Lavender Lies Read Online Free Page B

difficulty between two partners often has its roots in the—”
    She broke off as Ruby rose from her chair, drawing herself up to her full height, putting her fists on her hips and scattering lavender stems on the floor. Howard Cosell looked up in alarm.
    “Justine Ayn Rand Wyzinski,” Ruby hissed, “you are without a doubt the most cold-blooded, hardhearted, fundamentally insensitive woman I have ever met. Why don’t you just whiz on back to San Antonio and abandon us to our pursuit of romance—blind as we are, of course, to the ugly political, social, familial, and economic realities of our everyday lives.”
    The Whiz was pained. “I just think that this is a good time for China and Sheila to step back and—”
    “Ouch!” I said loudly, and put my hand to my cheek. “Oh, rats!”
    “What’s the matter?” Sheila asked.
    “I just bit down on something and my temporary crown came out.” The week before, I had lost a crown on my left molar and the dentist glued in a temporary as an interim measure while the lab made a new one. I explored with my tongue. There was a crater the size of the Gulf of Mexico on the left side of my mouth.
    “You bit down on a splinter of mace,” the Whiz said in an effort to be funny.
    “A piece of pecan shell,” I said crossly. “I should have been more careful when I shelled those nuts. Now I’ll have to stop by the clinic in the morning and see if the dentist can fix it.”
    “The price of crowns is above rubies,” the Whiz remarked in a ruminating tone. “I trust that you have dental insurance.”
    I gave a short laugh. “You forget, Justine, that I no longer charge people out the whazoo for a few words of legal wisdom, like some of my friends. No, I don’t have dental insurance. I had to choose between replacing my crown and replacing the rear tires on my car.”
    Sheila patted me on the shoulder. “Bear up,” she said. “At least you don’t have to choose between McQuaid and your career.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly,
Lavender’s green.
When I am queen, dilly dilly,
You shall be king.
    “Lavender’s Blue”
Early 19th-century song
     
In one of the apocryphal books of the Bible, Judith annointed herself with perfumes, including lavender, before seducing Holofernes, the enemy commander. Once he was under her heavenly scented influence, she murdered him....
     
Lavender
Tessa Evelegh
     
     
     
    For the past fifteen months, McQuaid and I have leased a white-painted five-bedroom Victorian situated on three acres of Texas Hill Country. It is a truly splendid house. The kitchen windows open east into the sunrise, and the master bedroom looks out across green hills toward the sunset. There is a turreted room with windows on three sides for my library of herb books, a large garage workshop for McQuaid, and sunny limestone ledges where Brian collects the snakes and lizards who share his bedroom. As if this weren’t enough, there is a garden, several two-hundred-year-old live oak trees, and a sparkling creek with a mossy waterfall draped with maidenhair ferns. The downside to this near-idyllic situation is that the roof leaks, the kitchen foundation needs some urgent attention, and-the worst part—the house isn’t ours. It belongs to an English professor and his wife, who packed up their three kids and went off to spend an eighteen-month sabbatical in Italy and France. Unfortunately, they are due back the first of January, which means that we will be dispossessed in a little over three months. Every now and then I experience moments of sheer terror as I try to calculate how we’ll fit ourselves, our hobbies, and our expectations into an ordinary house. Normally, I’m as courageous as the next person, but I’d rather face lions than look for a new house.
    McQuaid was an hour late getting home from work. We avoided any mention of Edgar Coleman at supper, on the theory that Brian, who is now thirteen, has already seen his share of violence on