Let Us Dream Read online

  Table of Contents

  Let Us Dream

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by Alyssa Cole

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  let us dream

  Alyssa Cole

  Let Us Dream

  Alyssa Cole

  Harlem – 1917. After spending half her life pretending to be something she's not, performance is second nature for cabaret owner Bertha Hines. With the election drawing near and women's voting rights on the ballot, Bertha decides to use her persuasive skills to push the men of New York City in the right direction.

  * * *

  Chef Amir Chowdhury jumped ship in New York to get a taste of the American Dream, only to discover he’s an unwanted ingredient. When ornery Amir reluctantly takes a job at The Cashmere, he thinks he's hit the bottom of the barrel; however, working at the club reignites his dream of being a force for change. His boss, Bertha, ignites something else in him.

  * * *

  Bertha and Amir clash from the start, but her knowledge of politics and his knowledge of dance force them into a detente that blooms into desire. But Bertha has the vice squad on her tail, and news from home may end Amir’s dream before it comes to fruition. With their pasts and futures stacked against them, can Amir and Bertha hold on to their growing love?

  Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes

  And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;

  Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes

  Blown by black players upon a picnic day.

  She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,

  The light gauze hanging loose about her form;

  To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm

  Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.

  Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls

  Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,

  The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,

  Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;

  But looking at her falsely-smiling face,

  I knew her self was not in that strange place.

  Claude McKay, “The Harlem Dancer”

  “They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but I evade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last…”

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Chapter 1

  October 1917

  Harlem, New York

  “Hold your ear down, ‘less you wanna get burnt again.” Nell’s accent, cultivated in the rich soil of the Deep South, slipped through the racket of the hair salon on a Saturday afternoon. Her voice was warm and sweet, like a peach right off the tree, and Bertha closed her eyes at the feeling of home it stirred in her. It reminded her of that brief happy time where she’d awoken in the same bed every morning and helped her mama with the cleaning before heading off to school or dance lessons.

  Strains of different conversations swirled through the Glossine-scented air of the salon: Negro boys getting sent off to fight in France, and maybe to die there too; the latest show put on by the Lafayette Players over at the theater; and, of course, the upcoming elections.

  “My man barely wanted to let me come to the shop for a few hours. He ain’t thinking about letting me near a ballot box,” one woman said. Laughter circled around the shop, the tense kind that happened when a joke wasn’t really a joke but you either laughed or despaired. Bertha didn’t laugh; she kept clear of entanglements with men because she was now in a position to do so, and they still controlled most aspects of her life. Even she couldn’t muster the fake joviality to laugh at what these women, who had a fraction of her autonomy, faced.

  “You want that ear or no, Miss Hines?” Nell asked.

  Bertha pulled her ear down flat with her index and middle fingers, remaining stock still as the heat of the metal comb warmed the oil on her scalp and the sensitive skin on the backs of her fingers. She stared down at the brown skirt peeking out from under the protective sheet Nell had draped over her before commencing to straighten Bertha’s long, thick hair. She was wearing the dowdiest dress she owned; long, drab, high-collared. It was yet another costume, this one designed to cover up instead of reveal. Something told her the crowd at Colored Women’s Voting League wouldn’t go for the sequins, bangles, and silk that made up her usual nightly wardrobe.

  “You learned from your mistake last time,” Nell chuckled, placing the comb down on the metal warming plate and running a brush through Bertha’s hair. “Still as a statue.”

  “You’re the one who burned my neck last time, so I think you’re the one who learned,” Bertha reminded her. “You had everyone in the Cashmere thinking I had a love bite.”

  She lifted her head the slightest bit to cut her eyes at Nell’s reflection in the mirror.

  Nell made a sound between a laugh and a snort of disbelief. “A love bite at the Cashmere is about as common as a spot on a leopard.”

  Nell was only teasing, but her words plucked at Bertha’s already taut nerves. She straightened her spine to its usual rigid alignment and lifted her shoulders back. “There’s nothing common about it when we’re talking about me.”

  She used the tone that had gotten her through the last few years, the one that reminded people of exactly who she was. Of course, she had been exactly nobody when she first started using it, but people didn’t want to have to think too hard, really—they believed what you presented them with.

  Girl, people see what they want to see; they take the path of least resistance. We just got to lead them down the path that benefits us. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, hear me?

  Her father had been many things, but foolish wasn’t one of them. Bertha gifted people with the idea that she was not to be treated lightly, and they responded accordingly. No one had thought a poor Black whore audacious enough to bend the truth in such a way, and she had benefited from it, plain and simple.

  Nell paused in the intricate chignon she had begun creating and caught Bertha’s gaze in the mirror. Her eyes were wide in her toffee-toned face, and her mouth hung slightly open as she realized that Bertha hadn’t appreciated her jab.

  “You know I don’t mean nothing bad, Miss Hines.”

