Free Queen of Dreams by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

called him, you think he’d tell me the truth? Especially if it incriminates his buddy?”
    “Well, then, I suggest you save your worries for what you know for sure,” Belle says. “Namely, this shop is done for. Another couple of weeks of business like this, and we’ll have to close down. We’ve tried everything—slashing prices, putting up promotional posters outside, having Marco distribute coupons at the street corner. And that horrendously expensive ad we put in the Berkeley Voice. No results. Even our Book Club members didn’t come in this week. And look at them! ”
    We gaze dispiritedly across the street. From what little we can see, past their huge GRAND OPENING banner, Java is chock-full of customers, and every few minutes their door swings open to admit more people.
    “We’ve got to figure out their secret—there’s got to be something!” Belle says, pacing restlessly, running her fingers through her disheveled hair. She looks like she’s lost weight. She opens up in the mornings (we’ve let Marcia and Ping go) but usually stays on with me until closing time in spite of my protests.
    “It’s like they have a giant invisible people magnet!” she bursts out. “I’ve been watching all afternoon. Even folks who are striding along as though they’re in a hurry to get someplace come to a stop once they see that sign—and then they go in there, like they’re sleepwalking.”
    “You’d better go home and catch some sleep yourself,” I say. “You’re beginning to sound like a voice-over from Invasion of the Body Snatchers .” But I can’t help peering out suspiciously. The way my world is tilting, people magnets don’t sound so impossible. All I see, however, is a gaggle of executive types, power-tied and leather-briefcased, coming out of the café, laughing uproariously as though they’ve been drinking something far more potent than coffee. Their laughter brings back the memory of my morning’s call to Sonny.
    “Auntie Belle,” Jona calls. “See, I’ve finished my picture of our camping trip.”
    She holds up a brightly crayoned drawing. Purple sky, orange trees, yellow grass, two polka-dotted tents. And four people.
    “Who are they, sweets?” Belle asks.
    “That’s Paul, that’s Sonny, that’s me holding Sonny’s hand, and that’s Eliana, holding Sonny’s other hand.”
    I crane my neck over Belle’s head to see better. I recognize Sonny’s picture right away. Jona has drawn him as she always does, with his blue-black hair shiny as a bird’s wing, his sharp, distinctive nose—and sun rays emanating from his head like a halo. Sonny-the-angel. Another item to add to the long list of unfair ironies that made up my life. Next to him is a tall woman in a blue dress with brown hair all the way to her waist. She has what looks like a crown of feathers on her head.
    “Tell me about Eliana,” Belle says, sitting down next to Jona. “I don’t think I’ve met her before.”
    “Of course you haven’t,” my daughter replies. “I just met her during this trip myself.”
    “Where does she come from?”
    “Czechoslovakia,” Jona says without missing a beat. Over her head Belle and I exchange a look.
    “Is she a friend of your dad’s—or Paul’s?” Belle asks.
    “She’s everyone’s friend. But most of all, she’s my special friend.”
    “Um—what do you mean, special? Is that like an imaginary friend?”
    “Really, Auntie Belle!” Jona says with dignity as she rolls up her drawing. “Only babies have imaginary friends. She’s special because she sings me songs, and tells me stories of how she grew up.”
    “In Czechoslovakia?” I ask.
    Jona nods. “She told me how there were witches—good ones—in the village where she used to live.” Then she loses interest in our conversation and goes over to check out the puppets.
    In the car, as we drive home, I send covert glances Jona’s way. She is examining her drawing, her dark head bent over the stick figures. It