Best Lesbian Romance 2014 Read Online Free PDF Page B

parties were legendary. Today the crowded rooms of their immaculate house and the people in bright colors dappled across the back lawn merely added to my sense of removal. How unlike my best friend I was, with her perfect hostess skills. But like always, I’d come early, in my black jersey dress, to help her set up. To listen to Poppy gossip about the hook-ups and breakups of our mutual acquaintances and several couples I’d met at other parties. What Poppy seemed to be saying today was that nothing was wrong with me at all—relationshipsblossomed and they shed their petals, the cycles of life, blah-blah. At least she was kind enough not to point out that it’d been many years since she’d seen me in bloom.
    â€œYour ex is here?” Clara asked, biting her lip.
    â€œThe cocky brunette. Nancy.”
    Clara shook her head, which I took to mean she didn’t know who I was talking about. Nancy was visiting from the West Coast, that’s why Poppy invited her. You don’t mind, do you? Poppy had asked, putting a baking sheet of biscuits into the oven. It’s been seven years, I’d said and was happy that Poppy couldn’t see my face. The worst part was I knew I shouldn’t mind. It’d been forever. And it hadn’t been that great anyway. Nancy was self-absorbed and bad in bed.
    â€œOne great thing about moving a lot,” Clara said. “No need to confront your past at parties.”
    â€œAre you new to town?” I asked.
    â€œTwo years.” She pushed her hands through her hair, letting the little pomp on the front fall back against her forehead.
    â€œI’ve been in the Valley since college,” I said. “Fourteen long years.”
    â€œYou don’t like it?”
    â€œI do, I just wish—I don’t know. For something new. New air.”
    â€œIt’s overrated.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œNew air.”
    I looked down the stairs to the glass sliding door that opened out onto the patio. There was Nancy’s back, and the lit-up face of Poppy’s friend Annabelle. They were drinking martinis and leaning in close to one another. I felt the warmth of Clara’s arm near mine, the little blond hairs tickling me.
    I stood, not steadily, and said, “I need to get outta here.”
    Clara said, “Do you want to go to my place? It isn’t far.”
    Under any other circumstance I would have said no. But that afternoon did not feel normal. I felt like a fish that had suddenly grown legs, or a human waking to a set of gills—unsure of what to do with myself, afraid of the strange gift I’d been given.
    I said sure. I motioned to Clara to follow me, and we slipped out the side door by the downstairs bathroom. Walking across the lawn, the grass long and lush and tickling my ankles, I felt a moment of urgency pass through me. I stopped abruptly and turned. Clara, not paying attention, almost crashed into me.
    I said, my voice quiet though I knew it didn’t matter, “I wonder how long it’ll be till they notice we’re gone?” And I giggled. The sound was foreign as it emerged from my mouth and filled the air. Clara raised her eyebrows and gave a sly smile.
    â€œMaybe never,” she said, and I hoped she was right.
    She whistled at the old maroon Volvo. I dug in my purse for my keys and when I unearthed them, she closed her hand around mine. “Could I drive? I love these old cars,” she said.
    â€œWhere’s your car?” I asked, confused.
    â€œI don’t have one.”
    â€œHow’d you get here?”
    â€œI walked,” she said.
    I never let anyone drive my car. The old Volvo’s clutch was loose and it frequently ground between gears or stalled out in second if it wasn’t given the proper finesse. It had been my dad’s before he died.
    Maybe it was her hand around mine. Maybe it was the dying of another summer. Maybe it was the feeling of a petal or two