The Violets of March by Sarah Jio Read Free Book Online

instinctively pulled up the comforter to hide the pages I was reading.
    “Yes?” I said.
    Bee opened the door. “I can’t sleep,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “How about we make a trip to the market instead?”
    “Sure,” I said, even though I really wanted to stay and keep reading.
    “I’ll meet you out front, when you’re ready,” she said, staring at me for a few seconds longer than was comfortable before breaking her gaze. I was starting to get the feeling that people on the island were all in on some big secret—one that no one had any intention of sharing with me.

Chapter 4

    T he Town and Country Market was just a half mile from Bee’s home. I used to walk there as a girl, with my sister or my cousins, or sometimes all by myself, picking purple clover flowers along the way until I had a big round bunch, which, when pressed up to your nose, smelled exactly of honey. Before the walk, we’d always beg the adults for twenty-five cents and return with pockets full of pink Bazooka bubble gum. If summer had a flavor, it was pink bubble gum.
    Bee and I drove in silence along the winding road up into town. The beauty of an old Volkswagen is that if you don’t feel like talking, you don’t have to. The engine noise infuses uneasy stillness with a nice, comforting hum.
    Bee handed me her shopping list. “I have to go talk to Leanne in the bakery. Can you get started on this list, dear?”
    “Sure,” I said, smiling. I knew I could still find my way around the market, even if I was seventeen the last time I’d stepped foot in the place.
    The Otter Pops were probably still on aisle three, and, of course, the cute guy in the produce department would be there, with the sleeves of his T-shirt rolled up high to show off his biceps.
    I scanned Bee’s list—salmon, arborio rice, leeks, watercress, shallots, white wine, rhubarb, whipping cream—which hinted that dinner would be drool-worthy. I decided to start with wine, since it was closest.
    The Town and Country Market’s wine department looked more like the cellar of an upscale restaurant than the limited selection typical of a regular grocery store. Nestled below a small flight of stairs was a dimly lit, cavernous room where dusty bottles seemed to cling perilously to the walls.
    “Can I help you?”
    I looked up, a little startled, and noticed a man about my age walking toward me. I backed up abruptly and almost knocked over a display of white wine. “Oh my gosh, sorry,” I said, steadying a bottle that was bobbing like a bowling pin.
    “No worries,” he said. “Are you looking for a California white, or maybe something local?”
    There were few lights in the room, so I couldn’t make out his face, not at first. “Well, I really was just . . .” And just then, as he approached me and reached for a bottle on the upper shelf, I saw his face, and my mouth fell open. “God, is that you, Greg ?”
    He looked down at me, shaking his head in disbelief. “Emily?”
    It was eerie and exciting and uncomfortable, all at the same time. There, standing in front of me, wearing a grocery store apron, was my teenage crush. And even though it had been almost twenty years since I’d last seen him, his face was as familiar as it had been the day I let him remove the top of my Superwoman bikini and run his hands along my chest. I was sure it meant that he loved me and we’d get married one day. I was so sure of this, in fact, that I scratched “Emily + Greg = Love” with a paper clip on the back of the paper towel dispenser in the women’s restroom at the market. But then the summer ended, and I went home. I checked my mailbox every day for five months, but no letters. No calls. And then the next summer, at Bee’s, I walked along the beach to his house and knocked on his door. His younger sister, whom I never liked, informed me that he’d left for college and that he had a new girlfriend. Her name, she said, was Lisa.
    Greg was still incredibly handsome—but