I Can't Think Straight Read Online Free PDF

gold chain. Her nails were short and unpolished, her shoes immaculate, but flat and practical. Her hair was curly and untamed, and it lent her an air of slight madness, as though the thoughts in her head were springing directly out through her scalp. Leyla became aware that her face was advertising her surprise because Tala was watching her, amused.
    ‘You’re not what I expected.’ Leyla spoke the most coherent sentence floating in her head and then closed her eyes slightly against her own forthrightness.
    ‘That’s because Ali paints me as a rich, spoilt princess,’ Tala replied dryly.
    ‘Isn’t it true?’ he asked her with gentle sarcasm.
    ‘I’m not a princess,’ she replied with a smile.
    ‘Just rich and spoilt,’ her father noted, filling in the gap with the punchline that Tala had deliberately left open for him.
    She smiled and sat on the floor, waving away offers of a seat. Her gaze moved back to Leyla.
    ‘And are you what my mother expected? I heard her giving you the third degree, even from the hallway.’
    Reema cleared her throat in preparation for her own defence, which evidently her daughter was going to make necessary tonight.
    Even in front of guests, she had a habit of ignoring social niceties that was unbecoming and occasionally embarrassing.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Leyla said, with a lack of wit that she immediately regretted.
    ‘Mama.’ Her mother addressed Tala in the Arabic style, by using her own title. ‘I was having a polite conversation. She is a lovely girl.’ Reema’s eyes again passed over Leyla as she made this pro-nouncement, taking in the well-proportioned features, the glossy dark hair (which could be styled a little more) and the figure which was acceptable, although the girl clearly lacked the awareness of how to enhance her natural assets. She looked to be decent enough, perhaps lacking a little polish, but there was still the matter of her father’s work that had to be flushed out.
    ‘How many people work in your family’s business?’ Reema asked, by way of subtly gauging the size of the concern.
    ‘About one in three,’ Leyla quipped. It was a habit of hers, when she was self-conscious, to fall back on small jokes but she was immediately sorry for it. Reema regarded her blankly, and only the fact that she began the ritual of preparing another cigarette prevented Leyla from withering entirely under the older woman’s gaze.
    Tala, however, laughed.
    ‘There are ten of us here,’ Leyla replied quickly. ‘And about ten in Africa – we have a couple of offices there.’
    This pleased Reema immensely. ‘A worldwide operation,’ she said. An overblown and inaccurate vision of her father’s business as a multi-national conglomerate passed briefly through Leyla’s mind as she smiled politely at Reema.
    ‘Mama,’ Tala said. ‘Ease up on the questions. She’s marrying Ali, not me.’
    Everyone laughed, but beneath the stretched tension of Reema’s powdered face, her cheeks burned. It was an easy, flippant comment, but Tala’s referral to marriage, to herself in relation to this girl; the throwaway suggestion of union between two women, set Reema’s teeth on edge. She reached for the flaming palm tree once more and waited for the first drag on her cigarette to relax her.
    ‘I hear you’re getting married,’ offered Leyla. ‘Congratulations.
    That’s wonderful news.’
    Reema sat back and listened and decided that she liked this girl Leyla after all.
    ‘You’re welcome to come to the wedding, if you like, it’s in six weeks,’ offered Tala. ‘Have you been to Jordan?’
    Leyla had been nowhere in the Middle East. It spoke to her of starry nights and sand dunes (both images gleaned from 970’s Turkish Delight advertisements). It suggested liquid, smoky eyes glimpsed over a hijab, cardamom-infused coffee and romantic souks. She tried to communicate this to Tala with the necessary tone of irony, aware that Reema was regarding her strangely.
    ‘The