They loved my aunt Camellia’s lotions and potions, called A Lady’s Secret and Carnal Coconut and Soothing Seduction.

And they loved my aunt Iris’s puzzling/somewhat suggestive /now and then a little creepy flower photographs that made you stop and think and tilt your head as you tried to “get it.” One of her purple flowers definitely resembled a penis, and two other exotic red flowers together definitely resembled breasts. She had turned many of her photographs into cards, and they flew out the door.

I met with customers and tried to get them to buy piles of books they would love. I am not bragging, but I know my books. I can find any book for anybody. And I can usually figure out what they might like to read that they had never thought to read. Books are my business. I am their book gal.

But in between customers and loading up shelves with new books and rearranging displays, when I had a minute, I thought of Marco. I knew I loved him. But there could never be a future because of what I knew, what I had seen, would happen between us.

I could not let that happen.

And that made the inside of me feel lonely and cold.

I touched a yellow rose petal in the bouquet on my office desk. I would eat a raspberry rose cupcake to warm me up, then I would have some honey lavender tea.

* * *

The Book Babes were back.

They were discussing a book in which a woman watered her cheating soon-to-be-ex-husband’s Corvette with a hose.

The discussion had morphed into what was appropriate in terms of revenge if a husband cheated. They decided . . .

* * *

1) Don’t do anything that would get you arrested. Jail would not be fun, and there might not be book club.

2) Driving his jointly owned midlife crisis car into the ocean while cackling would be okay.

3) Cutting out the crotches of all his pants was also acceptable.

4) Going to visit the mistress at work and announcing yourself like this in a loud voice to the receptionist would also be acceptable: “I am the wife of Dave Miller and I want to talk to his girlfriend, Marni Smith, about why she is banging my husband.”

5) Stalking him, taking incriminating photos, and then mailing them to his mother and grandmother was a smart idea.

6) Going to Hawaii after the breakup and having a brief vacation affair would be a splendid postdivorce event as long as one had the affair-ee take a blood test to check for all STDs and one used condoms, just in case.

Always interesting to listen to the Book Babes.

“I still miss Dad every day.”

My mother’s hands stilled. We were in our garden, snipping flowers here and there for her shop, the sun high, the wind soft. We were both in garden boots and hats. Mine was a baseball hat, hers was straw, wobbly, with a white ribbon tied below her neck.