Page 35 of A Taste of Vanilla

Oliver looks around the car. “She looks like a recall notice.”

I can’t argue with him there.

“Penelope has been through a lot,” I say instead.

“I mean so have I, and yet I’d still notify people when I’m empty.”

What does that evenmean?

Marley snorts, and I try not to laugh. Defending Penelope is important to me, but Oliver’s face is far too serious and my body is exhausted and everything is so incredibly horrible. So naturally, the joke hits me.

I laugh.

Marley laughs.

Oliver, however, does not. But the corner of his mouth tilts just a little, which for him counts as public hysteria.

“Okay,” he says. “Marley rides with you. I’m behind you. We go slow. If she makes noise again, turn on your hazards, okay?”

I salute him.

While he gets back in his truck, Marley buckles herself in and points ahead. “To Baltimore!”

The word lands differently than Florida had. Florida means distance from the current circumstance. Baltimore means aftermath.

Baltimore has my home. My wedding dress. Grant’s favorite mug in the cabinets. Three vendor invoices I just paid sitting in my office. A florist who would expect me to approve centerpieces by next Tuesday. A life to dismantle piece by piece while everyone watches.

But it also has Bitter Bloom, and Oliver’s bar, and Marley’s threats, and a couch that’s basically a pillow with legs that I’mnot allowed to sleep on. A tiny apartment above Oliver’s shop that smells like paint and maybe, if I’m brave enough to let it happen, a new beginning.

I put the car in drive, my hands shaking on the wheel.

I ease Penelope back onto the highway, keeping my eyes locked ahead. It’s still early, yet Maryland drivers are out and about causing chaos on the roads as usual.

For the first few miles, no one speaks. Marley sits quietly next to me, one foot tucked under her, one hand still resting between us on the console in case I need to grab it. Oliver follows close enough that I can see his truck in the rearview every time I check, except for the one time a minivan cuts him off.

So he turns his hazards on. It feels like a funeral procession for my engagement.

I snort.

Marley’s head whips around. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That was not a nothing sound. That was a weird little emotionally unstable raccoon sound.”

I hit my head against the seat. “I was just thinking that Oliver’s truck kind of looks like it’s escorting the corpse of my relationship back home.”

Marley twists to look behind us, and immediately starts laughing the kind of laugh that makes your shoulders shake and forces you to gasp for breath.

I laugh too. “Stop,” I say, but there’s no energy to it.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “It does, though. It really does.”

“He’d hate that I said that.”

“He’d say something dumb like ‘I’m not wasting my hazards on Grant’ like hazard lights cost gasoline.”

“But he’d do it anyway.”