No Ordinary Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the beat of a band playing nearby.
    I walk through the door of a restaurant called Namaka, Exotic Cuisine, and as soon as I walk in, I know this isn’t the place for me. Cumin and curry—the overwhelming smell of the Indian spices makes me want to gag.
    Growing up, I ate all kinds of food. My dad loved to cook. We didn’t have money to go to fancy restaurants, so he made fancy food at home. I liked all of it except for Indian food.
    I pivot to leave when a voice stops me. “Welcome,” it says in a nasally tone that makes me want to run instead of walk out the door. Painting on a smile, I turn back.
    The man is dark and little and wears a false smile too big for his face.
    “I was wondering if you have any job openings,” I say, hoping for a quick rejection so I can squeeze in one more restaurant before our meter runs out.
    “You experience?” It isn’t said with so much an accent as an abruptness, as if he doesn’t have the patience for verbs.
    I nod.
    He runs me over with his eyes. “Fine. Table nine.” With the back of his hand, he gestures toward the patio where two lone customers sit with closed menus in front of them and looks of impatience on their faces.
    I blink several times, unsure I heard him. “You’re hiring me?”
    He squints like now he’s not so sure.
    “I mean, I’m glad you’re hiring me,” I say quickly, “but I can’t start right now. Can I start tomorrow?”
    He harrumphs, and I swallow at the thought of having just lost the one job I was offered. “Eleven,” he says, then walks past me, his oversized smile beaming as he greets a family of four that has just walked through the door.
    “It smells wonderful in here,” the woman says, and her husband dutifully nods.
    My new boss walks the family to the patio to join the hungry couple, and I return outside, relieved but unenthused. I do not like Indian food, and I do not like the man who hired me, but it’s a job and I start tomorrow. I check my watch. We have two minutes before we need to start walking back to the car.
    Emily and Tom are still beside the cart where I left them, absorbed in some sort of puzzle cube, each of them holding one and trying to unravel it.
    “Where’s Molly?” I ask when I walk up and realize she’s not beside them.
    Emily looks up from her puzzle, her eyes scanning side to side before swelling in panic. “She was right here.”
    Emily and Tom drop the toys on the cart and chase after me as I run person-to-person asking if anyone has seen a little girl in overalls, my heart scatter-firing in panic, the absolute worst feeling in the world. Thousands of people now crowd the walkway, the foot traffic having picked up with the lunch hour. In and out I weave, my eyes searching wildly.
    A crowd is gathered around a street performer, a mime. I burst through the huddle mumbling excuse-mes. No Molly. Pushing my way back out, I run toward another group gathered around a band, music thrumming from the center.
    A wide black lady with a purse the size of a suitcase shoves me back when I try to push to the front, so I scoot around her to another part of the crowd.
    This audience is denser and deeper than the one clustered around the mime, a press of at least sixty people laughing and clapping and making it impossible for me to get through.
    “Please,” I cry, “I’m looking for my little girl.”
    My voice is tiny in the din of the music, but one man turns. Perhaps fifty with pink skin and a purple golf shirt stretched over a large belly, he smiles then presses his impressive weight against the crowd to create an opening. “That her?” he says, pointing.
    Tears spring to my eyes when I see Molly in the center of the crowd, relief flooding my system and nearly sending me to my knees. The man braces my elbow, keeping me upright.
    “She’s quite a performer,” he drawls.
    And sure enough, there she is, center stage, dancing with a very tall black man who is playing a guitar and singing. Actually she’s