January 4, 2010--Snowbirding: The Melon Lady
In all this time, we have not exchanged a word. Not one. Nods and smiles and gestures but not a word, much less a sentence. I am not sure if she is allowed to talk with customers or if her English is so fractured or even nonexistent that that intimidates her. I have said “Hello,” “Nice day,” and such; but at most in exchange she smiles even broader, though with so many teeth missing she appears inhibited by that as well.
She works at the Brothers Market. An overgrown farm stand, which it literally was not too many years ago, but now is a rambling cross between an old fashioned local vegetable market, a Whole Foods, and even a food boutique such as Dean and Deluca. The place is busy because of the variety and quality of its products and, of course its prices—a pound of white asparagus at the Brothers is $2.99, while the same amount goes for $4.99 at Boca Raton’s Whole Foods—and the aisles are so narrow that it requires considerable effort to fight your way past lunging customers pulling ripe avocadoes from their display or steer your shopping cart up and down the seemingly random aisles piled high with tomatoes and citrus fruit and olive oils and salad greens and mushrooms and cheese and prepared salads and cooked foods. And melons. Especially melons.
That is where she is stationed—in the melon aisle. At one end there is a pineapple station where two types are available, regular and golden, freshly extracted from their tufted outer skins, and at the other there is a mountain of golden melons from Brazil, while in between there are bins overflowing with cantaloupes, honeydews, and various kinds of round and oblong watermelons as well as other exotics from Spain and Latin America that are unfamiliar to me.
The melon lady walks up and back from end to end handing out samples that she slices from the melons in her purview. With a generous smile she offers juice-dripping bite-sized pieces from an extended hand. And considering the price-sensitive clientele always on the lookout for what in this area of coupon-clippers and early-birders are referred to as freebees, she distributes many handfuls.
In fact, at the end of last week, while I sniffed and thumped my way though at least a dozen honey dews, searching for the perfect one to serve later in the day with thick slices of prosciutto (perfectly aged and also available at the Brothers at a deep discount), there was a man of at least 90 who shuffled behind her as if on a tether who sampled everything she so joyfully offered. He was not merely searching for what to buy, he was dining. I feared for his ancient digestive system as he slurped down one sweet but acidic handful after another. Or on second thought wondered if perhaps it was this very melon diet that had helped bring him to an advanced age.
On previous visits, while Rona stood on the cold cuts line, doing all she could to make sure that the server understood that unlike most customers who typically like their prosciutto sliced thin, she indeed meant thick when she said thick, I haunted the melon aisle to secure my own discrete number of handout samples and to get the attention of the melon lady whose offerings were always perfectly ripe and juicy and who I thus thought would be able to help me find just the right ripeness of melon for our lunch or after-dinner fruit course.
She had seemed willing to offer this assistance during previous visits but since I had not up to that time been able to engage her in even a one-syllable exchange, I did the best I could on my own. Noting, though, that the melons I selected and brought home when we opened them, though better than most that are available in a typical supermarket were not nearly a succulent as hers.
I took to thinking about her between visits. What work life must be for her. She appeared to be content—her ever-present smile seemed genuine enough—but it was hard for me to imagine that day after day confined to that ten yard space with nothing more to do but cut up and distribute melon samples that she, or anyone for that matter, would find the work satisfying. Did she, I wondered, aspire to advance within the Brothers organization to, say, cashier or food manager status? Knowing, of course, as I thought this way about her that I was unfairly and even insensitively projecting my own kinds of opportunities and aspirations onto her obviously more limited reality.
She likely, I thought further, was here in a less than legal way and thus must feel fortunate to have steady work of any kind. If true, she would not want to risk becoming too assertive or draw too much attention to herself and thus had little choice but to accept the conditions of her situation. Perhaps even feeling good about being in this country and having any kind of work whatsoever. Her smile and the aura of contentment that emanated from her and the satisfaction I sensed she felt from having this opportunity, no matter how limited it seemed to me from the perspective of my own more privileged life, convinced me that I was probably right about how she viewed her circumstances.
