Read Online The Taste of Lavender by Emma Shane - Free Book Online Page A

It’s all bright colors and the use of negative space
and I don’t care to register the details. The rainbow of colors and stark bones
of the structure, the amalgam of scents wafting from the food court, the dull
roar of the crowds as they snake to and fro talking about parties and marriages
and vacations. It’s all so overwhelming.
    I see the mothers, children, families. 
I’m glad that I don’t have a child depending on me for guidance and affection.
That well is dry and will probably remain so, or at least that’s what it feels
like to me now. I’d like to believe that I will heal, at least enough to feel
something, anything, in the future—but I’m not holding out hope.
    Worse are the couples, strolling around
with their fingers intertwined, dopey expressions on their faces. They have it
all—hopes, dreams and each other. My stomach churns as my own missed happiness
bobs to the surface, and bringing with it fresh tears in my eyes.
    I need a distraction and I notice the
chain bookstore up ahead. Perfect. I can lose myself among the stacks. Maybe
even hunt down a few of the novels I’d managed to edit before my life landed in
the crapper.
    As I enter the expansive store with
horrible yellow lighting, my eyes are overwhelmed by the sheer number of
volumes stacked on every available surface. The smell of paper and ink tug at
something inside of me, reminding me of a time when I lived , when I’d
swooned over a new release, pulled the book up to my face and inhaled it’s
bound and printed goodness.
    A little flicker deep in my chest,
reminding me that there, buried under cartilage and bone was my heart, still
beating. I just had to remember. It sounds simple enough, but when all I want
to do is forget, accomplishing that little task is akin to scaling Hadrian’s
wall. Remembering hurts and I don’t want to hurt anymore.
    Not for the first time, I wish for shock
therapy or some magic pill that would bring me back to myself and erase the
searing pain of losing Maribel. Or some hypnotic suggestion that would allow me
to smell lavender without remembering how she’d tasted on my lips. Never mind
that I now owned twenty-seven bottles of various lotions, shower gels and
such—all containing lavender. I never said I wasn’t a masochist and although I
wanted to forget, I was at the same time terrified of losing the memory of
Maribel.
    And then I see it.
    The cover is what I’d called literary;
two women holding hands while walking away from the camera, out of focus and
all dreamy-like, cloaked in muted earth-tone colors. The title is The
Longing and the author is Maribel Santos Campenella.
    I reach out with shaking fingers, lift
the book from its perch at the top of a stack by some unseen force that surely
has a sick sense of humor. I know before even touching it that this novel is
going to hurt me. The book feels heavy, weighted further by my anticipation. My
desire to know what the book is about (meaning: Am I in it?) is outweighed by
needing to glean any information I can about Maribel’s current life, so I flip
to the author bio in the back.
    I don’t let myself linger over her
photo. I am not ready to her just yet, even if it’s nothing more than an image
frozen in time. Instead, I scan the bio picking out key phrases: debut novel...
exploring the intricacies of friendship and love between women...living in
southern Madrid... with her husband.
    I drop the book and a rumpled clerk in a
too-tight store vest leers at me from the next aisle over. I mumble my
apologies, snatch up the book and hurry to the nearest counter. I feel shame at
my weakness, but I can’t stop myself from this train-wreck heading my way. I
will read the book and then I will interpret every nuance, every line to mean
something or another, and in the end I will hate myself for it.
    And I will hate Mirabel for reducing our
time together into eighty-thousand words or less, love her for thinking our
time together significant enough to expound