Page 52 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

“That doesn’t make something a commune.”

I laugh, and Rose smiles as we stop beside a jewelry stall where dozens of earrings hang from wooden displays, shifting gently whenever the wind comes through. Most of them aren’t really my style, but a pair near the end catches my attention: small gold suns with minuscule pink stones inlaid on the rays.

“You made your own soap.”

“It was good soap.”

I reach for them before I’ve decided whether I’m interested.

“One,” Rose says.

I turn the card over to check the price. “One what?”

“One thing you want.”

“I don’t know if I want them. I just think they’re pretty.”

Rose waits, which is deeply irritating because I know exactly what she’s waiting for.

“I already own a lot of earrings,” I add.

“Merryweather,” she says with a groan, then keeps walking on to the next stall.

I look at her, then back at the little gold suns in my hand. She has a point, which I have no intention of acknowledging aloud.

The earrings are pretty. That was the first thing I thought when I saw them, before my brain started opening drawers at home and conducting an inventory of everything I already own.

I pull out my phone.

1. Gold sun earrings

Rose leans over my shoulder to read it.

“There. Was that painful?”

I roll my eyes. “Excruciating.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“Don’t be condescending,” I say, and I hear my sister chuckle behind me. “You’re starting to sound like Mom.”

“Mom is much nicer than I am,” she replies, without skipping a beat. “And I’m not. I think this is real growth.”

I put the earrings back on the display and follow her before she gets far enough ahead of me that I have to start weaving though people to catch up. Rose doesn’t ask if I’m going to buy them, which feels strangely unfinished. Veronica or Dani would have already offered an opinion about the price, and I would probably be holding them against my ear while explaining that I could wear them to work, or dinner, or one of the approximately negative three social engagements I attend every month.

Rose, in contrast, apparently considers the matter settled because I wanted them for thirty seconds.

“You really don’t do this?”

She glances at me as we pass a stall selling bread. “Do what?”

“Explain things to yourself.”

“I explain things.”

“Rose,” I say with a groan, and I know she’s absolutely fucking with me and enjoying every second of this. “You know what I mean.”

“Merryweather.” She shakes her head, then grabs one of the small samples of olive and rosemary sourdough that the vendor has on the display. “I really don’t.”