Free The Brevity of Roses by Linda Cassidy Lewis Page A

again.
    Dreading another pointless day, she made plans to drive over to the coast where she could visit art galleries, meditate by the sea, and have lunch somewhere different. Somewhere that wouldn’t remind her of Jalal. Early the next morning, she drove thirty miles to a village called Bahía de Sueños, a place she had escaped to before. Alone. After living so many years near San Francisco, she missed the ocean with its dual nature of calm and chaos. It called to her in voices of both lover and adversary. Always, she felt that if she could sit beside it still enough, long enough, she might solve mysteries. About life. About herself.
    Two minutes after her arrival, while stopped at the only traffic light in that section of the town, she perused the line of shops ahead. The flash of sunlight on an opening door caught her eye. She watched as Jalal stepped out and headed down the sidewalk, away from her. A sense of longing hit her with such force it left her breathless. That longing so frightened her, she turned her car around and drove straight back home.
    The phone began to ring just as she walked into the kitchen. She took two steps toward it, then froze. What if it’s Jalal? What if it isn’t? She hesitated one ring too long. The machine picked up, and Judith said, “Meredith, where the hell are you? We’re all waiting for you here at the charity luncheon!”
    Oh! If only she had remembered the event. She wouldn’t have driven to the coast. She wouldn’t have seen Jalal. She would have been one day closer to moving on. Rather than return Judith’s call and admit she had forgotten, Meredith rushed to change her clothes. She would drive like crazy to the country club and pretend she was only running late. Attending the luncheon would have to be better than spending another afternoon alone. If nothing else, it would force her mind off Jalal for a little while.
    Twenty minutes later, she grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server, and took her seat at the table.
    “Where’s our honey boy?” asked Judith.
    Meredith ignored Judith’s question and asked one of her own. “Did I miss anything?”
    Donna replied, “Only Goldie, boring everyone with her usual opening drone.”
    Judith and Carol sputtered in glee, while Carol motioned with a flick of her eyes toward the next table. When Donna glanced over to where Goldie’s daughter sat, she uttered a hearty, “Oh, shit!” and then she laughed too.
    Their mean-spiritedness stripped them bare, allowing her to see them as Jalal must have. Goldie and Donna had been neighbors and friends for years. How could Donna be so two-faced? She studied the three women she had called friends the last twelve years. How many times had they secretly made her the butt of their cruel jokes? Honey boy? Did Judith’s dress bare every legal inch of her chest because she had expected to see Jalal? Our honey boy? Had the three of them conspired and decided Jalal should be community property?
    Oh, God! What if Jalal had decided she was every bit as shallow and ridiculous as these women? What if he truly nolonger wanted her in his life? The possibility sickened her. Without a word, she rose from the table and left the Wanton Women behind.
    After that, she tried hard not to think of Jalal. In Bahía de Sueños. With someone else. She tended her garden, read journals and magazines that had piled up, and caught up on her correspondence. After only a few days, she ran out of ways to occupy her time. As though her previous life had vanished with Jalal, Meredith had forgotten how she survived the days before meeting him. She hadn’t felt this lost and alone for fifteen years, since the day life betrayed her.
    On that day, she and Stephen had arrived at the excavation site after a pre-dawn breakfast. Though it had rained for three days before, the weather was perfect that morning, and they hoped to make up for the time lost. They parted with a kiss at the field office because she had