Julia's Chocolates Read Online Free Page B

think. She sells her vegetables and fruits at the farmer’s market, and she also bakes bread. Delicious bread. Bread that can almost bring you to orgasm, it’s so good. I told her to call it Orgasmic Bread, but she didn’t think that would work. She does the readings on the side. I have never met anyone as frugal as Caroline. Oh, she’s generous with a capital G, but if you gave her a piece of sackcloth, she would whip out her sewing machine and make the most beautiful curtains out of it you’ve ever seen.”
    I started to chuckle, and Aunt Lydia narrowed her eyes, but I could see a smile tugging at those full lips of hers. Sixty-three years old and her mouth was one that many a starlet had paid thousands and thousands of dollars to achieve.
    “You don’t believe she’s a real psychic, do you?” Aunt Lydia put her hands on her hips, as if ready to draw her guns.
    I didn’t roll my eyes and prided myself on that. I was back to staring at the reds swirling hotly in the pan.
    “I’m telling you, Julia, that woman has been right on the button so many times—for all of us. And she doesn’t charge for her services on Psychic Night. We try to pay her, but she won’t take a dime, so all of us, just to keep her going, drop off eggs and cookies and dinners.” Lydia shook her head back and forth like a bowling ball gone crazy. “She’s a proud one, though. Proud as a stallion who can flip all the cowboys off his back.
    “And it’s her upside-down pineapple pound cake and her carrot bread with cream cheese frosting that brings in the most money every year at the church’s auction. Every year. Sweetest woman you ever did want to meet, that’s dear Caroline. Doesn’t open up and tell us much about herself, but she is as straight and honest as my cornstalks.”
    “I’ll look forward to meeting her.” Unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears. “Thanks for letting me come, Aunt Lydia.”
    “You’re welcome. You’ll love Psychic Night.” She had misinterpreted what I said. She walked over and gave me a big hug, smelling like vanilla and lavender and chocolate, and I buried my face in her shoulder. “Don’t cry, love! You’ve escaped a life’s prison sentence with King Prick. Prison! You might as well have worn a shirt that said ‘Inmate’ on the back. ‘Inmate of King Prick’! Aren’t you happy you’re not an inmate?”
    “I am,” I cried. “I am.” I ached. My face hurt. I’m fat. No one would marry me. Robert had wanted to, but as I couldn’t see letting my face become his punching bag for forty years, I’d bolted. Finally. And I didn’t regret it, did I? I wanted a husband, but not that much. Right?
    I pulled away from Lydia, sniffling. She went back to her brownies, extolling the virtues of feminine freedom from men, how they and they alone were responsible for the turmoil of our hormones. Then she made up a song about men with little penises.
    My stomach gnawed again at my insides as if anxiety were eating it alive, and my heart suddenly started to palpitate, seemingly bent on cruising me right into a coronary.
    I coughed, coughed again, knowing what was coming. The Dread Disease was back. I instantly felt as if I couldn’t drag enough air into my deflated lungs. My hands froze into little clenched blocks of ice while at the same time my body trembled as if a giant hand were shaking it.
    I closed my eyes in defeat, knowing I could easier stop a speeding train with my ample buttocks than stop this. Death was after my sorry hide, I knew it. I had some horrible, currently unnamed disease that would torture me for months, probably devour my insides until they collapsed into their own wormholes, and then I’d die. That was why my heart often raced as if I’d been running a marathon and why I would feel cold, then burning hot, and my hands shook like leaves on speed and I couldn’t breathe.
    I listened to Aunt Lydia’s penis song half-heartedly, trying to hide the fact that, at least to me,