Chapter Text
The market here is slow.
Valentina works at her family’s stall most days of the week. It’s a wooden booth crammed in the corner of the town square. Red and orange fruits, plump and sweet smelling, glisten invitingly in the hot sun. The young vendor fights the urge to slink down in the shade, sweat darkening the broad brim of her straw hat.
She tugs at the tie of her skirt, tying and retying a neat bow.
Potential customers filter in and out of the area, really, there were more people than Valentina had originally thought. The houses were big- even the littlest ones could house up to eight people and the city was nice and diverse, people rode in from miles around or walked up from the farms that dotted the fertile valley.
Valentina and her papa had settled into a tiny cottage on the far side of the village, close to the river. After clearing out the cobwebs and the dust it was perfectly livable.
Valentina sanded down a rough edge of the table in front of her. They’d put the whole stand together in one afternoon with scraps leftover from fixing their roof. Crooked, half-hammered-in nails were the biggest indicator of Valentina’s involvement.
Some of the women eyed her from their windows where they gossiped and fanned themselves. During the late afternoons, their stomachs would grumble and they would buy things here and there- their brightly dyed cloth bags bulging with bananas, oranges, and curubas, that were to be eaten by the women and by the playful curly-haired children that clung to the hems of their skirts.
Today though was particularly dead. Too hot to think about chismosas or fruit, Valentina wishes she had brought a book. Even the animals look tired. Guiltily, Valentina tries to ignore the goats across the street whose looks seem to scream, “Get me out of here!”
Somehow though- even the heat doesn't discourage men’s pursuits. Valentina rolls her eyes and raps her fingers against the rough grain of the counter. “It’s too hot for this,” she mutters as one of the village boys (a good-looking one to be fair), buzzes like a fly around someone partially obscured behind a vine-covered wall.
“Adorable,” A woman, one of Valentina’s new regulars, says wistfully, blatantly commenting on the pair under the guise of inspecting a guanabana.
“You know, Mariano has been trying to court her for months.” She says lowly to Valentina, who really, really, didn’t ask. “I heard he even talked to her Abuela. Ah! I wish boys that handsome had been after me at that age.”
She continues her monologue as Valentina nods, hiding her irritation at the fact the woman feels compelled to touch everything.
The woman laughs loudly, Valentina cringes, “But, you know what it’s like when a boy turns seventeen.” She says suggestively. Her earrings clink noisily as she shakes her head. Valentina nods like she has any clue what that means. She tries to hold onto the knowledge that if you let a customer talk enough, they usually feel guilty and end up buying something.
The boy, Mariano, apparently, leans an arm on the wall- effectively trapping his anonymous victim. Valentina cringes. He’s speaking quietly enough that they can’t hear him, but it’s clearly supposed to be smooth.
Valentina tunes out whatever the woman is saying and just nods or smiles when she feels it’s appropriate.
Her eyes catch on the edge of the girl’s embroidered skirt that peeks out from behind the wall.
Valentina wonders what it’s like to be pursued like that. And then, is sort of grateful it’s not happening. She’s fourteen- fifteen on Sunday- so she figures she’ll find out soon enough.
But as of right now, she’s too new too foreign, and a little too young for someone to want anything like that from her yet. The worst thing she has to deal with is the comments on her accent. Diplomatically, she refrains from mentioning the way they draw out their vowels or how they pronounce everything a little wrong.
Ugh, he’s leaning in now- his hair hanging in what he certainly thinks is a chic way.
Is that woman still talking?
“Señora Guzman is really just lovely, a pillar of the community.” The woman waves an umber-toned hand as she speaks and bruises a banana with the other. She’d better buy that. “And if those two want to get married in the future- I say let them! The Madrigals are such a blessing to this town, I say, why not a few more?”
Madrigal? Wasn’t that…
Valentina shifts in her seat and tilts her head to get a better look and feels a jolt when she recognizes the girl.
A frightened blush fills Valentina’s cheeks when she narrowly dodges eye contact with Isabela. Why was she gossiping? This really was none of her business. She hurriedly pretends to restack a pile of lulos.
