Thea and Aisha grab a table and tuck into their food, and I leave them alone to go and sit by Deen again. His legs are going up and down, up and down, and his jaw is clenched tight. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from the door for even a second.
‘Thea said the food was really good,’ I say, in the hope that it will help with his tension.
‘That’s nice of her to say.’ Deen’s voice is tight, and he doesn’t look away from the door.
‘You know what they say, Deen, a watched pot never boils,’ I joke.
Deen finally turns to me and almost cracks a smile. ‘I know, I know. It’s only been a couple of minutes. OK …distract me. You’ve watched that video of Maya like a billion times.’ He turns to me with a raised eyebrow.
Now I wish hewasfreaking out about the restaurant because I really don’t want to talk about Maya.
‘It’s a good interview.’ I shrug.
‘Uh-huh, sure. And you’re not watching it because you miss Maya. You know, she doesn’t live far away, you could go and see her at any point.’
‘I can’t, we left things … complicated. I just … I’m watching the interview because it reminds me of how wrong I was about so many things.’
Deen smiles – his first proper one in weeks. ‘You often are wrong about many things.’
I roll my eyes and poke him in the ribs. ‘You know the comments on that video are all deriding Maya for saying what she said. I mean, there are comments saying that maybe Bangladeshi women don’t belong in football. How messed up is that?’
‘Pretty messed up.’
‘And then you think about the fact that Maya has been dealing with that for the past nine years. I thought she was living the dream – livingmydream.’ I shake my head.
‘Dreams can be complicated. I mean, look at me,’ Deen says, extending his arms to the empty restaurant.
‘They can be,’ I agree. ‘But … Maya turned things around. I mean, despite everything, she went on national TV and told everyone her side of the story. So, if she can dothat,wecan make this place a success.’
It’s easy to say that, but much more difficult to achieve. Because a full half-hour later, not a single other person has shown up. I know that Jen said she would stop by at some point, and I’m itching to text her or call her and demand when.
If only to help assuage some of Deen’s worries.
‘Maybe this whole thing was a huge mistake,’ Deen says. He buries his face in his hands. ‘I mean, I took money out of my savings, I spent weeks doing all of this – maybe Ma was right. She has way more life experience than us and she knows—’
But he’s cut off by the sound of the door opening. Deen and I both look up at the same time and see a woman at the door that neither of us recognise. She looks around with scrunched eyebrows, before she spots the two of us and a small smile appears on her lips.
‘Hello! I’m here for the … restaurant launch?’
‘Yes!’ I say, standing up quickly and dragging Deen up with me. ‘I’m Dina, this is Deen. It’s his restaurant actually.’
‘Hi,’ Deen says. ‘Thank you for coming. There are free samples over there.’ He points to the table with the samples. ‘But if you’d like a table so you can peruse the menu and order, we can arrange that for you.’
‘Oh, I’ll definitely need a table,’ the woman says with a smile. ‘Can you do a table for six?’
‘Six?’ As Deen asks this, a flood of people appear behind the woman. Not just the five other people that will apparently be joining her for dinner, but even more people that she doesn’t seem to know. Each of them scrambles for our attention, looking for a table. My eyes nearly bulge out of my head at the sight, but I don’t have the time to be shocked.
Deen and I quickly get to work, trying to get everyone seated and served. It’s not long before the whole restaurant is full; every table is occupied, and the free samples are almost completely gone. And there’s a queue of people waiting for tables to free up.
‘I don’t have any more free samples,’ Deen whispers to me.
‘Don’t worry, people will pay full price for your food, clearly,’ I say, just as the first group of people that had come into the restaurant take their leave.
‘The food was wonderful, we’ll definitely be back,’ the woman we’d spoken to earlier says with a smile directed at Deen. She digs into her bag and takes out her phone. ‘I’m actually a food influencer; I talk about new and up-and-coming restaurants around the area. Ekushey wasn’t on my radar before, but it definitely is now, and I’ve taken a bunch of photos and videos to post. Do you guys have an Instagram account that we can tag you on?’ She’s already typing on her phone, looking up at us expectantly.
‘Yes. It’s @ekusheyrestaurant,’ Deen quickly pipes up.
‘Great.’ The woman grins. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She waves goodbye, and I turn to Deen with raised eyebrows.
