Basel snaps the ledger shut and slides it off the bench. He pushes up his glasses, though a wry, lopsided smile beats him to it.

"I'm Basel. If I open that back up right now, I'm just hiding behind work... and I really don't want to do that."

He glances toward the rows of crates, then turns back to you with a focus that has nothing to do with the harvest.

"Can we hold off on the numbers for ten minutes? What's the first thing people usually get wrong about you? For me, if I go quiet, it never means I don't care."