Brilliant by Denise Roig Read Free Book Online Page B

kept in the kitchen’s cold storage, the pastries stacked in steep, perfect pyramids. You have to slip them carefully from the top, then fill back in with fresh ones, otherwise it looks suspicious. But there is always another tray waiting for this small, artful deception. He is here to pick up half a dozen more trays. My life has been touched by…and he searches out the right word for Mohsin, always listening, always ready to jump in with an objection…by abundance.
    Dania orders the two Bangladeshi helpers to load the trays into the back of the Land Rover. Last year, Sami asked Saeed Al Qubaisi about installing bakers’ racks in one of the Land Rovers. “The trays, Sir, they slip around,” Sami explained. His boss has yet to commit. Sometimes he takes months to make a decision, often not making any at all, unlike Sultan, his father, who hired Sami twenty-eight years before. There was a man who said yes, no, in, out, stop, go. You jumped when you saw him coming. His son isn’t a bad man, just mixed up. It’s on account of the poems he writes. Poetry excites a woman, kindles her body and mind, Saeed told Sami once when they were driving to one of the family farms. Years before, Sultan had hired a down-on-his-luck cousin to manage it; a generation later, the manager still needs managing.
    Perhaps Sir is right about pretty words being the way to a woman’s heart, but poetry softens a man, makes him moody, full of questions not answers. If Sir was writing traditional
nabuti
poetry, praising the heroes of the desert, that would be different. But Sir writes about women, their supple skin, their honeyed voices. It’s not quite decent.This is what Sami thinks. No, this is what Sami
knows
. Even Mohsin would agree. But then Mohsin doesn’t think much of Sami’s bosses. What do you expect? says Mohsin. These people were nothing, a bunch of tribes fishing for pearls and growing dates until the Brits found oil. It’s a country built on black stuff gushing from a hole in the ground. What kind of achievement is that? In London, Mohsin drives lords and ladies, members of Parliament, rock stars, once David Beckham himself. People of substance, he says.
    Sami’s mobile vibrates in his pocket as he double-checks the trays. In the absence of real bakers’ racks, he’s fashioned something from Ikea shelving that he’s paid for himself, no need to trouble the boss for something so trivial. Fine, fine, Sir might say if he took the time to look back there. Brilliant, Madame might say, though her eyes wouldn’t move from her iPad. It’s Madame on the mobile now. She doesn’t wait for him to say
marhaba
. “Go pick up Rashid from school. He’s been bad again.”
    Rashid, Rashid. What will they do about Rashid? Already there’s talk in the household about sending the youngest Al Qubaisi to boarding school in England. “Not London,” Madame says. “Somewhere with no distractions.” Distraction is only part of Rashid’s problem.
    Sami swings onto 15th Street, careers through the roundabout, a Hummer riding his bumper, then flows out the other side. Rashid texts him: “Sami, way r u?” Rashid loves to text. “I’m good, aren’t I, Sami?” Rashid asks nearly every day. “You are,” Sami answers.
    Rashid is waiting outside the British School Al Kubairat, a tubby boy in a
khandoura
who already looks like a little man. Rashid opens the car door and lunges across the back seat. Three boys in blazers and ties watch from the curb, smirking, as the Land Rover pulls away.
    â€œFaggots,” hisses Rashid from the back seat.
    â€œSeat belt,” says Sami.
    â€œWhere?” says Rashid.
    â€œHome,” says Sami.
    â€œNo fun,” says Rashid.
    He’s right. With Madame studying for her university classes, with Sir writing poetry in his own villa across town — “Poets need complete peace and