I put on some red lipstick, looked myself over in the mirror one last time, and took a deep breath. Maisie stood up on her back legs and pawed at my calf.
“You’re right. No need to be nervous. If we’re not ready now, we never will be. Let’s go.”
The Portland Saturday Market was founded in 1974 by two women: artists who envisioned a nonprofit, open-air venue where artisans could sell handmade crafts and food items. In the early years, the market was smaller and more free-form in terms of setup. Now, it’s a well-oiled machine.
Every Saturday from March through Christmas, vendors line up early, awaiting the seven o’clock allocation of over 250 eight foot by eight foot booth spaces, before setting up their booths and organizing their displays in time for the ten o’clock opening.
Maisie and I arrived at Waterfront Park just before seven, got our booth allocation, and were back at the car by seven thirty. The flat bed dolly that Luke had loaned me made hauling everything a lot easier. Between display tables, a chair, a tent, my sign, a cash box, Maisie’s dog bed, and all my products, there was a lot to carry. Besides the dresses and skirts, my booth would also carry dog jackets. That, too, was Luke’s suggestion.
When I called Nan and offered to sell the jackets for Rainbow Gate if she’d split the cost of the booth, she was thrilled. Thinking it would be good marketing, I quickly stitched up a new dress for myself and matching jacket for Maisie. Pairing my dress with the red pumps was probably not the most practical choice—by the end of the day my feet were killing me—but I felt pretty and fresh and happy in my new dress. Judging from the way Maisie pranced around in her little jacket, I think she felt the same.
The pop-up shade tent I’d found used on Craig’s List turned out to be trickier to set up than I’d anticipated. Lucky for me, Diane, one of the other vendors, who’d been selling her ceramics at the market for nearly ten years, stopped and gave me a hand. I was ready by nine fifteen, but when I looked around at my neighbors’ booths my heart sank. Compared to the other vendors, my display—a wheeled clothing rack and table, where I’d laid out the dog jackets—was kind of primitive and not very conducive to encouraging sales.
As I was rearranging everything for the fourth time, Luke arrived, carrying a white paper bag and a cardboard coffee tray with two cups.
“Well, hi,” I said, smiling as he approached. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I couldn’t miss your debut, could I? Thought you might need a little sustenance,” he said, reaching into the bag and pulling out two fresh, flaky chocolate croissants, then handing one to me. “I brought lattes, too, just plain. I wasn’t sure what flavor you liked.”
I bit into a croissant and groaned with pleasure.
“Oh. So good,” I said, taking a grateful slurp of my latte. “I woke up late and didn’t have time for breakfast. Once again, Luke Pascal saves the day. Thank you.”
Maisie yipped and pawed at Luke’s pant leg.
“Maisie!” I scolded. “Stop that. Have some manners.”
“It’s okay,” Luke said, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a little plastic bag. “She just smells the leftover chicken. I thought Maisie might need some breakfast too.”
He fed Maisie a tiny piece of chicken and I shook my head. “Luke, you think of everything.”
“I try.”
While Maisie scarfed down the rest of the chicken, I showed Luke around the booth, sharing my concerns about displaying my merchandise.
“You can’t really see anything unless you actually come into the booth,” I said.
“I was thinking about that a couple of nights ago,” Luke replied. “Can I borrow the dolly?”
“Sure. It’s yours anyway. But why do you need it?”
“You’ll see. Be back in a flash.”
A flash turned out to be twenty minutes. The closer it got to ten, the more anxious I felt, so nervous and preoccupied that I kept looking at my wristwatch, forgetting about the frozen hands.
Even so, as the minutes I couldn’t track ticked by, the doubts returned. What if no one bought anything? What if, at the end of the day, I had to take home every one of these dresses and skirts? Okay, sure, I could give them away. But . . . then what? When I woke up this morning and remembered the dream, I’d felt so certain that everything would be fine, that Jamie had returned to give me his blessing. But that could have been wishful thinking, couldn’t it? After all, it was only a dream. If Jamie had been there, what would he really have thought about all this?
I stopped fussing with the hangers and closed my eyes. Always in the past, it had been easy to imagine Jamie’s response to any number of questions or observations, but today he was silent. His expression was blank and his features less clear to me than before. Was I losing my memory of him? Or just his approval?
“Grace? Are you okay?”
My eyes flew open. I fumbled with the hanger, nearly dropping the dress before finally placing it back onto the rack. “I’m fine. I was just . . . thinking.”
I turned around. Luke was standing next to the dolly, which was loaded with a weird-looking assortment of lumber, hooks, and other odds and ends, and looking very pleased with himself.
“What’s all this?”
“Your new display system,” he said, and started unloading the cart.
The weird assortment of lumber turned out to be a pegboard that hung at the back of the booth, with hooks that would hold three dog jackets each, all at eye level, and two revolving wooden clothes trees with four screw-in arms that held a half-dozen dresses each, all face-out so they were easy to see.
Luke finished assembling everything quickly, then took down the unneeded