The girl, Isabela, was wearing her hair in braids today and had an open, sort of wide-eyed expression on her face that Valentina can still see, even when she looks away. Maybe she really did want a boy to look at her like that if seeing two people in love made her feel this strange. Getting older was confusing and stupid and weird.
“They’re on sale today!” Valentina cuts off the woman’s chatter. Her voice sounds weirdly sharp to her own ears. She points to the round waxy fruits, then to the hand-painted wooden sign above them. She tries to ignore the way her heart pounds in her chest. Embarrassing.
The sale goes quickly after that- she fills the woman’s knit bag with a variety of different things and Valentina tries to ignore the thick feeling in her throat as she pretends to stay busy after the woman leaves. Counting the money, Valentina mumbles, “Chismosa,” under her breath.
A week ago, when she’d gotten back home from the whole tree incident, she’d asked her papa plenty of questions. He’d answered, called her stupid- and then Valentina felt pretty bad about how she’d acted- she didn’t even really thank the girl properly, or like, talk to her at all.
She’d been avoiding her since then, which was actually very difficult in a town this small. Valentina hastily straightens the signs dangling from the top of the booth.
Mariano, now holding the girl’s hand, walks into the square cockily- like an animal with a particularly impressive kill.
There are other vendors here too, usually the same ones every day. A man with baked goods, a butcher with a variety of bloodied cuts of goat (now that she thinks about it, maybe that’s why the goats look so unhappy), and a few other stalls selling a variety of sweets or household goods.
Isabela, not that it matters, looks ruddy and flushed as he drags her from stall to stall. Valentina puts extra effort into looking busy.
She can feel dark eyes flitting from the other booths to her and back again. Valentina futzes with her collar, which is starting to saturate with sweat. Weird, weird, weird.
“Hola.” Someone greets, and she looks up at Mariano.
He’s more gangly up close, with badly shaved stubble and hopeful eyes. His smile is nice, Valentina thinks. She tries not to look to his right.
“Do you have any Mangosteen?”
Valentina smiles politely and ducks her head to look below the desk. They had some earlier- but the old man with the cane might have wiped them out.
As she digs around, a sweet voice rings out- “You know, I don’t need you to buy me everything.” Valentina can’t see her, but the other girl is clearly smiling. She has an accent like everyone else in town.
Valentina grunts a little but manages to lift a heavy box of mixed produce onto the counter, plucking out a few purple balls from the medley.
“Take ‘em.” She nods brusquely at Isabela, gesturing towards the fruit. The boy looks confused. “They’re free,” she continues.
“Consider it thanks for helping me out last week-” She says, trying to sound nonchalant. She sticks her hands into her pockets and leans back on her stool.
“Yeah?” Isabela questions, looking intently at the younger girl. Her eyes are kind of intense. Valentina avoids her gaze.
The market is noticeably quieter than it was this morning- which makes the sudden silence all the more unbearable. Someone reorganizes their merchandise loudly, metal and wood clatters and clinks, Helado huffs and dunks his big fuzzy head wetly into his water tank, splashing fat droplets over the side.
“No big deal,” She smiles- aiming for friendly. Her fingers flex nervously, bunching up the fabric inside her pockets. “
Mariano forces a laugh. “Well, thank you. My girlfriend and I will enjoy them!” There’s an unnatural amount of emphasis on the word girlfriend, like he’s making a point, and Isabela visibly cringes.
It is abundantly clear that they hadn’t talked about using that word yet.
He tenses up, and Isabela’s blush deepens. She nods, eyebrows narrower than before. This whole thing is weird. “Yes, thank you.” Small green plants wrap their way around the base of the stand near Valentina’s feet. “We’ll see you around!”
When they’re finally gone, Valentina grimaces. They’re animatedly discussing something as they walk down the road. She’s glad to be almost done for the day.
As she packs up her bags and loads up the cart- she takes a bite out of an overripe orange. Juice clings to her mouth and drips onto her shirt. The muscles in her forearms coil and tighten as she pulls down and yanks up various boxes and locks.
There’s a nervous energy buzzing around her as she finishes up her routine, leftover anxiety from whatever that conversation was. Helado noses at her hand and she feeds him a banana, skin and all.
When she’s all done unpacking the cart she sprawls out on her thin mattress. Thinking about dark eyes- she falls into a deep dreamless sleep.