Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

definite hours working for Jayne. On Mondays and Tuesdays she made casseroles of one kind or another, packaged and labeled each one, and delivered them to steady customers on Wednesdays. Thursdays and Fridays, she cooked for the Saturday Market downtown.
    Abby and I did some of the grocery runs for her and helped with the peeling and dicing and cleanup. Jayne loved doing the seasoning, the experimenting and sautéing, but she was glad to turn over much of the baking to us. When Saturday came, we rose indecently early, packed our treasures into assorted boxes and plastic milk carriers, and hauled them all to the back of the minivan.
    When we reached the Park Blocks, we set up our folding tables. Farmers were already unpacking crates of lettuce and radishes, mushrooms, beets, and early peas, and it wasn’t yet seven in the morning. When the sun comes out in Eugene, though, it’s like a sacred moment, people see so little of it the rest of the year. In Maryland, I spend most of summer trying to hide from it.
    The Saturday Market was a feast of color. More tie-dyedclothing than anyone sees in a normal lifetime. Watercolor paintings, tablecloths, and quilts. Shelves of pottery, wood bowls, and birdhouses, as well as the kind of kitschy lawn ornaments that you always hope your neighbor won’t buy.
    If your eye isn’t drawn to the food stalls, your nose will take you there. Abby and I had each downed a banana muffin on the ride in, but as customers arrived, we could smell the empanadas and sausage rolls that were already becoming someone’s breakfast.
    We artfully arranged the cookies and brownies we had baked, along with Jayne’s custard pies, and smiled at everyone who even looked our way. She was right—the food sells out every time before noon, which gave Abby and me a chance later to wander through the aisles and check out the competition. Not that it mattered, because only the most crumbly or lopsided items were left on the tables, and those were hastily disposed of by a markdown after twelve o’clock.
    “Are these what I think they are?” I asked Abby as we stopped at one of the tables.
    “Yep,” said Abby, checking them out. “Pipes for smoking weed.” The seller, a long-haired guy wearing a beaded necklace and a leather vest over a bare chest, beckoned to us, but we smiled and moved over to inspect the recorders and guitars across the way.
    The Saturday Market had elements of a carnival, for not only were there panhandlers ready to greet you, but some of the customers themselves were a major attraction. In the timewe worked the table, from early morning to afternoon, we saw the Tattooed Man, the Girl with the Thousand Piercings, the Fat Lady, the Thin Lady, and the Multi-dyed Hair Man, and we had lots of fun naming them, the infinite variety of the human race.
    I wanted to check the stalls one last time to see what I might like to look for the next time—jewelry for Sylvia, maybe. There was a silversmith, as I remembered, and we made our way down an outside row—past the leather belts and bags, past a young man sitting on the ground, head in his arms. We couldn’t see his face, but he wore a navy-blue knit cap that covered most of his head, with a few blondish curls hanging out. A hand-lettered sign on cardboard beside him read PLEASE HELP.
    We studied him as we drew closer.
    “Do you think he’s sick?” I asked Abby.
    “Stoned, probably.”
    An open cigar box sat in front of him, but only three dollar bills lay inside. “Should we stop?” I wondered.
    She shook her head. “Whatever he wants, we haven’t got, and we need to get back to help Jayne.”
    I reluctantly started to follow when the man raised his head and stared right at me. His eyes didn’t have the look of someone who was stoned, but his face had a yellowish cast and the skin under his eyes was dark.
    “Hi,” I said. “You okay?”
    He almost smiled. “Not really. But I need to get home bad.” His voice was scarcely audible.
    Abby