Read Online Queen of Dreams by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online Page A

adds, “Nor would your father.”
    But I’ve picked up the tension in her voice. “What is it, Mom?”
    “I wish it weren’t a Friday, that’s all.”
    I know what she means. My father’s binges always begin on Friday evenings, and he hasn’t had one in a while.
    “He’s been laid off again,” she adds. “The company’s downsizing. He’s been going to the agency every day, but no one seems to be hiring—especially older people. He’s taking it hard.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, but I don’t give it too much thought. My father—a hazy presence in my life at the best of times—has been laid off before this, and he’s always managed to find something. Right now, selfishly—I admit it—I’m more concerned with my own problems. “You’ll just have to keep him from drinking,” I tell her. Anxiety makes me sharp. “Just for this one night. It’s really important. Can’t you do this much for me?”
    “I’ll do my best,” she says, but her voice wavers. I know we’re both thinking the same thing: so far, in almost three decades of marriage, she hasn’t been successful yet.
    The week passes in a blur. I agonize over which paintings to choose for the show. Half a dozen times I begin dialing my mother’s number, then hang up. She’d be glad to give her opinion, and so would Belle, but they wouldn’t know what’s right. Only I can know that. And so I pick and reject, pick and reject, lining up paintings along the wall and staring at them until they all look flawed and hideous. In between, I worry about Jona.
    I haven’t heard from her—or Sonny—since he left me that message a week ago saying he was taking off for the wilds of Mendocino. I imagine them lost in the forest, starving. I picture boats capsizing. Grizzlies. Hypothermia. Cobras. (Half of my mind insists that cobras do not live in Northern California, but the other half will have none of it.) Finally, I break down and call Sonny’s number. I’m ready with a scathing message, but his machine informs me that his phone mailbox is full. I’m left to seethe and wonder who’s been calling him so many times.
    Things are not going well at the Chai House. There’s been a sharp drop in customers, especially after the new café put up a sign advertising student discounts. Sometimes an entire hour goes by with no one coming in—something that has never happened before this. I spend a lot of my store time at the plate-glass window, watching the hordes jostling under the awning of Java. Masochism pure and simple, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Two of the philodendrons in our window box died recently, no doubt as a result of the jealous poison-air I was breathing on them. The only person who is benefiting from all this is Marco. We have so many Danishes left at the end of the day that he’s able to pick up enough for all his homeless friends.
    Once I asked if he’d been inside the new place.
    He tugged at his scruffy beard. “Um—yeah, I went in last week—just to check out the place, you know.”
    “Was it pretty?” I asked against my will.
    “Pretty?” He wrinkled his forehead. “Tell the truth, I can’t exactly remember. There was lots of shiny stuff. But I sure remember the manager. I wanted some coffee—I had money, even—but that manager, she was one cold bitch. She has these pale blue eyes, almost white, that never blink. Like a robot’s. Her mouth’s like a robot’s too, looks like it’s made of metal. She told me, I don’t want you coming in here again. Then she said, like she was doing me a favor, I don’t mind if you go to the Dumpster in the back and pick stuff out of there, as long as it’s after hours. Serves me right, I guess, for going there instead of coming to nice young ladies like you two. But don’t you fret about them. They ain’t gonna last long on this street with that kinda attitude.”
    I smiled and put an extra muffin in his sack. “That would be good, wouldn’t it,” I said. But