But then from a local friend, when talking about the Brothers and how much we liked having it nearby as a source for such excellent and fairly priced products and how our menu planning and at-home cooking benefited from what we found there, I learned something unexpected about the place. I must have mentioned how much I liked the way things there appeared to work—how there were men stationed in the maze of interconnected parking lots who helped customers find spaces and then after they completed their shopping helped guide them safely out into the rush of traffic on the highway. And, as with the melon lady, how inside the market the staff were so friendly and helpful.
“And, you know,” my acquaintance said, “the owners of the Brothers are very philanthropic. Next time you’re there take a look at the list of local organizations they fund. The list, and it’s very long, is right behind the cash registers.”
“I did notice that,” I said. “It looks as if they give money to dozens of local groups.”
“And although you wouldn’t expect it,” he added, “all their workers are here legally. Fully documented. They take great pride in that. They must employ at least 100 people, which is very impressive.”
“Impressive indeed,” I said. “And, yes, also unexpected.” I sighed with some relief as I thought about the melon lady and how good it was to now realize that she was here legally.
And so, the other day, when searching for that perfect honeydew to accompany the prosciutto, I approached her, not as before for another taste of something new and exotic, but to see if I could get her to help me select a melon ready to serve.
Since I was uncertain about her English, I tried sign language, pointing to the mountain of honeydews and then rubbing my stomach. Thinking I wanted a taste, she plucked one from near the top of the pile—she is tiny and needed to do this tipped high up on her toes-- and with the knife she always had in her apron pocket sliced out a generous wedge and handed it to me.
I thanked her. “Gracias,” I said and after taking a quick bite and realizing it was at just the peak of ripeness I was seeking, tried, again through gestures, to indicate I wanted one like it to buy. Pointing again at the melons and this time at my shopping cart, thinking from that she would understand. But it appeared that she did not, misinterpreting my gestures to mean that I wanted another slice, which she again generously offered. The 90 year-old who had been trailing her and up to then had been the primary beneficiary of her generosity glared at me. His fierce look clearly labeling me as an unwelcome intruder in his exclusive realm.
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head and trying English, “I want you,” I pointed at her, “to help me,” I pointed at myself, “to select a ripe melon,” I pointed to the melon mountain, “One I can eat later today. This afternoon. Tardes,” I said, smiling and relieved that I had come up with the Spanish word.
“Oh, tardes,” she said with a smile. These were the first words I heard her utter in weeks of trying to exchange hellos. And with that, again on her toes, she reached for a melon high up in the stack. And with an even wider grin passed it to me after wiping it clean and dry on the skirt of her apron.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said, as I placed it carefully in my shopping cart. “Gracias, mucho gracias.”
At that, unexpectedly, she moved closer to me and again reached into her apron pocket. I wondered what she was doing and why she was again looking for her knife. Surely not to cut any more melon samples for me. I more than had my fill and with her help had made my selection. Maybe, I thought, she was going to do something special for the pouting nonagenarian. To make up to him for any unintended slight. But why then had she moved so close to me?
As I wondered about the meaning of this turn of events, I saw that she had not reached for the knife but for something else. From her apron she had taken what looked like a photograph. She held it gently in her hand with the image pressed to her breast and whispered something to me that at first I did not understand. It sounded like, “A few.” A few of what? I puzzled. I couldn’t make any sense of it. And it was unlikely that someone like the melon lady with such limited English would know this expression much less use it so out of any context.
“A few?” I said back to her. “What are you saying is a few”? Melons, I wondered. A few honeydews?
“No,” she smiled, “F and S and U.” she said, carefully pronounced each letter. “The universidad.”
Was she trying to tell me something about Florida State University—FSU up in Tallahassee?
Smiling more broadly she slowly raised the photo and turned it to me. I put on my glasses and bent over to take a close look at it. Her hands were trembling. It was a picture of a young girl in an academic robe. It looked like a high school graduation picture.
I understood.
