Fifteen Lanes Read Online Free PDF

If Todd likes me, it would never have worked out for her anyway. And it’s not like she and I are best friends. I just want a life, Bosco. Imagine what Mom and Dad will say when I come home with a boyfriend. They’ll have to stop worrying that I’m a social reject. Kyle might be angry at first, but when he sees how happy I am …”
    I looked at the clock on my side table: a minute to twelve. I picked up the phone and cradled it in both hands, almost as if it were the boy himself. Just like Cinderella, on the stroke of midnight, my life was about to change.
    If I’d only known how much …

Noor
    Ma is a devadasi …
    Deepa-Auntie and I were in the washing room, doing dishes. It was my job. Even on school days, dirty dishes would be left there, awaiting my arrival. The single bucket of water, which had to last me two days, was also my responsibility. Along with the dirty dishes, I collected money from the aunties to pay for the water.
    The space in the washing room was too small for us to crouch side by side so Deepa-Auntie couldn’t really help me. That wasn’t why she was there. It was a humid Sunday afternoon with not a breath of wind, so there were no customers. The aunties had arisen, as they always did, around one o’clock in the afternoon, to bathe and eat. Most had gone back to sleep. The men would come later that evening, when the temperature dropped, which meant more customers squeezed into fewer hours. Deepa-Auntie wanted to enjoy the temporary respite, so she had to hide where Pran wouldn’tfind her. He always considered a lull in customers his own chance to take a turn with her.
    He could have had any of the aunties. Some would have appreciated the opportunity to win favor with Binti-Ma’am’s son—even Ma would have agreed—but Pran’s cold eyes always fell on Deepa-Auntie. Ma said Deepa-Auntie’s golden skin was both her good fortune and her bad. I wasn’t sure it was Deepa-Auntie’s skin that held Pran’s interest. He didn’t have the restless hunger of the men who came at night. Usually he looked tired, even bored. Only if Deepa-Auntie cried and begged him to choose another did he light up, and Deepa-Auntie always cried.
    “I grew up on a farm,” said Deepa-Auntie. It was the beginning of a story I’d heard variations of many times. I never tired of hearing it, nor she of the telling.
    “We were very poor but I didn’t know it. When the rain came it was so heavy it dripped through our grass roof. Mama caught it in buckets and joked that it would save me a trip to the river, though in the rainy season I never had to go as far as the river to fetch water. It filled the cistern in our front yard and was so plentiful we’d throw full buckets over ourselves when we bathed.
    “I never went to school. Only my younger brothers went. I didn’t mind. I was happy to have them out of the house. They were always chasing the chickens and stealing eggs. They never took a turn milking the goat, or helping Daddy hitch the bulls to the plow. The house was peaceful without them. I enjoyed the time alone with Mama and my baby sister, Yangani. I carried Yangani everywhere on my back, even while doing chores. Daddy called me ‘little mother,’ and I dreamed about the day Iwould have my own babies. My blood had not yet come when the man took me and brought me here.”
    Deepa-Auntie always stopped her story at this point, though she arrived there in a slightly different way each time. She never told me what happened between the day a man came to her village with promises of domestic work and the day she ended up in our house. Many times I’d seen the scars on her body. I pretended not to notice. Though I was nine and in the 4th class at school, she thought I was too young to know the truth. We colluded in this, my feigned innocence and her delusion that anyone could remain uncorrupted in that house.
    With the dishes done, I sat back on the floor, trying to stay clear of the drain so I didn’t get my