Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

I have no choice but to get on with my life, except that the daily duties I took on happily before have become meaningless. I put off grocery shopping, misplace my car keys, and ignore e-mails from the library warning that three books are overdue.

Late this morning, I check the tulip patch. The buds are still closed and a trifle wan, despite the fact that the soil, sun, and temperature are just ideal for them to bloom, and there are still dewdrops hanging from them. Whatever the connection might be, I can’t help but think about Kareena. Why didn’t she confide in me?

What concerns me most is the nothingness, the no-answer bit, the feeling that the answer is beyond my reach.

I decide to make a trip to Toute La Soirée this evening. A voice inside has been nagging me to do just that, not to mention I have a taste for their kefir-berry cocktail. Kareena confided not long ago that she was saving the pricey Riesling for the next special occasion. Will her wish ever be fulfilled?

The café is located on busy 34th Street. To my surprise, I find a parking place only a block away. The air is humid as I walk up to the entrance. The stars are all out. I check my watch. Despite the popular spot’s catchy name—meaning “all evening”—it closes at nine p.m., less than an hour from now.

Inside, the café pulses with upbeat, after-work chumminess. It is nearly full. A middle-aged man fixes me with an appraising look over a foamy pint of ale. I ignore him and survey the interior. The décor has changed since my last visit. The smart black walls sport a collection of hand fans. Made of lace and bamboo, they’re exquisitely pleated. The new ambience also includes a wooden rack glittering with slick magazines and jute bags of coffee beans propped against a wall. I don’t find this makeover comforting.

As I thread my way through, a speck of tension building inside me, I overhear snatches of a debate on human cloning. Ordinarily, I would slow down for a little free education, but right now my attention is focused on finding an empty seat.

The table Kareena and I usually try for is taken; how could it be otherwise at this prime hour? I was half hoping for a minor miracle, but finding a parking spot must have filled my evening quota. “Our” table is occupied by a couple whose heads are bent over an outsize slice of strawberry shortcake. Right now, I find even the thought of such sugary excess revolting. And the blood-red strawberry juice frightening.

Something about the couple nudges me and I give them a second look. Oh no, it’s Adi and a blonde. He looks slightly upset. The overhead light shines over his copper complexion. He’s dressed in a crewneck polo shirt in an unflattering rust shade—he doesn’t have Kareena’s color sense. The blonde wears crystal-accented chandelier earrings that graze her shoulders. I wouldn’t bear the weight of such long earrings except on a special occasion. Or is this a special occasion for them?

Their presence so rattles me that I decide to leave. Besides, Adi might notice me and complain I’m spying on him.

On the way to the door, I knock over a chair, which I put back in its place. Then I almost collide head-on with an Indian man who has just entered the shop. Although he’s young, dark, and devastatingly handsome, somehow I know he’s not my type. Clad smartly in a silver woolen vest, this prince heads straight for the take-out counter. His impressive carriage and smoldering eyes have caused a stir among women seated nearby. A redhead tries to catch his glance. He touches the jute bag, an Indian-style jhola , dangling from his shoulder. Even Adi stares at him.

I slip out the door, too drained to absorb anything further, pause on the sidewalk, and take several deep breaths to cleanse my head. Please, Goddess Durga, no more intrigues this evening.

It’s starting to drizzle, but the streets are mercifully clear. Within minutes, I pull into my garage and step out of my Honda. As I close the garage door, I flash on the enchanting prince from the café. Didn’t Veen mention that Kareena was last sighted with a jhola- carrier at that very place?

A jolt of adrenaline skips through my body. Why couldn’t I have been more alert? Stuck around longer to scrutinize another potential suspect and his belongings?

Should I drive back?

I check my watch: nine p.m. Soirée has just closed.

Filled with nervous excitement, I enter my house. Neither a hot shower nor a mug of holy basil tea tempers the thought racing through my head: what really happened to Kareena?

In a need to restore my spirit, I retire early. As I lie in bed, I can’t help but run through the day’s events, foremost among them being Adi’s public appearance with a blonde. Suspicions about him blow in my mind like a pile of dry leaves in the wind. Eventually, the atmosphere settles; my mind clears.

I’m worrying too much about Kareena. Worry is a sand castle. It has no foundation.

Could my assumptions about Adi be wrong as well?

Assumptions, like appearances, can deceive, I tell myself. Adi’s cheerful façade and his lack of concern about his wife’s unexplained absence just might be more sand castle building on my part. I’m reading the worst in what might be a perfectly plausible and innocent situation.

You’ve been acting silly, Mitra, pure silly. You have no reason to fret. Pull your covers snug and get yourself a restful sleep. All will be well. The morning will come, the sun will be out, and Kareena will return, her bright smile intact, as surely as the swing of seasons.

I awake refreshed and invigorated. Last night’s drizzle has evaporated, leaving behind a bright morning. The sun streams through a wide gap in the window draperies. A spider is building a nest outside the window, intricate but fragile.

I have the perfect task to usher in this new day. I shall tend to Kareena’s tulip patch. The plants will soon release their full yellow blossoms as emblems of beauty and renewal and she’ll cradle a bunch lovingly in her arm.

I don my gardening clothes—faded jeans and a worn black cardigan—gather my tools, and hurry outside. The morning light shines brilliantly on my front flower patch. An errant branch of camellia needs to be pruned. Its shadow falls over the tulips. I step in closer to inspect, an ache in my belly. All the tulip buds are shriveled and brown, as though singed by blight, their dried stalks drooping over to return to brown earth.

Why are they dying on me so soon? I fall to my knees and caress the tulip plants, lifting them up and squeezing their brittle stalks and wilted leaves. I roll each wizened bud between my fingers, but don’t find a single one with any hope.

Holding a broken stem in my grasp, I think of Kareena, so vibrant, so full of life, and brood about the promise of these tulips.

She felt his eyes on her just about the time the bartender placed a Beck’s coaster on the bar and set her dry Rob Roy on top of it. She wanted to turn and see who was eyeing her, but remained as she was, trying to analyze just what it was she felt. She couldn’t pin it down physically, couldn’t detect a specific prickling of the nerves in the back of her neck. She simply knew she was being watched, and that the watcher was a male.

It was, to be sure, a familiar sensation. Men had always looked at her. Since adolescence, since her body had begun the transformation from girl to woman? No, longer than that. Even in childhood, some men had looked at her, gazing with admiration and, often, with something beyond admiration.