“A mi hija,” she then said. Though that I did not understand. “Daughter,” she said with apparent and understandable pride. “Camellia,” and with that she turned away from me, heading again toward the pineapple end of her private domain.
* * *
And later that day, the melon with the prosciutto (thick sliced as Rona wanted) was perfect.
She works at the Brothers Market. An overgrown farm stand, which it literally was not too many years ago, but now is a rambling cross between an old fashioned local vegetable market, a Whole Foods, and even a food boutique such as Dean and Deluca. The place is busy because of the variety and quality of its products and, of course its prices—a pound of white asparagus at the Brothers is $2.99, while the same amount goes for $4.99 at Boca Raton’s Whole Foods—and the aisles are so narrow that it requires considerable effort to fight your way past lunging customers pulling ripe avocadoes from their display or steer your shopping cart up and down the seemingly random aisles piled high with tomatoes and citrus fruit and olive oils and salad greens and mushrooms and cheese and prepared salads and cooked foods. And melons. Especially melons.
That is where she is stationed—in the melon aisle. At one end there is a pineapple station where two types are available, regular and golden, freshly extracted from their tufted outer skins, and at the other there is a mountain of golden melons from Brazil, while in between there are bins overflowing with cantaloupes, honeydews, and various kinds of round and oblong watermelons as well as other exotics from Spain and Latin America that are unfamiliar to me.
The melon lady walks up and back from end to end handing out samples that she slices from the melons in her purview. With a generous smile she offers juice-dripping bite-sized pieces from an extended hand. And considering the price-sensitive clientele always on the lookout for what in this area of coupon-clippers and early-birders are referred to as freebees, she distributes many handfuls.
In fact, at the end of last week, while I sniffed and thumped my way though at least a dozen honey dews, searching for the perfect one to serve later in the day with thick slices of prosciutto (perfectly aged and also available at the Brothers at a deep discount), there was a man of at least 90 who shuffled behind her as if on a tether who sampled everything she so joyfully offered. He was not merely searching for what to buy, he was dining. I feared for his ancient digestive system as he slurped down one sweet but acidic handful after another. Or on second thought wondered if perhaps it was this very melon diet that had helped bring him to an advanced age.
On previous visits, while Rona stood on the cold cuts line, doing all she could to make sure that the server understood that unlike most customers who typically like their prosciutto sliced thin, she indeed meant thick when she said thick, I haunted the melon aisle to secure my own discrete number of handout samples and to get the attention of the melon lady whose offerings were always perfectly ripe and juicy and who I thus thought would be able to help me find just the right ripeness of melon for our lunch or after-dinner fruit course.
She had seemed willing to offer this assistance during previous visits but since I had not up to that time been able to engage her in even a one-syllable exchange, I did the best I could on my own. Noting, though, that the melons I selected and brought home when we opened them, though better than most that are available in a typical supermarket were not nearly a succulent as hers.
I took to thinking about her between visits. What work life must be for her. She appeared to be content—her ever-present smile seemed genuine enough—but it was hard for me to imagine that day after day confined to that ten yard space with nothing more to do but cut up and distribute melon samples that she, or anyone for that matter, would find the work satisfying. Did she, I wondered, aspire to advance within the Brothers organization to, say, cashier or food manager status? Knowing, of course, as I thought this way about her that I was unfairly and even insensitively projecting my own kinds of opportunities and aspirations onto her obviously more limited reality.
She likely, I thought further, was here in a less than legal way and thus must feel fortunate to have steady work of any kind. If true, she would not want to risk becoming too assertive or draw too much attention to herself and thus had little choice but to accept the conditions of her situation. Perhaps even feeling good about being in this country and having any kind of work whatsoever. Her smile and the aura of contentment that emanated from her and the satisfaction I sensed she felt from having this opportunity, no matter how limited it seemed to me from the perspective of my own more privileged life, convinced me that I was probably right about how she viewed her circumstances.
