When Life Gives You Lemons
by Stina Branson

Tara held her concoction up to the light streaming into the greenhouse. Yes, she was glad that she'd started with lemonade. The color was still good. But how would it taste? Tara wrinkled her forehead. She couldn't really worry about that. All that mattered was that Andy would pay.
Just who did Andy think he was, anyway? And did he really think she'd never find out about Joelle? Sure, Andy had sworn it was over with Joelle when he asked Tara to marry him. Crossed his heart and hoped to die. Well, Tara could oblige.
It hadn't bothered Tara that they would have to wait to marry. Her family was right; it just wouldn't do to rush into such a serious relationship, especially with someone so much older. And it would've been one thing if he had just broken it off honestly. But that lie was quite another thing.
Tara squinted her eyes in anger as she replayed the scene in her head. It was for her own good, Andy had said. He didn't want to be a burden on her. How could she possibly want to spend her life tending to a cripple? His voice had been so calm and soothing as he gently deflected Tara's protestations. Yes, perhaps he was still walking just fine. But the doctors assured him it was only a matter of time. Better for them to part ways now and let Tara move on with her life.
Tara had actually cried over Andy's plight. But it didn't take long for sorrow to be replaced with rage. Only a few days later, Tara stopped by Andy's house to see if there was anything she could do for him - if only as a friend. But Andy was out that day - gone to visit Joelle. And Andy's mother seemed bewildered to learn of her son's rapidly declining health.
Well, Tara's mama had raised no fool. Tara knew swift action was called for. She sniffed gingerly at the lemonade mixture and decided that the time had come. She was just replacing the bottle as the door opened.
* * * * *
Mary entered the greenhouse just as Tara was stretching to put the bottle of Dawn back on the sink's ledge. "Tara, your friend Andy is here."
Tara turned and smiled. "Just finishing up," she said as she picked up the tray bearing two glasses of lemonade. "I'll be at the picnic table in the garden." Mary did not notice that one of the drinks was ever-so-slightly tinged with blue, and if she noticed the grim determination tinting her daughter's expression, she chalked it up to Tara's impassioned approach to everything she did.
Mary returned to the house and dispatched the young man to the garden, then joined her husband in the living room. Joe lowered his newspaper and lifted an eyebrow at his wife. "Sure you don't want to go keep an eye on them?" he asked.
Mary shrugged. "It's 'business.' Tara wants Andy to help her set up a lemonade stand this summer. She thinks she has a killer recipe and wanted to run it by him."
"Mmm," Joe murmured. "Is it normal for a five-year-old girl to be so. I don' t know."
"Obsessed with the bottom line?" suggested Mary. "I don't know, either. But at least now I'm not getting calls from the principal about her kissing some 2nd-grader during recess."
"So instead of the next Monica Lewinsky, we're raising a little Leona Helmsley?" Joe sighed, shook his head, and returned to his paper. "Oh well, there are worse things she could turn into."

Stina Branson's fiction has appeared in Calliope, Futures, and Brigit's Temple Fiction Magazine. She is a member of SMFS and Sisters in Crime, of which she is currently the President for the Sleuths' Ink Chapter.