Read Online The Merchant of Venice Beach by Celia Bonaduce - Free Book Online

that to be a sign that they were meant to be together. Nowadays, to Suzanna, it seemed more like a commandment carved in stone.
The three of them sat down to eat dinner. Suzanna poured wine and Fernando passed around a wire basket with a checkered napkin placed over the sweet-smelling warm bread. Suzanna took the basket and inhaled the fragrance of the bread—one of her all-time favorites—before she opened the napkin. Only when her nostrils had had their fill did she reach in and pull out a slice of warm bread.
It was lavender.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” asked Fernando.
“What is this?” Suzanna asked.
“Bread,” he replied.
Suzanna looked at Eric.
“It is bread,” he said.
“Did you know about this?” Suzanna asked Eric.
“Was I in charge of dinner?”
“It came to me while I was making tea sandwiches for the billionth time,” Fernando said. “I thought, ‘What if I dyed some of the bread a nice mountain laurel?’”
“Oh!” Eric said. “Mountain laurel bread . . . like the walls! Very cool.”
Suzanna could feel her eyes welling up with tears. As far as she was concerned, the boys were being totally passive-aggressive. They always said that the walls were lavender but only referred to the color as mountain laurel because Suzanna insisted on it.
“This is about the swing, isn’t it?” Suzanna asked.
“No, Suzanna, it’s about my spirit being drained of any creativity.”
Suzanna turned to Eric.
“Are you going to help me out here?”
Eric swallowed his soup, put down his spoon, and looked at Fernando.
“I know what you mean. I felt my spirit dying, too. That’s why I decided on business school. Just the creative outlet my soul was looking for.”
The boys howled and high-fived. Suzanna stood up and threw down her napkin.
“I have had it with you two!”
The boys looked startled.
“Hey, Suzanna, chill out,” Eric said. “It was just a joke.”
Suzanna picked up a slice of purple bread and thrust it under Eric’s nose.
“Oh?” she said. “Does this look like a joke to you?”
“No,” he replied. “It looks like a science experiment.”
“Hey!” Fernando looked at Eric. “I thought you were on my side.”
“I’m not on anybody’s side! What the hell, you guys. Come on. Calm down.”
“I will not calm down,” Suzanna said, still holding the bread. “Forget it—I’m not hungry.”
She threw the bread on the table.
“And for your information, the walls are mountain laurel and this bread is lavender.”
Suzanna stalked out of the room and headed down the hall toward her room. She stopped, turned around, and stalked back to the kitchen. When she got to the doorway, she waited until the boys noticed she was standing there. They looked at her and waited.
“And I don’t want to hear that I’m probably just having my period,” she said, and turned on her heel.
As she walked down the hall again, she heard the boys speaking in low voices.
“God, heterosexual women can be so Gothic sometimes.”
“Well, you got to admit, this bread looks pretty gross,” Eric said.
Suzanna’s anger subsided a tiny bit as she walked into her room. Eric had at least defended her.
The next morning Suzanna, feeling a little sheepish at her outburst, decided she should give Fernando a hand in the Bun’s kitchen. She slipped in quietly. Fernando was already hard at work mixing shredded chicken, homemade mayonnaise, and curry powder. He looked at her sullenly and pulled several mountain laurel loaves out of the oven. They stared at each other. Suzanna didn’t have the energy to fight.
“You’re in charge of the kitchen, Fernando.”
“Thank you. Well, if I can’t have a swing . . .”
“Let’s just leave it, OK?”
“OK.”
Fernando seemed to be satisfied and the rest of the morning went smoothly.
Suzanna looked around the kitchen. Her practiced eye told her that today they were doing cucumber, curried chicken, and egg salad. They started making the finger sandwiches in what she hoped was