Chapter Fifteen D: The Room of Vendors
The meeting began at seven in a conference room with beige walls and a broken clock.
Twenty-three vendors sat around folding tables while another dozen stood near the door.
Some had paid for premium booths.
Others had hired temporary workers or arranged child care to attend the market.
A woman named Hannah Ruiz held a cooler containing the pastries she had baked since midnight.
She placed it beside her chair and refused to open it until someone explained whether she had a place to sell.
Priya stood at the front with the official floor plan projected behind her.
She told the group exactly how many spaces the hall could accommodate.
Then she explained that additional reservations had been issued by services operating outside the hall’s approved booking system.
The room erupted.
A man in a leather apron demanded to know why the hall had accepted Nolan as an organizer.
Another vendor accused Priya of protecting the venue from responsibility.
She did not ask them to calm down.
She waited until the first wave of questions subsided and began answering them in order.
Claire stood near the back beside Becca.
She recognized the rhythm of the argument from three years earlier.
At the first festival, Nolan had divided angry vendors into separate groups and told each group a different story.
He had claimed that the furniture sellers arrived too early and the bakers arrived too late.
He had blamed the security guards for one problem and the weather for another.
This time, everyone was hearing the same facts.
Hannah raised her hand.
“I don’t care whose booking system it was,” she said.
“I care whether my pastries will be wasted.”
Priya checked the remaining spaces.
There were only four vacancies.
She offered Hannah one of them but explained that several other sellers had equal claims.
Hannah looked at the people around her.
“Then draw names,” she said.
The suggestion surprised Priya.
A furniture maker objected that his travel expenses were higher than anyone else’s.
A candle seller said she had paid for her booth months earlier.
The arguments threatened to begin again.
Becca stepped forward.
“What if the hall gives priority to people whose products cannot wait?” she asked.
She pointed to Hannah’s cooler.
“Furniture can go back into a truck, but fresh food has a deadline.”
The furniture maker looked offended, then glanced at the cooler.
“I can come back next month,” he said slowly.
“She can’t sell today’s pastries next month.”
Priya asked the group whether they would accept a temporary priority system for perishable goods.
Most agreed after discussing the details.
Several sellers volunteered to share space or rotate during the day.
Nobody pretended the compromise erased their losses.
But the room began making decisions instead of waiting for Nolan to make promises.
Evan watched from the doorway as Hannah finally opened her cooler.
She handed the first pastry to the furniture maker.
“You still owe me a customer,” she told him.
He laughed for the first time that morning.
The broken clock above the door remained stopped at eleven seventeen.
Outside, the real market was nearly ready to open.
