Suite Dubai (Arriving) Read Online Free PDF Page B

entertainment” gave her a flutter of panic. She suddenly saw herself in front of a sparkling crowd, clutching a microphone, eyes wide with panic, opening her mouth and nothing coming out. It had happened before.  

    Her last semester in college she’d written a speech against capital punishment for a final presentation in her college speech class. It was a decent speech, compelling. She used some of the lyrical techniques Dr. King had used in his “I Have a Dream” speech. She practiced it in the shower, in the car. She could recite it without even thinking about it. It came out of her mouth whenever she opened it. She imagined her class being so moved their eyes filled with tears, then jumping to their feet and clapping like maniacs. She, at the urging of her textbook, envisioned success.  

    Instead she had failed. She stood at the lectern and looked at all of her classmates grinning back at her and her skin went cold. The notecards she thought she didn’t need were suddenly very necessary. She couldn’t look away from them. All those words scrawled in blue ink. Her eyes following the loops of her e s and l s. She read the introduction with her voice cracking, crumbling like concrete into a gravely whisper and her throat tightened until she felt like she was breathing through a plastic coffee stirrer. Her hands shook. Her classmates looked at her, quietly, expectantly. She took a deep breath and started again but still her voice came out in a whisper. The memory of those few minutes trying to get out the word “executions” still had the unique ability to make her feel faint.  

    The story shocked her mom. “Really?” she said wiping crumbs from the kitchen table. “You’ve never been shy. Why, you were more likely to walk up to a stranger and introduce yourself. Even after two “Stranger Danger” classes. Your dad and I were sure you’d be kidnapped before you got to middle school. What happened?”  

    What happened? Three weeks earlier her boyfriend Truman sat on the couch in his dark apartment and told her he thought they should take a break. He told her he “needed space”, needed to figure out “whohewas”, which explained why he hadn’t called her for two days and hadn’t answered his cell phone. “Wow,” she said in a voice that sounded almost hysterical. “Where did you fucking get that? Cosmo Magazine ?”  

    She spent two months just trying to swallow food. She watched “When Harry Met Sally” over and over until she fell asleep on the couch and had dreams she was falling from a bridge, from the empire state building, from the crab apple tree in her grandparent's back yard. She didn’t even love Truman. Of course she’d said it but only because she didn’t know what else to say after so many months together. Then he broke up with her and seemed to confirm something bad about her, something everyone but her could recognize. She wasn’t good enough for him and the truth was, she never found him all that good.

Chapter 3

    “You must be busy,” Hamid had come to show her how to get into her email, how to work the messaging system. He seemed so calm, so confident as he leaned back against her desk with his arms crossed, like he had nothing else to do that day. “With the grand opening to plan. Everyone’s been talking about it since I got here. Every conversation begins with the words, after the grand opening.”

    She closed her eyes and pushed her fingers against her temples. It surprised her how physical pressure could almost distract her from the more abstract pressure she was getting from Hamid. “I’m sure it will be spectacular,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm. She couldn’t help it.  

    He didn’t seem to notice her tone. His English was good but obviously not good enough to detect sarcasm. “Of course you have big plans,” he said.   “They offered you the job. You must have some tricks in your closet.”

    She started to laugh but covered it with a cough.