The Manager Stopped Me At The Collectors' Table And Called Me A Thief

Gavin Slade caught my wrist above the seed trays.

"Put that down," he said. "We watch people at these sales."

I held a cream envelope between two fingers. Around us, shoppers went still. Someone lowered a pot of blue salvia.

"I was reading the label," I said.

"With your purse open. Sure."

My purse was open because I had just paid $8 for plant markers. The receipt stuck out beside my glasses case.

I was a short Hmong American woman with a silver braid, brown skin, and a small scar across my left thumb.

At sixty-four, I had retired from work as a seed conservator. I had spent thirty-one years drying, counting, testing, and recording seeds. I knew what happened when people trusted a pretty label more than a plain record.

Gavin was a tall white man with sandy hair, pale blue eyes, and a neat beard that stopped sharply above his collar.

He was thirty-nine, according to the staff card beside the register. That morning, the manager of Alder Bend Garden Center had greeted shoppers with jokes about expensive dirt. His easy smile had vanished when I picked up the envelope.

"Those are imported," he said. "Two hundred thirty dollars."

The printed tag said Italian Alpine Pea. Beneath it, a corner of purple ink showed through the paper.

I looked at his hand until he let go.

"These are Margo Ellis's snow peas. She grew them near Laporte."

He laughed toward the watching shoppers.

"They're all brown envelopes, ma'am. You can't tell one from another."

I turned the flap toward him. A small notch sat beside the purple mark. I had cut that notch after sealing a second inner packet. It meant the outer paper had been replaced after a moisture test.

"Accession sixteen-two," I said. "The number should be under your sticker."

"You need to leave."

A young woman stepped out from behind a rack of tomato starts.

"Gavin, that's Sheng Moua."

Pilar Dominguez was twenty-eight, Mexican American, and the greenhouse assistant who had helped me arrange our community exchange display. She twisted the end of her apron between her fingers.

"She brought the collection," Pilar said.

"She brought some samples."

"Twenty-four sealed accessions," I said. "For a teaching display."

Pilar swallowed. "The grower cards were supposed to stay with them."

Gavin gave her a look that sent her eyes to the floor. Her hands stopped twisting, though.

It was late April in Fort Collins. Wet snow still striped the foothills, and people had crowded indoors to dream about their summer gardens. Our seed exchange had agreed to show local varieties at the collectors' sale. A small teaching table could bring us new growers.

It had not been an offer to sell our stock.

I set the envelope down carefully.

"Bring me the signed consignment terms."

"Office is closed."

"Then I'll use my copy."

My key ring tapped the table as I reached into my purse. Twenty-nine colored beads hung beside the brass key to our seed cabinet. I added one for every growing season in which our group brought healthy seed home.

Gavin glanced at the beads.

"Cute hobby. But you can't walk in here and claim our inventory."

I laid down a folded document. His signature crossed the bottom in blue ink.

"You signed this on Monday."

He did not pick it up.

"Consignment," he said. "That means we sell things."

"Read paragraph four."

Pilar leaned closer.

The terms allowed display and collection of interest forms. Any sale required a separate written release from the named seed custodian. The center had to keep the accession numbers and grower credits attached.

I was that custodian. Our exchange board had appointed me in writing. My full register stayed in a locked cabinet at home. The center had received a delivery list, but not the pages that linked each lot to its donor and signed limits.

"This is a customer event," Gavin said softly. "Don't make a scene."

"You made it when you called me a thief."

A man near the salvia put his shopping basket down.

I pointed to the envelopes spread across the table.

"I am demanding the return of all twenty-four accessions. Today."

Pilar took the delivery list from beneath the cash box. Her eyes moved down the rows.

"Seventeen here," she whispered. "Six in the paid hold drawer."

"Paid?" I asked.

Gavin reached for her list. She stepped back.

"Where is eighteen-seven?" she asked him.

That number belonged to my mother's bean strain. I had loaned it with the exchange's collection, under my own name.

Gavin's face changed before he found his smile.

Then the receipt printer behind him started. A clerk tore off a sheet and brought it over.

Across the top were the words EXCLUSIVE PARENT STOCK, a $4,800 deposit, and accession 0187.