But then from a local friend, when talking about the Brothers and how much we liked having it nearby as a source for such excellent and fairly priced products and how our menu planning and at-home cooking benefited from what we found there, I learned something unexpected about the place. I must have mentioned how much I liked the way things there appeared to work—how there were men stationed in the maze of interconnected parking lots who helped customers find spaces and then after they completed their shopping helped guide them safely out into the rush of traffic on the highway. And, as with the melon lady, how inside the market the staff were so friendly and helpful.
“And, you know,” my acquaintance said, “the owners of the Brothers are very philanthropic. Next time you’re there take a look at the list of local organizations they fund. The list, and it’s very long, is right behind the cash registers.”
“I did notice that,” I said. “It looks as if they give money to dozens of local groups.”
“And although you wouldn’t expect it,” he added, “all their workers are here legally. Fully documented. They take great pride in that. They must employ at least 100 people, which is very impressive.”
“Impressive indeed,” I said. “And, yes, also unexpected.” I sighed with some relief as I thought about the melon lady and how good it was to now realize that she was here legally.
And so, the other day, when searching for that perfect honeydew to accompany the prosciutto, I approached her, not as before for another taste of something new and exotic, but to see if I could get her to help me select a melon ready to serve.
Since I was uncertain about her English, I tried sign language, pointing to the mountain of honeydews and then rubbing my stomach. Thinking I wanted a taste, she plucked one from near the top of the pile—she is tiny and needed to do this tipped high up on her toes-- and with the knife she always had in her apron pocket sliced out a generous wedge and handed it to me.
I thanked her. “Gracias,” I said and after taking a quick bite and realizing it was at just the peak of ripeness I was seeking, tried, again through gestures, to indicate I wanted one like it to buy. Pointing again at the melons and this time at my shopping cart, thinking from that she would understand. But it appeared that she did not, misinterpreting my gestures to mean that I wanted another slice, which she again generously offered. The 90 year-old who had been trailing her and up to then had been the primary beneficiary of her generosity glared at me. His fierce look clearly labeling me as an unwelcome intruder in his exclusive realm.
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head and trying English, “I want you,” I pointed at her, “to help me,” I pointed at myself, “to select a ripe melon,” I pointed to the melon mountain, “One I can eat later today. This afternoon. Tardes,” I said, smiling and relieved that I had come up with the Spanish word.
“Oh, tardes,” she said with a smile. These were the first words I heard her utter in weeks of trying to exchange hellos. And with that, again on her toes, she reached for a melon high up in the stack. And with an even wider grin passed it to me after wiping it clean and dry on the skirt of her apron.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said, as I placed it carefully in my shopping cart. “Gracias, mucho gracias.”
At that, unexpectedly, she moved closer to me and again reached into her apron pocket. I wondered what she was doing and why she was again looking for her knife. Surely not to cut any more melon samples for me. I more than had my fill and with her help had made my selection. Maybe, I thought, she was going to do something special for the pouting nonagenarian. To make up to him for any unintended slight. But why then had she moved so close to me?
As I wondered about the meaning of this turn of events, I saw that she had not reached for the knife but for something else. From her apron she had taken what looked like a photograph. She held it gently in her hand with the image pressed to her breast and whispered something to me that at first I did not understand. It sounded like, “A few.” A few of what? I puzzled. I couldn’t make any sense of it. And it was unlikely that someone like the melon lady with such limited English would know this expression much less use it so out of any context.
“A few?” I said back to her. “What are you saying is a few”? Melons, I wondered. A few honeydews?
“No,” she smiled, “F and S and U.” she said, carefully pronounced each letter. “The universidad.”
Was she trying to tell me something about Florida State University—FSU up in Tallahassee?
Smiling more broadly she slowly raised the photo and turned it to me. I put on my glasses and bent over to take a close look at it. Her hands were trembling. It was a picture of a young girl in an academic robe. It looked like a high school graduation picture.
I understood.
“A mi hija,” she then said. Though that I did not understand. “Daughter,” she said with apparent and understandable pride. “Camellia,” and with that she turned away from me, heading again toward the pineapple end of her private domain.
* * *
And later that day, the melon with the prosciutto (thick sliced as Rona wanted) was perfect.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
2:46 AM
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