Nights Like This Read Online Free PDF Page A

sleep as a series of questions drifted into my head.
    â€œWhat do you want? What is it you want? Do you even know?”
    Softly, into the night I whispered what it was that I really wanted. It was a simple sentence that would change my life forever.
    â€œI want to love and be loved.” I said as I lay next to Anjali and envisioned kites flying against an azure sky and a squatting stranger below, selling photographs.
    I sensed in the dark coolness a slight whisper of jasmine. And the jasmine said, “Love changes you, Jess. Love changes you.”  

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Chapter Three
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    I awoke to thunder. I lay in bed and closed my eyes, allowing the sound to wash over me. Then I walked to the window and watched and listened to falling rain, roaring and descending like the monsoon in its intensity. The sight of so much water made me think of a fish market where I had once seen a fish in a bucket, almost folded onto itself, flailing in shallow water. I had wanted to buy it, to release it from its uncomfortable plight. My grandfather had said we were not going to buy it and had moved to the next table to inspect more fish. But I had stood transfixed, watching the gleam of its body, the terror in its lidless eye.
    I heard Anjali enter the room and the scent of freesia drifted to me. I remembered the smell of jasmine and the glow of incense in a flowerpot.
    â€œGood morning, princess,” she said as she came to stand behind me, “What would you like for breakfast?”
    â€œ Princess .”
    I even remembered the sound of her voice as she had said the word. Anjali walked around to face me and kissed my lips softly. She kissed my temple. I swallowed hard but the guilt caught in my throat was almost solid and could not be dissolved.
    â€œBacon,” I quickly said hoping she wasn’t hoping for last night to resurface or repeat itself.
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œAs long as you make bacon, I don’t care what else you make.”
    She rubbed my back.
    â€œWhat are you thinking about?” she asked.
    â€œFish at a fish market.”
    She nuzzled my neck.
    â€œI was thinking,” I said, “about seeing a fish in this bucket.”
    â€œA fish in a bucket? I get queasy getting so close to anything alive,” she said.
    â€œI felt bad for it,” I said.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause it barely fit in the bucket and I felt like it deserved to be comfortable.”
    â€œSo what did you do?”
    â€œI waited for the fisherman to turn away. Then I took the cleaver off the table and threw the fish on the table and cut off its head.”
    â€œJess! Why would you tell me that?”
    â€œI thought it was interesting.”
    â€œIt’s just disgusting.”
    I watched her walk away, her anklets chiming in rhythm with her footsteps. Then I turned once again to my private monsoon, to thoughts of my fish market and the smell of the ocean.
    Anjali couldn’t appreciate my fish. She took a cab home every day. Then she had a vodka martini on the couch while she waited for me to come home from wherever I was. Of course she sometimes changed the flavors in her martinis. But Anjali had no intention in life. Everything she did was tasteful and sensible and correct and predictable. There was no exploring life with her and if I wanted to eventually buy a house and live in a suburb somewhere in Jersey, I guess she would have been ideal. But I wanted different. I wanted someone who had purpose. I desired someone who appreciated a fish head every once in a while or someone who sold her essence in photos for $20 in the middle of Central Park. Wasn’t that what I wanted? I wanted art, risk and adventure, didn’t I? I didn’t know. But was I willing to toss Anjali aside to find out?
    â€œJess!”
    I looked up at the ceiling. It was so high that I could not see the detail of the curves and crevices that lay in a pattern around the edges. It was a daunting ceiling. I