Read A Steal of a Deal for Free Online Page B

perfect blossoms. Light dances over the delicate piece, but what most amazes me is how, in the heart of the flowers, tiny rainbows make the whole thing look like something out of a fairy tale.
    Maybe everything’s a fairy tale.
    Maybe I’m dreaming.
    I remember the times Max the Magnificent has caught me trying to convince myself crazy things really are as they appear. So I pinch myself again. Guess what? I don’t wake up. It’s not a dream, and the killer room doesn’t change. My great-aunt and her best friend are both still beside me, each as awestruck as I feel.
    And I miss Max.
    Uh-oh!
    Then my stomach growls—head-to-toe blush time.
    Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona laugh.
    “Hungry?” Robert asks.
    Embarrassed, that’s what. Can you imagine? I come to this incredible place, and my very mundane, lowbrow belly decides to tell everyone I’m dying to stuff my face. Good grief.
    “Dinner should be ready,” he adds, as though I hadn’t broken every rule of etiquette known to mankind. “Go to dining room. You’ll like.”
    I’ll bet! So far, the only thing I haven’t liked about Kashmir is the wonky feeling I got when we first landed. I guess I can chalk that up to past experiences of the not-so-cool kind.
    I pause to take one more appreciative look at the lounge. Aunt Weeby marches up, stands square in front of me, sticks her fists on her still-slender hips, and sniffs.
    “Oh, come on, now, Andie.” She frowns from head to toe. “Don’t just stand there like a big ol’ stump. I’m hungry. What’s a woman got to do to get some food around you? You can come back out here after we’ve eaten and goggle around all you want. I want my dinner.”
    I stick a finger in my ear, wiggle, stare. Did I miss something? “What do you mean, Aunt Weeby? I’m starved. You know, wasn’t it my stomach that growled?” But I wind up speaking to her rapidly disappearing back.
    What can I say? She’s wacky, but she’s my wacky aunt, and I love her. She can change a mood at the blink of an eye. Or in the turn of a loony phrase.
    We sit down to a meal that would make Rachael Ray weep. The large teak table is set for six, the Shop-Til-U-Drop contingent plus Robert. I wind up next to Glory on one side, and of course, Aunt Weeby on the other.
    A twenty-something Asian man walks into the dining room, bows, and then points to his chest. “I Farooq.”
    We greet him, he disappears, then shows up again seconds later with platter after steaming platter of food. The mountains of Asian delicacies scent the room with rich and exotic spices. And Farooq bows. Every time he walks into the room, he bows. He bows before he leaves. He bows when he returns. He even bows before and after he refills our teacups.
    Bet those bows keep his chiropractor in business.
    After Miss Mona’s blessing on the food, we pass dishes from one end of the table to the other, reviewing each morsel and bite.
    “You have to take some of this chicken,” Glory says. “I just snuck a little piece that fell off my fork, and it’s to die for.” I take the dish. “Is that spinach stuffing inside the chicken?
    I love spinach.”
    “It is, and you are going to flip! This is the best.”
    “No, it’s not,” Miss Mona says. “This is. Here”—she reaches a deep bowl across the table to me—“the mutton is so tender it falls apart when you try and serve it.”
    I plunk down the chicken platter to take the lamb. When I take a bite, my taste buds throw a party—oh, yum! Then I scope out another bowl. “Are those white chunks potato?” Miss Mona spears one on her fork, looks it over, then slips it into her mouth. “Nuh-uh,” she says once she’s swallowed. “I think it’s something like . . . oh, maybe turnips? But it’s good, very good, and cooked with some special spice. You’re going to love it.”
    I do love every mouthful—and I take plenty. Even the pots and pots of light, fragrant green tea we down during the multicourse meal taste especially