Julia's Chocolates. Cathy Lamb

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СКАЧАТЬ a lace-draped table, and she said they added humor to her life. The old man who lived here before her was slightly insane. He had twenty-two cats, was rumored to eat a full garlic clove a day, and made his own whiskey. He lived to be 104. Caroline knew him, liked him, and kept the signs in memory of him.

      At first I was sure I had gotten the wrong directions from Lydia. Surely no one like Caroline Harper lived in such a depressing, dark, scary-looking place. And Aunt Lydia had said she lived in a dollhouse. This wasn’t a dollhouse.

      But Lydia had mentioned the signs, so I slammed the door of the truck closed and proceeded with caution.

      And there’s where the surprises started.

      Caroline opened the door, a smile lighting her gentle features. She wore a red cotton dress that on anyone else probably would have looked frumpy, with its square neckline and flared skirt. I would have looked like a giant blood clot. But on Caroline, it looked stylish and hip and lovely. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail, her cheekbones gracious curves. Her right eye winked at me, but slowly, gently. She hugged me as I walked in the door. And then I stopped.

      As shocked as I had been at the outside of Caroline’s house, the inside left me gaping. I remembered to shut my mouth after a long minute so I wouldn’t look like an air-starved guppy.

      “It’s beautiful,” I said, awed.

      Though the outside of the house looked like a drug warren, the inside décor was English Country/dollhouse. The furniture was overstuffed and comfy and covered in flowered or striped fabric. It was old, and used, and plush and cheerful.

      Tables held books and candles and lace doilies, and the room was filled with light from floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors everywhere. The walls were painted an eggshell blue, white, or pink.

      It was one huge room, Caroline showed me, with two areas walled off, one for a bedroom and one for Caroline’s “workroom.” The door to the workroom was closed.

      The kitchen was surprisingly modern, and she had painted all of the cabinets pink. It was clear she had been cutting bouquets, as flowers were scattered about the white counters. I looked out her back windows and saw an enormous garden.

      I wanted to stay forever.

      “Would you like to see the garden, too?” Caroline asked, her voice soft and cultured. I again felt like a water buffalo next to this petite woman, and I would have hated her if I could for being perfect, but I couldn’t. She was kind, for sure, but more than that, I related to that twitching eye of hers. Twitch twitch. I was twitching on the inside, Caroline twitched on the outside.

      “Come and see the flower garden first,” she said, leading me to the most gynormous, lovely array of raised flower beds. “It doesn’t look very good right now. Spring is much better.”

      I reassured her it was beautiful, as it truly was, and she gently pulled out a plant with long-stemmed flowers from one of the beds. “You like to garden, don’t you?” she asked, and before I could answer, she piled yet another plant on, and another, rattling off directions on how to plant them, where to plant them.

      Next we moved to the vegetable garden. This time she grabbed one of the crates she had stacked against a small shed. Within seconds I had enough vegetables to feed me and half of the third world. She insisted on helping me take my loot to the car. I wondered if the tires would pop.

      “Now come in for some tea,” she said, grabbing my hand. For an instant, right in the middle of the driveway of her drug house/English Country Manor, she stopped, closed her eyes, her hand tightening on mine.

      “Caroline?” I asked. Her hand had gone cold.

      Having a Dread Disease like I do is difficult. Not only do I have to deal with my own triggers that take away my breath, but if someone around me is upset, that can trigger an episode, also.

      Her hand seemed to get colder by the second until I felt like I was holding ice. I could feel my own hand losing all warmth. Soon, I told myself, both of us would be freezing-cold. We would turn into ice women together. I wondered if she would think it odd if I asked if I could go to her bed and pull the comforter over my head and hide.

      “It’s nothing,” she whispered. “Everything is fine. Everything will be…fine.”

      “But what is it? Please, Caroline. Aunt Lydia knows that you can see the future. You’re freaking me out,” I said, hearing my own shaky voice.

      She turned to me abruptly then, holding both my hands in hers, her green eyes luminous, close to mine, and yet real far away. She was clearly on another plane than me. I was not inclined to believe this stuff, but I didn’t want to dismiss it, either.

      “Your fiancé,” she said, her face tight, her right eye twitching at a higher speed as soon as the words left her mouth.

      Oh God. Not him. “Yes.”

      She stepped closer. She smelled like roses and tea and butter. Who knew why she smelled like butter? “I can feel him.”

      “Me too,” I said. I wanted to jump into the house, grab a gun, and hole up, waiting for his imminent appearance.

      “Julia, he’s angry. I can feel it. He’s hot. Very hot.” Twitch. Twitch. Faster even.

      I knew that Caroline knew I had an ex-fiancé. And she also knew that he had beat up my face, turning it lovely shades of purple and green. For her to say he was “hot” did not take much deduction on her part.

      “He’s burning. He’s trying to find you. I see him.”

      Just thinking about Robert scared me. I could almost see my liver shriveling up in fear, my intestines frozen solid, the blueberry muffin I ate this morning hardening as the temperature dropped.

      But, of course, I still wasn’t convinced that Caroline was authentic. I mean, really, who can see the future? Everything she said could have been deduced by talking to Aunt Lydia for a few minutes.

      “I see the dog, Julia.”

      The ice edged up my throat.

      “He was small. White. I see pink, too.” Caroline’s voice was small, broken.

      The ice leaped several inches, like a miniature glacier, choking me.

      I knew a small white dog. He was mine up until three months ago. His name was Spot, though there was not a single spot on him. I had loved that dog, and he had loved me.

      But one night I had voiced to Robert, again, my concern that his mother, well, detested me like vermin, although I left the word “vermin” out.

      “She’s so beneath you, Robert,” I had overheard her say. “Beneath us as a family, beneath us as influential, powerful people in this country. And that figure of hers. For God’s sakes, Robert dear, she looks like a hooker. I’m feeling disgraced already. Disgraced. Disgraced. Sleep with her if you must. I can see, from a very base and vulgar perspective, the rather animalistic attraction to someone who looks like that, someone who has come from such an unusual background. But must you marry her?”

      “Robert,” I had said. “I’ve tried to get your mother to like me—”

      “You can’t СКАЧАТЬ