Bliss by Kathryn Littlewood Read Free Book Online Page B

air conditioner.
    â€œSo. What strange thing will we eat for dinner tonight? Curry?” she spat.
    â€œNo, ma’am!” Sage cooed. “This is a leg of lamb with that zeekee!”
    â€œTzatziki,” Lily corrected, laughing. “It’s a Greek yogurt sauce.”
    Leigh sat on Chip’s lap and gnawed on the same piece of lamb for a long time, Sage and Ty wiped the juicy yogurt sauce from their mouths with their sleeves, and Mrs. Carlson could barely contain a smile as she sucked down pieces of lamb, which were tender as butter. All the while, Rose stared in disbelief at her aunt, who in less than two days had transformed the knit brows of the Bliss clan into easy smiles.
    Leigh lifted the Polaroid camera that was permanently strapped to her neck and snapped a picture of Aunt Lily.
    After everyone had finished their lamb, Lily snuck off into the kitchen and reappeared carrying a shallow tart with a pale crumb crust, filled with yellow custard. “I made you all something wonderful for dessert!”
    Rose’s face fell. She hated lemon tarts.
    So did Sage. “Ech! Lemon!” he winced, puckering his mouth like a fish.
    â€œNo, no!” Lily cried. “There’s no lemon! I absolutely detest lemon tarts! No, I guarantee that this is unlike anything you’ve tried before!” she said, doling out slivers with a long knife. “This is a recipe from my great-great-great-grandfather Albatross.”
    Rose looked at the slice on her plate. Only the top layer was yellow custard—beneath it were layers of swirling crimson and blue and even something that shimmered like the skin of a fish. When she bit into it, she tasted thick, buttery goop that was sweet and a little salty and, indeed, unlike anything she’d ever had.
    The Bliss bunch sat in silence, nibbling on tiny bites of the sublime tart, trying to make it last all night.
    â€œSee, this is the sort of special recipe I’ve been traveling around trying to collect,” Lily explained. “Truly unique recipes.”
    The phone rang from inside the kitchen, but everyone was too engrossed in the tart to notice—even Mrs. Carlson, who sat quietly nibbling, a look of rapture on her face.
    Only Leigh, who lost interest in the tart after one nibble, ran into the kitchen and stood on one of the red leather cushions in the booth to answer the old black rotary phone. She called from inside, “Mama is on the phone. Ty, talk to Mama!” She left the receiver dangling from the wall in the kitchen and ran outside to rejoin the group on the picnic blanket.
    Ty grumbled and stood up.
    Lily grabbed his wrist. “Finish that last bite, Ty—I don’t want any to go to waste!”
    Ty grinned at the look of Aunt Lily’s long, elegant fingers wrapped around his wrist, and, like an obedient dog, popped the remaining chunk of the tart in his mouth and swallowed in one gulp, then paced to the back door, as if in a trance. He found the phone swinging on the cord and listlessly pressed it to his ear.
    Rose could hear him speak in the way he always spoke on the phone—mechanical, almost robotic. “Hi… Good… No, nothing new has happened.”
    Which wasn’t true at all! Aunt Lily had arrived, which was possibly the newest thing that had ever happened in the entire dull history of Calamity Falls.
    Rose had the urge to run to the phone and tell her parents all about Aunt Lily, to make sure that she’d done the right thing by letting her into the family business. She told herself she was going to do so, right after this next bite of tart. And then the next bite. And, really, right after she finished cleaning her plate. She just couldn’t stop nibbling on the tart. Not even after Ty hung up and sat down in the backyard again, saying, “Oh, it was just the usual—clean up and go to bed early and blah blah blah.”
    Aunt Lily silenced him by raising a forkful of tart toward his