed. Write that down in the minutes.

Friday, six fifty in the morning. I lit the fuse with one of Velma's long matches, walked casually to the north doors, and waited to hear the cough and hiss of purple glory. Nothing. I waited. A dove flew out from under the cork stall and landed on the smoke bomb, which I guess had disturbed it, and then the dove just sat there, and then the bomb made a sound like a wet sneeze and emitted a thin gray curl that smelled like a burned hairbrush and drifted into the candle stall, where Doreen screamed.

So much for stealth. I hadn't even moved the van yet.

And then you were there. You came out of the office with the clipboard, looked at the smoke, looked at the dove, looked at me standing by the doors trying very hard to look like a bystander. I watched you do the math. I watched you get there.

"Kim," you said. "Did you put a smoke bomb behind the cork stall?"

"No!"

"Okay." You picked the bomb up off the ground and turned it over in your hands. Then you said the last thing I expected. You said, "Would you help me re-letter the sign? My handwriting's terrible on curves."

I stood there like an idiot. "What?"

"The sign. The R in RESERVED droops. People misread it. If we re-letter it, HANDICRAFT will be clear and nobody will call it HANDICAP, and we can settle who it's actually reserved for at the meeting, with everyone agreeing instead of guessing." You handed me the bomb. "Throw this in the bin out back?"

James, I don't know what game you're playing, or if you're playing one at all, or if you genuinely think a smoke bomb is a paint consultation. I threw the bomb in the bin. I held