  “Nell, you heard anything from your cousin who applied at the hospital?” Sandra, a local washerwoman who was getting a conditioning treatment in the chair next to Bertha, interrupted, either out of rudeness or to head off any awkwardness. Bertha was glad, whatever the reason; she didn’t want to embarrass Nell if she could help it.

  Nell’s fingers flexed against Bertha’s scalp as she resumed her work, grabbing up long hanks of hair, twisting and pinning. “Yes, ma’am. She got the job. Got her a nice white uniform hanging in her closet. Used so much starch I don’t know how she gonna bend over!”

  “Well, good!” Sandra beamed, slapping her thigh beneath the sheet covering her clothes. “I didn’t believe it when they said they was hiring Negro nurses now. My sister can come up from Charlotte and get a job here when she done with school.”

  Bertha thought of how she’d come to New York with hopes of a good, respectable job, too. How so many women, fleeing the restraints of the South, had. She thought of telling Sandra how a chunk of the White nurses had resigned, rather than work with Negro women. But Sandra was looking at her expectantly, so she smiled and nodded benevolently—she was a performer after all. Her daddy had once told her that pretending was a
full-time job. Bertha had thought him full of it, but wasn’t she her father’s child now?

  “Well, wouldn’t that be something!” she said, flashing a grin at Sandra. “I bet she’ll snap up a position in no time.”

  The door to the salon opened and the cool autumn air danced through the scent of flower-infused oil, miracle growth conditioner, and singed hair, carrying in the smell of roasted nuts from the vendor down the street. A young boy entered, straightening the lapel on his too-large suit.

  “Anybody got numbers for Miss Queenie?” The expression on his still-round face was comically serious, a replica of the older number runners who posted up on corners and visited businesses throughout the day, taking people’s money and leaving them with a bit of hope.

  “Boy, get in here and stop letting out all the heat,” one of the other hair dressers called out. “And give me my usual numbers, boxed.”

  She handed the boy some coins and he noted something on a slip of paper before stuffing it in his pocket.

  “Oh, I had a dream last night. My mama told me to go to building seven-three-one. I’m gonna play that,” another woman said. The crowd in the salon voiced their support of the idea.

  “What about you, miss?” the boy asked. He had wide, innocent eyes—too innocent to be caught up in the numbers racket already. But Bertha knew all too well that age didn’t mean anything once money was involved.

  “Not for me,” she said.

  He nodded and jogged out the door, running off to pick up more bets and carry them back to the number hole.

  “All done,” Nell said, whipping off the protective sheet and dusting off the back of Bertha’s dress. Bertha stood and examined her hair in the mirror for a minute. It was unremarkable, which was exactly what she wanted. She handed Nell her due, plus a good tip to make up for getting high and mighty with her. She liked the woman—and Nell hadn’t been wrong.

  “You sure look nice,” Sandra said, eyeing the high-necked brown dress and matching jacket. “You goin’ to church or somethin’?”

  Bertha smiled. “Something.” She took a look at the women crowded in the shop: hair dressers, laundresses, domestics. She was doing this for them. She pinned on her wide-brimmed brown hat, took one last look in the mirror, and then headed out onto the street.

  It was Saturday afternoon, and if she hadn’t known already, she would have as soon as she turned onto Lenox Ave. The traffic was bumper to bumper, and the line of trolleys, horses, and Model Ts made her glad she had decided to walk off her nervous excitement. The sidewalks were packed with people strolling, out showing off their autumn outfits as they walked slowly up and down the street. The clusters of people she navigated through grew and shrank as people drifted away from conversations with one group and into them with another.

  She had no time to stop and talk, either with acquaintances or with strangers in the mood to chat, as she headed for the meeting. She went over her planned speech in her head.

  We need the vote, and I have a plan, you see…

  “Hey, Miss B!” She was pulled from her planning by a familiar voice—and the familiar scent of chicken and collard greens. The mix of tangy and savory aromas brought her back in time, to when mama would make dinner and the family would all eat together, back before her father discovered his surefire moneymaking venture and pulled her away from family and school and into his obsessive scheme.

  Your mama’s too dark, and she don’t got good hair, like us…

  “Hey, Mary.” Bertha slowed but didn’t stop, as she walked by the woman’s bizarre portable stove tucked into a baby carriage. Well, there were two carriages now—Mary’s business was expanding along with the rest of the neighborhood. “Still no chance I can lure you to my kitchen?”

  Mary laughed. “The Cashmere too fancy for my simple cooking. Don’t tell me you got folks in there eating chitlins in their fixy dresses!”

  Bertha laughed. “One of these days, I’ll change your mind, just to have that cornbread of yours in my kitchen every day,” she said with a wink.

  Mary looked down, bashful. “This corner ain’t glamorous, but I like being my own boss woman. You know how that is.”

