Stellan had a plan. This was the first warning sign. The second was that he'd written it in the Notes app under a header that said MARKET STRATEGY (FINAL).
We were just going to the farmers market. It runs Wednesdays on the Village Green from three to six, which I had mentioned twice and which he had apparently interpreted as a competitive window.
"Three hours," he said, pulling on a hoodie, then taking it off, then putting it back on, because it was that kind of June day in Woodstock — the sky looking like it couldn't decide, everything faintly damp, the temperature existing in the specific range where you make four clothing decisions before leaving the house. "That's plenty of time if we're efficient."
I want to be clear that we were shopping for vegetables.
His system, as explained to me in the car, involved a "reconnaissance lap" before any purchasing, a mental ranking of vendors by queue length, and what he called a "protein anchor," which I think meant he wanted a food truck sausage but had constructed a framework around it. I nodded. I had learned that nodding was faster than asking questions.
The Green was beautiful, if you like that sort of thing, which I do and Stellan technically does but cannot experience without also auditing it. There was live music. There were peonies. There was a woman selling soap shaped like small cabbages. Stellan clocked all of this in about eleven seconds and then said, "Okay, I need to recalibrate."
The recalibration took place near the honey booth, where he stood with his arms crossed looking at a hand-lettered sign about wildflower varietals like it was a subway map and he was trying to find an express train.
I bought radishes. I bought radishes from a man who handed them to me and said "good choice" and that was the entire transaction. I waved at Stellan from two booths away. He was now talking to someone about pollination.
By four o'clock, we had one bunch of radishes, a jar of hot honey that Stellan had "tactically acquired" during what he described as a gap in foot traffic, and a small loaf of bread he'd picked up without looking at it and which turned out to be mostly seeds, which he was now holding out in front of him like it had deceived him personally.
"There's too much going on," he said. This is a thing Stellan says when he has too much going on in his own head and needs to locate the feeling somewhere external.
"There are twelve booths," I said.
"There's music."
I looked at the very nice guitar player who was not playing loudly. "Yes."
He bought the seed bread anyway. He bought it with the energy of a man who was making peace with something. I watched him exchange the exact right amount of cash, receive no change, and nod at the vendor in a way that I can only describe as formally.
On the walk back to the car, he got a notification on his phone — something national, some trending moment eating up everyone's attention for the next forty minutes — and he looked at it for exactly two seconds before putting his phone back in his pocket, which for Stellan is basically a spiritual achievement.
The clouds had come in a little lower. It smelled like rain that hadn't committed yet.
"That went well," he said.
I was holding the radishes. He was holding the mostly-seed bread. We had been at the market for one hour and forty-five minutes and had acquired roughly eight dollars' worth of produce.
"It did," I said, because it had, genuinely, in the way that things involving Stellan tend to go well — not according to any plan, not via the MARKET STRATEGY (FINAL), but in the messy, over-engineered, somehow-pleasant way that is entirely his. He'd talked to someone about bees. He'd found a jar of honey he was already excited about. He'd held a bread loaf like a problem and then bought it anyway.
The guitar player started a new song behind us. We were already too far away to hear it properly, but Stellan slowed down a little, just slightly, like he was trying to catch the last few notes.
I didn't say anything. I just walked slower too.