"Oh," Calvin said, tone more appreciative. He read the title of the stack he'd been given — or at least what he presumed was the title, since it was written in the largest print on the top page. He didn't know anything about the Married Women's Property Act, but people kept talking about it as though it was a thing he should already be intimately familiar with, so this was actually a welcome delivery. He would have been afraid to ask anyone about it at this point, but he thought he rather would like to understand what they were referencing. Six months ago, Calvin had never given a second thought to the properties of married women. His mother didn't have property, that he knew of — but how would he know? His parents seemed, in certain regards, indivisible; he couldn't conceptualize of them ever having existed apart, so the notion of what his mother might have done either before or after his father was hard to wrap his mind around.

"Are you..." he started, intending to ask something like do you work here but struggling to find the right phrasing for it. Here was a ridiculous word, because they were standing in a clearing on a public street. No one worked here. What he meant was more how precisely did you come to be handing these things out to strangers at this event but that seemed a bit much. He could perhaps simply ask if the other man was getting paid, and that might be the most expedient way to an answer... but as he started to form the question another thought occurred to him and took precedence: that he might be expected to pay for them, and that he might have already inadvertently agreed to do so either by saying thank you, or by seeming appreciative a second ago. "... selling these?"

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