Let Us Dream
Page 12
“I have to make a decision about going home to deal with my land,” he said solemnly. His throat worked a moment and his head dipped. “I want you to help me make this decision, but I don’t know how to do it without being another man asking you to do something you don’t want.”
Bertha shucked off the dread like an old snakeskin and lifted her hand to his chest, laying her palm flat.
“The fact that you’re even worried about that is a good first step,” she said. “Now spill it.”
“I did a lot of praying last night, more than I have in a very long time. I couldn’t think of what might have been happening to you after seeing the police lead you away. So instead, I asked Allah to keep you safe. And I asked how we could be together. Here.”
She couldn’t have hidden how his words affected her, even if she tried.
“And did He have any great insights?” she asked in an unsteady voice, unable to resist teasing him.
He took her hands in his. “Actually…”
Epilogue
Five years later
“Okay, catfish curry and fried eggplant, order up!”
Amir glanced over at the plate Cora had made and grinned at her. “Remember all those years ago when you said you weren’t sure you’d get the hang of this?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I said I wasn’t sure I wanted to get the hang of this. You’re lucky Bertha is a smooth talker.”
Amir removed his apron, having handed over the dinner shift to Cora. He could either bound upstairs and shower or spend a bit of time with Bertha before heading out to his meeting; the shower lost by a long shot. “I’m lucky for many things,” he said.
“Most especially a friend willing to work in this hot kitchen without complaint?” Syed asked.
“Na, I have no such friends,” Amir said, and Syed grinned. “But speaking of luck…”
He headed out of the kitchen and onto the restaurant floor. He had been worried when he’d proposed his idea to Bertha: the night of the raid, after he’d come down from the apartment and seen the damage, he’d realized she would have to rebuild from scratch. He had some savings, and if he sold his land back home to his cousin or a neighbor, he might have a little more. He’d proposed investing as a partner in her business, handling the restaurant portion while she took care of hosting and entertainment.
She’d been excited, but worried about how to make it work and how to keep her girls safe. He’d given her time to think, but she’d accepted his offer when Janie and Wah Ming had told her they were opening their own private club, run out of an apartment so it drew less scrutiny from the vice squad. They hadn’t wanted to disappoint her, but they’d been inspired to strike out on their own. Bertha only had herself to blame for it; the girls—women—had realized they could stand on their own two feet, even if people tried to kick them out from under them.
Building up the business hadn’t been easy. Acquiring funds, in addition to Amir’s savings and the money from the sale of his land, and Bertha’s matching contribution. Coming up with a business plan that suited both of them, which was no easy feat for two stubborn rams. But in the end, ‘Bertha’s’ had finally opened—to little acclaim. But they had worked hard, strategized together, and eventually their sheer will to succeed had bloomed into success. Between the men from the Continent looking for a taste of home, those who had migrated from the South seeking the same, and people just looking to try something different, they were doing quite well. Amir knew that the restaurant business was as temperamental as the sea, but he was just glad he could weather the ups and downs with Bertha at his side.
Amir walked over to the hostess stand after surveying the dining room, not bothering Bertha as she talked to a customer making a reservation. Instead, he peeked down over the side of the wood panels that enclosed the stand.
“Abbu!” Pure happiness filled Amir as his son’s eyes grew wide with surprise. Raahil threw his head back and laughed, mouth open wide to reveal the two new teeth that had recently come in. Was that a third, pushing through? His boy was growing up so fast; each new stage of growth pushed Amir to work harder in his fight against injustice. Raahil would soon be old enough to understand the sundry ways his family was seen as less than, and Amir wanted to be sure he never doubted his worth.
“Eh! What’s so funny, my shonar chele?”
Done with their customer, Bertha turned around and picked up Raahil, making a silly expression as she pressed her face close to his, which made the boy laugh even more. Then she glanced at Amir, a soft smile still on her face. “We ran out of catfish again. Let’s go over sales for the last three weeks tonight and figure out how we need to adjust the next food order. I also need your input on a couple of bands that want to play the Friday night show. And to discuss how to get around these ice distributors bleeding us dry. And…”
Many in the local restaurant group had assumed that having a baby would soften Bertha; after all, wasn’t she on her way to becoming “respectable?” He knew they had wished it to be so because she ran circles around the majority of them when it came to business. However, they’d been mistaken; Bertha could now give orders in the same breath as baby talk, and still make sure you knew that the work had better be done fast and to her standards.
“Oh, I love it when you talk figures and food orders,” he said, leaning onto the counter and squeezing Raahil’s socked foot. “But tonight is the meeting of the Bengali factory workers, love. I’m slated to discuss labor laws and petitioning against the Barred Zone Act.”
The right corner of her mouth pulled up.
“And I love it when you talk unionizing and naturalization,” she said. He had been joking, but he knew she was not. His heart sped up; she could still do that to him with just a look, even though he had once worried that the sweat and screaming matches of running a business together might tear them apart.
“Will you save me a dance? Later, after Raahil is asleep?”
“I only dance once a month, Amir,” she said, then her gaze dropped to his mouth. “But I might be convinced to make an exception.”
He wouldn’t kiss her in front of the early dinner crowd that had already begun to fill the tables—she was better with public affection than she had been all those years ago, but she still took her roll of boss Bertha very seriously, and so did Amir. Instead, he leaned forward to kiss Raahil’s cheek.
“Ami tomake bhalobashi,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled away, giving her hand a squeeze.
“I love you, too,” she said. She bounced Raahil up and down, but in that moment her gaze was all for him. His Bertha.
Amir walked out into the streets of Harlem. He wasn’t sure if he was living the American Dream—things were often hard, and people harder. But the love he had, real, pure, and unshakeable, and the life he had built—they had built—maybe that was better than streets paved with gold. It certainly felt like it to him.
Author’s Note
Some of the books most helpful in the writing of this novella are as follows:
African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn. 1998. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press.
Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, Vivek Bald. 2013. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, Harvard University Press.
Black Women and Politics in New York City, Julie A Gallagher. 2012. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, University of Illinois Press.
Sex Workers, Psychics, and Number Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy, Lashawn Harris. 2016. Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, University of Illinois Press.
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920, Timothy J. Gilfoyle. 1994. New York City, W. W. Norton & Company.
About the Author
Alyssa Cole is a science editor, pop culture nerd, and romance junkie who lives in the Caribbean and occasionally returns to her fast-paced NYC lif
e. When she’s not busy writing, traveling, and learning French, she can be found watching anime with her real-life romance hero or tending to her herd of animals.
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Find Alyssa at her website, http://alyssacole.com/, on Twitter @AlyssaColeLit, and on Facebook at Facebook.com/AlyssaColeLit. For updates on new releases, sign up for her newsletter here.
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Also by Alyssa Cole
Romantic Suspense
Eagle’s Heart
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Sci-fi/Post-apocalyptic
Radio Silence (Off the Grid book 1)
Signal Boost (Off the Grid book 2)
Mixed Signals (Off the Grid book 3)
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Historical
Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight
Be Not Afraid
Let Us Dream, In Daughters of a Nation: A Black Suffragette Historical Romance Anthology
An Extraordinary Union
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Mala Bhattacharjee and Farah Ghuznavi for their help with the linguistic and cultural aspects of the story. Also, Colleen Katana, Derek Bishop, Krista Amigone, and Lena Hart for their invaluable feedback.
Copyright
LET US DREAM
Copyright © 2016
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.
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