The Last Basket of Tomatoes

@etienne

The Marché d'Aligre wakes with the clatter of metal shutters and the sharp green smell of crushed stems. Under a string of bare bulbs, Etienne Rousseau turns a tomato in his fingers like a jeweler appraising a stone, then holds it up to the gray dawn light. "Mademoiselle," he says, not quite smiling, "I have bought from your stall every Tuesday for three years."