Harlem

Bradhurst - 8th Avenue & West 139th Street

Nelson’s Restaurant - Same Day

Reasonably priced and always busy, the restaurant was named after its owner, Nelson, a man much loved by those who lived in the area. He was fair to his staff and always knew whether to trade jokes with the customers or listen to their problems. Anna had never met a man with a more highly developed sense of what people were looking for. When she’d been desperate for money, searching for work, he’d helped her out. He didn’t need to hire a woman her age with no experience when there were younger, prettier girls who could flirt with the customers and bring in extra business. Anna paid back the favour by never letting him down, never being late or slipping off early. She told everyone that he’d taken a chance on her, fearless of the repercussions. Customers liked the fact Nelson had given her a job, maybe he’d known that too. In the end, the FBI never kicked up a fuss, not like they did with Jesse. Anna suspected that they liked the idea of her washing dishes and scraping trays clean. If they thought hard work was a humiliation, then they were wrong.

As she stepped inside the restaurant, getting ready for her shift, she understood with sudden clarity that Jesse was going to accept the young girl’s invitation to speak tonight. No matter how many shrewd reasons there were for not talking outside the United Nations, standing on the street in a hubbub of protestors sounded more like a Jesse Austin gig than any she could think of. She couldn’t allow him to be there alone.

Anna hurried over to Nelson, taking him by the arm.

—You know I’ve never done this before and I’ll never do it again. But I have to go back home. I can’t work tonight. I have to be with my husband.

Nelson looked her in the eyes, saw her expression, registered her tone and nodded.

—Is there something wrong?

—No, nothing’s wrong. There’s something my husband has to do and I have to be there with him.

—All right, Anna: do whatever you have to do. Don’t worry about this place, I’ll serve the food myself if I have to.

At his kindness, Anna kissed him on the cheek.

—Thank youquo;d p>

She turned around, taking off her apron, leaving the restaurant and heading back as fast as she could. She ran all the way home, across the street, through the men playing cards, through the haze of cigarette smoke, reaching the stairs up to her apartment building. On her way up, striding up two steps at a time, she felt the eyes of her neighbours. They pitied her, imagining that she’d suffered because of Jesse. They were wrong. She was the luckiest woman alive to have shared her life with him.

She threw open the apartment door. Jesse was standing on the bed, addressing the open window as though it were an audience of ten thousand. Around his feet were the handwritten pages of all the speeches he’d ever performed.