Question

I didn’t know what to say.

Answer 1

Because she assumes that she will not see denise again. And the sentence when the first tomato ripened suggests that she will be gone whithin the period of time a tomato needs to ripe. Hope it helps!

Answer 2

The tone and the fact that the narrator says "she'd miss me", drives you to think that the narrator assumes that she will never see Denise again, i.e option D.