Queen of Dreams (4 page)

I stand for another moment outside the store, enjoying the view. Belle and I had put everything we had into the Chai House— all our creativity as well as whatever little money we possessed— and converted a run-down establishment into something special. We painted the walls ourselves in shades of peach. The carved chairs (practically antique, according to Belle) we found at a warehouse sale. I was the one that discovered the twin maple rockers, each with its matching footrest, at the Ashby flea market. Placed in a nook, they’re a favorite with customers who come in alone. But I never sat in them myself. I’d refinished them in the long evenings that followed my divorce, and it seemed to me that they still smelled of that time, that sad mix of freedom and fear.

In an alcove was our free “Leave one, take one” bookshelf, where Paul Auster and Dean Ornish rubbed shoulders with Mary Higgins Clark and Salman Rushdie. Beside it a rug formed a children’s area strewn with blocks and hand puppets made from old silk saris (my mother’s contribution), for which Jona still made a beeline each time she came into the store. By the door was the bulletin board where customers advertised dancing lessons, garage sales, animals in need of homes, and humans in need of mates. On strategic spots on the wall, I’d hung my own paintings. Light fell on them, making jewels out of Mughal gardens, making water drops glisten on the hides of bathing elephants. Huge glass jars of coffee, each with its name stenciled on—Sumatra, Ootacamund, Peruvian Organic, Jamaican Blue Mountain—gleamed behind the counter. On the large boards that hung above, Belle wrote the menu each day in her best cursive.

“Homestyle, but with more style than home ever had,” she was fond of saying. I’d laugh at her, but secretly I agreed.

There’s another way in which the Chai House saved me in those dark months after the divorce when I couldn’t stop wondering if I’d really made a terrible mistake, as many people were quick to inform me. If I’d ruined Jona’s chances of a happy childhood by separating her from a loving father. I’d tell myself they didn’t know the whole truth. They didn’t live with Sonny, they didn’t know the way he’d raised his face that night at the party and looked at me, eyes glazed, without recognition. But then I wasn’t sure. So many people loved Sonny—even my own mother. How could they all be wrong, and I right? Through those restless midnights of doubt, the Chai House gave me something tangible to hold on to, something that was exactly what it appeared to be, nothing more and nothing less. Taking care of it was a way to make at least one part of my life turn out right.

Perhaps it’s significant that the first thing I managed to sketch after my divorce was a scene of the store’s interior. It took me an excruciating three months and it wasn’t very good, but at least I completed it without throwing it away, like I had done with all the others. I pinned it on my bedroom wall next to a sketch of Jona, and on bad days I drew comfort from its solidity. On those days the only thing that got me out of bed was knowing that without me they might not survive, my store and my daughter.

T he chime at the door signals my entrance, and Belle whirls around.

“Oh, there you are, Rikki! Finally! Thank God!” She wipes her hands on her apron and hurries over to grab my arm. “I’m
so
sorry to disturb you like this—I know mornings are important to your painting—”

This is not a good sign. The last time Belle apologized to me was when she borrowed my one and only evening dress to go dancing in and ripped it all the way up the side. This had happened the night before my big date with Sonny, the one where he was going to propose to me. And even that wasn’t a true apology. Because later she claimed she’d done it on purpose, in a vain attempt to save me from myself.

“It’s okay,” I say cautiously. “What’s the problem?”

In response Belle drags me over to our front window and points. Her finger, tipped with frosted fuchsia nail polish, quivers eloquently.

I move aside the fronds of the many overly healthy house-plants that live on our windowsill—gifts from customers over the years since we opened—and peer out across the street. There’s Easels, where the owner, Mr. Jamison, gives me a good-neighbor discount on my art supplies. Estrella, the Mexican restaurant run by the Soto family. And Purple Jam, which sells used tapes and CDs and is always overcrowded with young people who are outrageously dressed and coiffed.

Belle had rolled her eyes when I’d told her that.

“You’re getting old,” she’d said. “Besides, they probably think you’re the outrageously dressed one. Outrageously old-fashioned, that is.”

What else could I have expected from someone whose favorite outfit was a red sequined halter-top mini, and who had recently double-pierced her navel?

On the pavement directly across from us is Marisa’s flower stall, which today has a display of tulips in stunning yellow. Three students, armed with dark blue cups of coffee (ours!) are waiting at the bus stop for the 51 to take them to campus. Two mothers in jogging suits chat as they push strollers. At the crosswalk, a man is handing out pink flyers for some event or other. Marco, the homeless guy who lives over in People’s Park and comes in at the end of the day to buy our leftover Danishes at a discount (he refuses to take them for free), is setting up his guitar case.

“God’s in His heaven, as far as I can see,” I say. I like the way Marisa’s tulips have formed a lemony wedge against the warm beige of the restaurant wall, the way the early sun has brought out the texture of the bricks, the subtle shadows. I begin to put together a composition in my mind.

“You aren’t paying attention,” Belle accuses. “You’re thinking about painting something, aren’t you?” She jabs at the glass with her finger. “There, look on that side!”

This time I see it. The store on the corner—a coveted spot— which had stood empty since Mrs. Levy had closed her deli to retire last month, isn’t empty anymore. The front is still unchanged, but there are people inside—uniformed people, cleaning and setting up. The uniforms—an elegant olive green—tug at my memory. Where have I seen them before? As we watch, a truck drives up. Men start unloading tables and chairs, crates of various sizes. One of the women from inside steps out to supervise. She’s tall and willowy, with arresting cheekbones and frost-gold hair, and the olive uniform fits her like it had been tailored for her. Which of course it wasn’t, because—it comes to me suddenly—it’s standard issue for the fifty-five thousand employees who work for Java nationwide.

