The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(21)

Viviane paid little attention to her mother’s new houseguest. She failed to notice his youthful gaze and mannerisms. She assumed — as everyone did — that he was much older (and certainly not younger!) than herself. She once called him sir and was confused and embarrassed by his crestfallen face. He was always polite, offering her the last piece of blackberry pie, and it was nice that he fixed the dripping bathtub faucet. And though he was hardly Jack, Viviane would even go so far as to say he was handsome. If you liked that tall, dark sort of thing.

But Viviane’s mind was hardly on her mother’s houseguest right then; rather, it was on the fact that the solstice celebration was that evening, an event that no neighborhood resident dared to miss. Most especially Jack. Or so she hoped.

The yearly celebrations of Fatima Inês de Dores’s birthday had changed since the days when the child had lived at the end of Pinnacle Lane. The gypsy woman and Chinese acrobats were a thing of the past, but the celebration hadn’t lost its magical, sumptuous ways. At night the celebration came to a grand apogée with a giant bonfire in the school parking lot. It was where exhausted children fell asleep — the warmth of the flames against their cotton-candied faces — where high schoolers snuck off to neck in the shadows, where forlorn lovers scribed their woes on blue-lined paper and burned them in the flames. It was a fitting place, Viviane believed, for fate to bring her and Jack back together again.

Perhaps in anticipation of the festivities, this year’s dahlias had bloomed early in a splendid array. Their maned faces filled every garden, like a parade of dancing children in their Sunday best, but none were more glorious than those in Emilienne’s garden. She created her own hybrids in fanciful colors unseen anywhere else: the deepest cerulean blue, fiery reds that faded to yellow or orange or the richest purple, a green so pale they looked white at first glance. They dwarfed the surrounding fruit trees; their colorful blooms arched over the first-floor windows of the house. But hidden by those large blooms was Emilienne’s real garden: white chrysanthemums for protection, dandelion root for a good night’s sleep, eucalyptus and marjoram for healing. There was foxglove, ginger, heather, and mint. The poisonous belladonna. The capricious peony. And lavender. One could never have enough lavender.

Emilienne watched her daughter come into the garden through the rusted iron gate. As Viviane made her way down the path toward her mother, she ducked under the swaying blossoms and batted at them playfully. She was wearing a white lace dress, and in her hair was a garland she’d made in preparation for la fête. She’d spent hours carefully weaving the stems together and tying strands of ribbon to hang down her back.

Viviane looked, Emilienne noted silently, like a bride on her wedding day.

“What are you dressed up for?” Emilienne was troubled by the faraway look in Viviane’s eyes. Lately the only expression Viviane wore was one of misery and longing. This was a different look, Emilienne noted. There was some excitement there, some hope.

Viviane smiled. “Solstice.”

“Ah.” Emilienne stood, brushing the dirt from her knees. “You should ask Gabe to go with you.” Emilienne cringed at her attempt to speak casually with her daughter — it was a skill she’d never mastered.

Viviane was too distracted to notice. “Who?”

“Our guest,” Emilienne pointed to where Gabe was sanding the new railing he’d recently installed on the back porch. “Go ask him,” Emilienne commanded. “It would be polite.”

“Fine.” Viviane sighed. “But I’m going there to meet Jack.”

Emilienne raised her eyebrows. “And you know he’ll be there, how?”

“I just know.”

The glow in her daughter’s eyes left a taste like metal in Emilienne’s mouth.

She reached out and tucked a sprig of lavender into the crown of flowers on Viviane’s head. “For luck,” she said, a bit more gruffly than she meant to.

Without another word, Viviane dreamily skipped back down the cobble path.

Viviane noticed the way the neighbors looked at her mother when they went into the bakery to buy a loaf of bread, noticed how they flinched if her hand touched theirs when she gave back their change. She knew the neighbors thought her mother was strange.

Well, Viviane thought, I guess they could think the same thing about me.

Viviane tilted her head back and breathed in deeply, trying to decipher the concoction of smells in the air. The wet, earthy one was the dahlias — all flowers smelled that way, even the ones with their own pungent odor, like roses and gardenias. Her mother’s scent was that of fresh-baked bread, tainted by a slight brackish tone, as if the bread had been salted with tears. Viviane took in another deep breath, trying to figure out the source of the last of the aromas. It was a rich smell, like cedar or pine. Viviane always found woodsy scents comforting. They reminded her of Wilhelmina, but there was a hint of sweetness in this particular scent that Wilhelmina didn’t have.

For a moment, Viviane allowed herself to admire the muscles in Gabe’s back, glistening with sweat, as he worked. She blushed when he looked up, embarrassed that he’d caught her watching him. “I’m supposed to ask if you want to come to the solstice celebration,” she said.

He set down his tools and squinted down at her. “Supposed to, huh?” he teased.

She rolled her eyes. “So, you want to go or not?”