Read Online Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez - Free Book Online Page A

make yourself feel happy. And when life gives you lemons, you make wine.” Joe laughed and raised his glass. “ Cent’anni . A hundred years. And to my new friend Sunny Tedder—may she find her heart’s content.” They each took a healthy sip, then set their glasses down on the table. Joe carefully wiped the knife’s blade across the leg of his jeans, peeled the top off of the plastic container, and dissected the cheese with the precision of a surgeon. Once done, he stabbed the tip ofthe knife into a soft slab and offered it to Sunny with a bow of his head.
    He watched as she took her first bite. “Oh. My. God,” she said, with her mouth still half full. “Are you kidding me, Joe? This is the most delicious cheese, no, the most delicious thing , that I have ever tasted.” Her shoulders seemed to relax for the first time since he had met her, making her neck appear to grow inches longer than before. Sunny helped herself to more, her eyes slipping shut as she savored the milky treat. Suddenly they both jumped at the sound of a car door slamming outside.
    â€œCompany!” said Joe with glee as he scraped back his chair and struggled to stand. “Now who could that be?” He shuffled to the door and opened it to find Sky shaking off the rain like a dog fresh from a bath. Joe and the skinny young man embraced each other in a part hug, part handshake, part pat on the back, an elaborate ritual that ended with a fist bump, a routine they’d clearly perfected over time. “I tell you, one day my eyeglasses are gonna get caught in those things, and you, young man, you’re going to cry like a baby,” said Joe, pointing to the gaping holes in the boy’s earlobes, stretched into shape by a pair of metal grommets. Joe rubbed at his own saggy earlobes, just imagining the pain.
    Sunny and Sky greeted each other with a little hug of their own, looking like long-lost siblings with their matching mops of curly brown hair. “You know,” said Joe, pointing out the window toward the darkening sky, “I just thought of it. Perhaps you two meeting is an omen. Sunny, Sky!” He laughed at his own joke as the two of them groaned. Joe pinched the front pockets of his shirt between his index fingers and thumbs and pulled the fabric away from his body, flapping his arms a little to dispel the dampness left by Sky’s wet jacket. Then he cleared his throat.“So tell me, Sky. What on God’s green earth could you be doing here on a night like this?”
    Sky shot him a confused look, which Joe answered with a swift jerk of the head toward Sunny, who was busy helping herself to more cheese.
    â€œOh,” Sky finally responded. “Well, you see, I was just on my way home from my bartending job at The Dirty Monkey, and I saw the lights on from the bottom of the hill, and I wanted to make sure everything was all right with the house.” He turned to Joe for approval. “And you’re still here, Sunny?”
    â€œMissed the ferry.” She held up two fingers. “Twice.”
    Sky nodded his head slowly up and down.
    â€œSit, sit. Please,” Sunny said as if she had just remembered she was in her own house. She stood and rushed toward her new guest to help him with his jacket, piling it on top of the already soggy mess that was Joe’s. The two men sat as she returned to the paper bag on the counter. “My breakfast,” she explained a little sheepishly as she lifted out a can of Mountain Dew and a box of Frosted Flakes. “And my dinner,” she added, revealing a box of Triscuits, a jar of pickles, and a large bar of chocolate, which she artfully arranged on a couple of plates that she set down on the table next to Joe’s cheese. Another glass was rinsed before she finally joined them. “Please,” she said, filling Sky’s glass. “Enjoy. Happy to have the company.”
    Joe watched Sunny’s actions