Cake on a Hot Tin Roof Read Online Free PDF Page A

Uncle Nestor said again. “Are you going to stand there all day, staring at me?”
    Hearing that familiar, gruff, lightly accented voice pulled me out of my stupor. My uncle is moody and opinionated, with a hair-trigger temper. He’s also kind and compassionate—in his own stern way. Life with him is never boring, and I’d missed him horribly. It had been only a few months since I’d last seen my aunt and uncle, but it felt like years.
    I abandoned my workstation and threw myself into his arms just as my aunt Yolanda appeared in the open doorway. Her chocolate brown hair was cut in a choppy style that made her look younger than ever, and her dark eyes were full of love—the kind I imagine a mother might feel for her daughter.
    I’d talked with them at least once a week since I moved to New Orleans, but seeing them again made me realize how worried I’d been that they were angry or disappointed with me for leaving New Mexico last summer and then staying in New Orleans for the Christmas holidays.
    “I tried to convince him to wait out front for you,” Aunt Yolanda said with a fond scowl in her husband’s direction. “But you know how he is.”
    Did I ever. Uncle Nestor is strong-willed and stubborn and nobody can tell him anything, but at that moment I didn’t care. I hugged them both tightly and stepped away to look them over again. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”
    “Call?” Uncle Nestor’s voice was so gruff, a few of the staff members stopped working to look at us. “What? We can’t spend a weekend with our favorite niece without an appointment?”
    “Of course you can,” I said quickly. But as the first flush of excitement over seeing them faded, the reality of my work schedule began to hit me. “It’s not that. It’s just…well…it’s nearly Mardi Gras and we’re swamped. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to spend with you.” I owed them both so much, I wouldn’t have hurt their feelings for anything in the world. Plus, I could count on one finger the number of times Uncle Nestor had left his restaurant in someone else’s hands since he’d opened its doors—the fact that he’d obviously left it to come all this way was significant.
    But they weren’t staying long. He’d said the weekend , right? Surely I could squeeze in some quality time with them over the next couple of days.
    “We didn’t come here to be a bother,” Aunt Yolanda assured me. “Do what you need to do. We’ll see you when we can.”
    That should have made me feel better, but instead it raised the question for me of why they had come unannounced. Why this weekend? Why not for Mardi Gras itself?
    Uncle Nestor waved a hand over his head to indicate that he agreed with her, but his attention had been captured by the work going on all around us. “I had no idea your operation was so big, mija .”
    Coming from anyone else, that might have been a compliment. Uncle Nestor managed to make it sound like an accusation. And that left me squirming inside with guilt. I hated feeling as if I needed to defend myself, so I tamped down the urge and said, “It’s not usually like this.”
    Uncle Nestor pursed his lips and clasped his hands behind his back, walking between the tables like a general inspecting his troops. But that only made my irritation flare. He had a habit of taking over whenever he walked into a room, but these were my troops. Not his. I was still trying to establish my authority here. I didn’t want anything to make me appear weak.
    Uncle Nestor stopped at Isabeau’s table, raising his eyebrows at the multicolored sugar that had fallen to the floor. After a moment he moved on, this time stopping in front of Dwight and running a look over his wrinkled shirt and threadbare jeans. “What’s all this?” he asked, but I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the work or Dwight’s appearance.
    To my relief, Dwight didn’t seem to notice his disapproval. “King Cakes,” he