“That’s right,” Belle says with grim satisfaction. “There was an article about them in BusinessWeek last month, remember? I read parts of it to you.” She recites, “ ‘Java is the fastest-growing café chain in the country, notorious for its policy of opening new stores in the vicinity of existing coffee shops and luring away their customers with low-priced specials and freebies. Within three years of its inception, it has captured sixty-seven percent of the U.S. market. “That’s nothing,” claims CEO Jeff Norfolk with characteristic modesty. “We’re aiming for one hundred percent.” ’ ”

Belle has this dubious talent for perfect recall. I, on the other hand, believe in forgetting unpleasant facts as soon as possible. The more you think of them, I’ve told her, the more psychic power they suck from you, and the stronger they grow.

But even I can’t be an ostrich about this situation.

“We might as well throw in the towel right now,” Belle says gloomily. “Sell before we’re forced out of business. Seven years of backbreaking, heart’s-blood toil down the drain, but I guess that’s how it goes.”

I consider reminding Belle that we’ve only had the Chai House for five years, then think better of it. Besides, she’s right about the toil.

“I guess I could always go back to Turlock,” Belle continues. “Help Mom and Dad with the produce store. They’ll be happy enough. They never were convinced that living in the Bay Area was good for me. They’ll probably arrange my marriage to one of those upright young Indian farmers they buy their supplies from. They’re always trying to get me to meet them—”

“Let’s not get all worked up.”

“I can just see myself ten years from now, shrouded in fat and a polyester salwaar kameez, a passel of snot-nosed brats hanging onto my dupatta, rolling out makkhi ki rotis for all my in-laws—”

“Belle, you don’t
know
how to make roti—or any Indian food, for that matter. And I’ve never seen you wearing anything remotely resembling a salwaar kameez—”

“Exactly,” Belle says. Then she bursts into tears.

“Calm down!” I say sternly, but I can see that under all the theatrics this time Belle is really worried. The Chai House means even more to her than it does to me. She was the one who dreamed it into being. I remember the day when she came over to my house—I’d still been married then—waving a stack of sheets excitedly. She’d gone over the ideas while I nursed Jona. Cocooned in domestic bliss, I’d been doubtful. I had my hands full taking care of a husband and baby, I told her, not to mention my art. I didn’t need the hassle of trying to manage a business on top of that. But she’d kept at me. Think how much fun it would be, not having to work
for anyone else. I’ve always wanted that.
She’d cajoled her parents into letting her have the money they’d been saving for her wedding to use as a down payment for the store. They gave it—but with great reluctance. They didn’t quite believe that Belle (or I) had enough business sense to keep from going under. Even now, when they call us, there’s apprehension in their voices as they ask how we’re doing. Maybe that’s why Belle works so hard, to prove them wrong.

Sonny wasn’t too happy either. He didn’t want me starting something that would require so much of my attention when Jona was still a baby. I’d expected my parents (my mother, really; my father rarely expressed his opinions on matters pertaining to my life) to support him. But my mother surprised me. Women need something of their own to make them independent, she said with unexpected vehemence. Something to give them a sense of self. Something to fall back on, if necessary. Had she sensed, somehow, what was to come? She’d given me a large sum of money, never explaining where it came from—enough to buy all the equipment we needed to get started—and offered to babysit Jona.

Panic is contagious. What if we do lose the Chai House? I find myself thinking. My mouth fills with bitter fluid; my palms are clammy. All that time and money, all my hopes gone. But that’s the least of it. I’ll never be able to hide something this big from Sonny-the-hawk. It’ll give him what he’s been waiting for all this time— the chance to take Jona away from me.

Belle dabs at her eyes. She’s struck by an idea, I can tell.

“Let’s call your mom!” she says. “She’ll know what we should do.”

“No!” I say, grabbing for the phone, but she’s already dialing.

The line is busy.

A disappointed Belle hands me the phone with strict instructions to call every two minutes until I get through. Then she goes to put away the rest of the muffins.

Belle has been a great fan of my mother’s—maybe
devotee
is a better word—ever since my mother deciphered a dream for her. (I never knew the details—my mother maintains strict confidentiality about the people she helps. I suspect it had something to do with Belle’s beau of the moment, a young man who sported green hair, a razor earring and a perpetual scowl, and who shortly thereafter exited her life.)

My mother had a similar mesmerizing effect on Sonny. At their very first meeting—long before he officially became my boyfriend—he decided that he was going to adopt her. (Or, more accurately, that she was going to adopt him.) He proceeded to worm his way into her heart by shamelessly using his charm (with which commodity he is excessively endowed) and bringing her gifts of exotic organic vegetables from the farmers’ market in San Francisco. He continues to visit her every week to have dinner and to tell her his many tales of woe (self-created woe, in my opinion), to which she listens with far too much sympathy. He brings back care packages filled with his favorite gourmet dishes—palak paneer, tandoori chicken, pooris—items that take hours of preparation time. I know this because he makes sure to call and tell me.

When I go over, she makes me Chinese stir-fry, fifteen minutes from start to finish.

Sonny and I have had a few altercations on this subject.

“She’s
my
mother, in case you’ve forgotten,” I said to him once, after a call where he’d waxed eloquent about the wonders of my mother’s fish kurma. “Now that you and I don’t have a relationship anymore, don’t you think you should back off a little?”

“Why?” he asked, all hurt innocence. “She’s still my mom, as far as I’m concerned. She’s also the best cook in the world and one of the few people who understand—and appreciate—me.”