  “That I do, Mary. Good afternoon!”

  Bertha walked away with renewed purpose. Women like Mary needed her to do this, too.

  She arrived at the Colored Women’s Voting League building, following the other women who entered without the slightest hesitation. She could tell from their clothes and their hats and the way their eyes were a little wary as they greeted her, even in her nice dress and make-up free face, that these were good women. Upstanding, pillars of the community, and all the things she wasn’t.

  Her stomach tightened but she pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

  You belong here just as much as them. Act like it.

  She felt a sense of calm come over her as she eased into the role. She was a businesswoman, looking to protect her interests and those of the women who worked for her. These uptight suffragettes might look down on her, but they would hear her out.

  A woman in a dress that looked like something fit for a funeral—to be buried in, that is—stepped onto the stage. She was light bright and tight-lipped, wearing no make-up, her hair brushed back into a simple bun. A preacher’s daughter, if Bertha had ever seen one.

  Bertha tried not to be critical of her, but she knew exactly what women like Delta Henderson thought of her. It was instinctive for her to size them up, look for weak spots, and, once discovered, to be ready to point them out the moment they dared talk down to her. Some men walked through dangerous territory with their guns cocked and ready, and Bertha did the same with her words. It had been the same on the road with her father, the same when she took over the Cashmere after her husband Arthur had died, and she wouldn’t treat these women any differently, though she wished she could.

  “Sisters, thank all of you so much for joining us at this important meeting,” Delta said. She looked around, her eyes lit up with the kind of ridiculous hope that made Bertha roll her own. Hope wasn’t going to get them the vote; it was time for action.

  “One of the most important elections of our lifetimes is coming up one month from now,” Delta said. “On that day, the men of New York state will be voting on whether we, their sistren, will finally be afforded the God-given right to vote.”

  Applause broke out in the room and Bertha joined in. The press of emotion in her throat at the possibility that lay before them annoyed her; it seemed hope was catching, like cooties. She cleared her throat and folded her hands in her lap, waiting for the applause to die down.

  “Now, they had the same opportunity two years ago, and they did not make the correct decision.”

  Grumbling broke out amongst the women.

  “I know. It’s frustrating.” Delta held out her hands and then lowered them, modulating the volume in the room like the conductor of a big band. Bertha grinned. Definitely a preacher’s daughter.

  “But we’ve made great strides since then. We’ve organized with the National Women’s Voting League, the Women’s Suffrage Union—too many wonderful groups to name—and the suffrage movement is more united than it has ever been.”

  Bertha was tempted to ask why they needed a separate organization—and a separate building—for Negro women if there was so much unity, but that would have been low. Besides, she knew why. They all knew why.

  “But now we’re in the last stretch of the race and we need to apply pressure,” Delta continued, pressing the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. She looked out over the crowd with determination shining in her eyes. “We have to convince the men to vote yes. Speak to your husbands, brothers, cousins. Speak to your fellow congregants at church. To the brother lodges affiliated with your women’s clubs. By now, we all know that we deserve the vote, but they need to know it too. They need to give it to us.”

  Raucous applause littered with “Amen!” broke out, but Bertha was no longer clapping. She was standing, one hand
raised in the air. Delta Henderson’s vibrant gaze slid over her once, twice, three times, her fierce smile faltering a bit with each pass.

  “The time for questions is at the end of the talk, sister,” she said, raising and lowering her hand, as if Bertha could be bidden like the chattering crowd had been a moment before.

  Bertha remained standing.

  She had planned to be genteel, placid, nonthreatening—the way women were supposed to act, even when demanding a simple acknowledgement of their humanity. Instead, she pitched her voice loud, projecting to the back of the room as her father had taught her. Years on the theater circuit meant her enunciation was crisp and sharp enough to cut to the heart of the matter.

  “That’s well and good, but I think I’ll ask mine now, thank you,” Bertha said. “You mention church and clubs and lodges and leagues, but what of the women who belong to no such organizations? What of the poor laundress, the illiterate maid, the downtrodden prostitute?” A gasp went through the crowd then, as if that last word had sucked the respectability out of the room.

  “Well, our first priority is making sure that the people in a position to influence the upcoming election know what to do,” Delta said. There was challenge in her tone, as if Bertha was ruining everything just by asking to be seen. “We have limited time and resources and where we direct them is of the essence.”

  That’s that, then.

  Bertha had been looking at Delta, but now angled herself toward the crowded auditorium, making eye contact with several women as she continued. “These women need the protections the right to vote will provide more than anyone. They should be a priority.” She realized her righteousness was leading her off track and tried to get back to what she had come to say. She’d had a plan. “Disregarding women who aren’t seen as rich, or smart, or respectable enough is a miscalculation. How can their skills be harnessed? How can they be included now, so they aren’t left behind later?”