Season to Taste by Natalie Young Page B

she tried to find a response.
    â€œIt’s time, you know?” he said, straightening his back and standing up tall in the porch. “It’s just about bloody time. Me.
     And Nic. I love her. I’m nervous. It’s OK. I’m not good enough, that’s what I feel.”
    â€œI think the fact that you can say what you feel will be good enough for her. And good enough for anybody,” Lizzie said, quietly.
    He took the cake from her hands and took a deep, clearing breath.
    â€œAre you going to do it in front of everyone, Mike?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œGosh.”
    â€œNah, man. I’m ready. Ready as I’ll ever be.”
    â€œMe too,” she said. “I’m leaving here, I’m putting the house on the market.”
    â€œYou’re kidding! I love that little house. See it every time I go cycling past and think how much I love that place. A sweet
     little home. You know? Wish I could have one of my own. For me and Nic.”
    Lizzie tucked the foil back under the plate. Then she looked up at him and her eyes settled longingly on his soft young cheek.
    â€œPerhaps you can,” she said.

    111.  Temptations will be everywhere. You will be drawn to young people. Young, happy people, especially those in love, will seem
     very attractive to you. You will be extremely sensitive to the smells coming off them. They will seem warm and musky and heaven
     to be around. You will find yourself leaning in with what feels like an innocent kind of love, a sense of wanting to be friends
     with them, but watch the old throbbing sensations, and the dreams you will be making. Summer afternoons with jugs of lemonade
     and strong brown arms folding around you and drawing you close are the stuff of dreams only; in all probability not visions
     of a future for you.
    112.  This doesn’t mean you won’t be happy.
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    â€œI’ll come tomorrow with the money,” he said. She looked down at the heel on his cowboy boots. She’d taken her hair out of
     its clip. Now she tried to flick it back with a jerk of her head.
    â€œGood luck,” she said, “and let’s speak again.”
    She took the steps two at a time, and quickly belted her swollen body into the car. Her stomach was gurgling and her insides
     felt very heavy now, as when she’d had too much dairy over a number of days. There was also a thick, oily feeling in her mouth,
     which made it hard to swallow. She sipped water, then put the bottle back into her coat pocket. She was getting sick. She
     would need to go home and have a cup of tea beside the fire.
    She put her headlights on as she drove back up the lane, then flicked them down when she saw the car coming the other way.
     She knew it was her neighbors from up at the farm and she looked into the back of the car as it passed by to see if the old
     man was there.
    By now she was trembling at the wheel. She made an effort to park the car very neatly, very precisely, half in, half out of
     the ditch, as it had always been.
    She got out of the car and stood in the dark with her hands the same lengths at the sides. She looked up through the trees
     and saw not a single star in the sky.
    It was remarkable how people managed in life, how they got on without worrying too much about it, she thought.
    â€œGet up and put your lipstick on,” Anne had said, standing tall with her daughter, almost to the ceiling of the rented room
     in Hove. “Get up and brush your hair and wash and cream your face as if your life were not as it is but better.”
    Lizzie had asked her mother how you creamed your face as if your life were not as it was but better, and Anne had shown her
     how to do it slowly, and tenderly, with a look of pride, like someone would if they had all day to go and watch water voles
     swimming or play tennis with a friend.
    â€œThe thing to remember is: only you know how bad it is. Only we know what we know. Therefore only we see