Page 31 of The Love Match

Her words are like a bucket of ice water over my head.“H-how can she ask that of us? That isn’tfair. It’s not—”

“Pushpita Afa warned me the bride would be a handful,” Amma murmurs, and I remember how she called the customer in question a bride-zolad. Zolads in Bangladesh were exacting and cruel with the people in their service. Worse than the meanestSay Yes to the Dressbridezilla. “She said it’d be an investment. If we put a little in now, we’ll get a larger return later when the bride pays, but I turned it down at first because we’d have to front the cost of the materials….”

Though she trails off, I know the answer. It might be alittleto the Emons, but it’s our life savings. Everything we’ve worked to the bone for.

I suck in a deep breath and steel myself to ask, “How much?”

My mother’s shiny eyes widen. “It’s too much, shuna. We can’t possibly—”

“How. Much?” I grit out.

Swallowing, she answers, “The silk for the garments, the gold and silver thread for the zari and embroidery, the various kinds of stone-work… I would have to call my suppliers, but perhaps two thousand?”

Two. Thousand.

Two.

Thousand.

In my two years of working at the tea shop, I’ve barely managed to scrape together that much, because I gave most to Amma to help with the bills, or to Arif so he wouldn’t be leftout when the rest of his classmates went on field trips, or to Nanu when insurance didn’t cover her prescriptions.

My nest egg has always been a gooey, bleeding nest yolk, but the more I worked, the more shifts I took, the closer I got to affording a different life. Affording college.

I remember Nayim’s words from the first night we walked home together:to me, it’s worth it, because it brought me one step closer to my dream.

This is ten steps back, but if Amma can pull it off like she pulled off launching her seamstress business in the first place, maybe things will get better.

Maybe.

I don’t know what storm of emotions sieges across my face, but my mother extending her hand to me and whispering, “Don’t worry, Zahra, we can figure something else out,” jolts me out of my stunned state enough that I can spin on my heel and walk slowly to my room.

Dropping to my knees next to the bunk bed, I grope under it until I find a book bound in cloth, an old edition ofPride and Prejudicethat the library put on its free-to-take shelf because the pages were already yellowed and moth-eaten. Hands quivering, I crack it open and remove an envelope heavy with bills.

I know how much is in there without counting, because I’ve spent so many nights awake, calculating what I had to do with it, and what would remain after.

How much more it would take to pay for a semester. Howmuch my books might cost. Bus passes. Money for food. How much I would need to make it through two years. How many more hours, days, weeks, and months I had to work to afford it.

It’s every single penny to my name.

Although I know it’s the right move, my return to the living room is slower, more painful, than my departure. Amma’s eyes grow huge in her pallid face when she catches sight of me, then fly to the fat envelope. Kneeling next to the coffee table, I take her hand and place the envelope into it, ignoring the way she shakes her head.

“Use this, Amma. Make dresses so beautiful even the bride-zolad won’t have a complaint. Make everything okay again. Please.”

My eyes burn, but my voice doesn’t quiver and the teardrops don’t fall. In an instant, her arms are wound around my neck, and they aren’t alone. I feel Arif and Nanu join them, and even Resna’s tiny limbs wrap around my waist.

“Thank you, Zahra,” Amma breathes into my hair. “I will pay you back.”

Chapter11

Amma’s new job is meantto save us but has created an assortment of brand-new problems. Because of the sheer amount of work involved in preparing outfits for a bridal party, she won’t have time for many other jobs in the coming weeks.

When I volunteer to help her prepare, however, she waves me away. “I have three other perfectly good assistants. It’s your first day off in ages. I insist you go enjoy it.”

“Yeah, Afa,” Arif chimes in, crossing his scrawny arms in a businesslike manner. It’d be cute if his face wasn’t still puffy from our family cryfest yesterday. “Go act like a real teenager instead of an old lady for once.”

Resna chimes a weak giggle. “Api is a bura betti.”

“I’m not old,” I protest, turning to Nanu for backup.

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