Tradition. It's all very well to have a tradition but not when it interferes with what I want to do. My parents run a market garden and we also have a couple of orchards. That means that when the harvest season rolls around we're awash with fruit and vegetables.
This is not a problem. The big chain stores take all we can provide. The problem is my father. "We've always had a stall out on the road selling fresh fruit and vegetable to the passing traffic," he said. "I see no reason to stop now."
"Um, dad, the passing traffic now passes us doing a hundred down the new highway. We can't stick up a fruit stall out on the highway and no-one uses the old road anymore."
"Yes they do. We do, for a start, and so all the other locals."
That might be true but they don't use it often and they don't stop to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Why would they? Most of them grow their own.
My father would not be swayed. We'd always had a stall and we were going to have one this year. Why was I so against it? I knew who'd be stuck out on that stall all by herself, waiting for customers who wouldn't be coming. Can you think of a worse job for an eighteen year old who wanted to be out and about?
It wasn't that I didn't already have a job, working Monday through Friday, in a perfectly normal job working for one of the fashionable boutiques in the mall in town. I didn't need the pittance that my father would pay me for working the stall on the weekends. Hopefully, the total lack of sales would help convince him that we were wasting our time with a stall. I'd already suggested that he just put a sign on the gate and if anyone was interested they'd drive down to the house. Too advanced an idea for his thinking. It wasn't the traditional way of doing things.
So there I was on a Saturday afternoon, a hot Saturday afternoon, stuck out working the stall by the side of the old main road. All by my lonesome. Not that I couldn't summon help if I needed it. That's the advantages of mobile phones. I could have a message sent in a flash and two big men on motorbikes would be there to assist within minutes. These two big men were my brothers.
Why weren't they out tending the stall? Why have a petite young thing out there selling the produce? Tell me, who are you more likely to stop for? The petite young thing with the pretty face and charming smile or a great hulk standing over six foot tall, shoulders like a bull, dressed in black leather, standing next to a wicked black motorbike? That's what I thought. That's also what my father thought so there I was.
How much traffic had I seen? Well, there was my father when he dropped me off and set up the stall. An hour after that old Mister Smith, ninety plus and blind as a bat, drove slowly past. Since then, nothing, and I was bored, bored, bored. To think I enjoyed the job when I was younger. (Before the new main road, with lots of cars stopping and quite a bit of stimulating flirtation.)
Nowadays it was Dullsville on steroids. On second thoughts scratch the steroids. They would have been too exciting for Dullsville. I just wanted something to happen.
I could hear a car coming. It was a station wagon and I was prepared to wager that it would drive right past without stopping. Here it came and there it went. I'd had a win. Surprise, surprise.
Then I did get a surprise because the car slowed down, stopped, and reversed back up me, pulling next to my stall, and the two men inside got out. The men, I noticed, were looking at me rather than at the stall.
That wasn't a surprise. The stall was old and worn. I was young and pretty and dressed for the weather, and the weather was hot. Since the stall provided shade if I needed it I didn't need clothes that would prevent heatstroke or sunburn. All I was wearing was a pair of shorts, and they were called short for a reason, and a t-shirt that had seen better days but was comfortable and fitted me as though fitted. That was because I'd bought it when I was a little less developed than I am now and my, ah, feminine attributes had sort of moulded the material as they grew. That top was the best thing out for showing cleavage without actually showing any cleavage. It seemed to have a way of attracting the attention of the boys, not that I was objecting.
Not that the two men who got out of the car could be described as boys. Men, definitely, older than my brothers but just as big and muscular, and that's saying something. I had my phone in my hand in case I needed to send an urgent message when I recognized them. They were Jimmy and Andy Smith, old Mr Smith's grandsons. Old Mr Smith officially owned the property but these two effectively ran it.
"If you're looking for your grandfather," I said, "he went that away, about two hours ago."
"No, that's all right. We have an arrangement with the cops. If he gets lost they'll give him a beer and give us a call and we'll go pick him up."
"I'm surprised he's still allowed to drive, at his age," I observed.
Andy laughed. "He's not. His licence has been cancelled and he's been warned about driving without a licence. Doesn't stop him. He just claims that he's forgotten he'd lost his licence, lying old bugger. He pinched a set of keys and headed off before we could stop him. He's probably in the pub. We also have an arrangement with the pub to pinch his keys and call us. It's just that they don't do it until he runs out of cash, the bastards."
"OK, then. Ah, why have you stopped? I seriously doubt that you need fresh fruit and vegetables."
"Quite right, we don't. Nah, we saw you standing here, looking all bored and alone, and thought we'd stop and cheer you up and play with you for a while."
I'm like, "What?" to myself and Jimmy chimed in.
"What Andy means is that we want to take off your clothes and get closer acquainted. Very closely acquainted."
Now I was thinking they can't be serious. I mean, they were just standing there, not trying to pounce on me or anything.
