I'm a Busy Man, Habibi

Almasi estate, Cairo, Egypt, Present day.

"Bring me the child, tifla." Amunet Almasi spoke the command to her daughter with the authority of the family matriarch. The old woman extended her arms from her recliner towards her daughter across the large living space.

The 'tifla' in question was in fact a woman in her early fifties. She huffed as she stood from the couch and crossed the living room, stepping over two of her own children to hand her grandchild to her mother. "Mother, I am much too old to be called that. I am holding my granddaughter and your great granddaughter." She reached down to hand the babbling infant to her mother.

Amunet took Akila and only scoffed at her daughter. "Nonsense. I am your mother, Kesi. You will always be that unruly tifla that would talk a big game and then hide in my skirt whenever she got in trouble with the neighborhood boys. Despite never meeting your father, you somehow inherited his proclivity for mischief." She spoke in an exasperated tone that didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes shone with the memories of her, and her daughter's, youth.

Asad Almasi spoke from his reclined spot on the ground, laying on some pillows. "Like how I inherited his good looks." The arrogance oozed from his voice.

Amunet shut her grandson down. Her tone was judgmental and cold. "You've been blessed with your grandfather's features down to his smile yet you lack his charm." Asad sat up while Shani, her granddaughter, laughed at him.

"I have charm!"

"If you have so much charm, how come you haven't given me a great-grandchild? Unlike you, Shani can keep a partner."

Asad sputtered as more laughter from his younger sister rang out. "I just haven't found the right one yet. And that's not fair! Shani's always been your favorite. Just because she's a girl."

Kesi chimed in. "Oh please, you've been 'looking for the right one' since highschool. You have the looks but can't keep a woman for the life of you." Betrayed by his own mother, Asad was speechless. He laid back down to sulk while Shani had now advanced to rolling around on the pillowed floor while she laughed.

Amunet chimed in, voice scolding. "If Shani's my favorite, you certainly aren't doing yourself any favors making me wait for my great-grandchildren." She turned her attention to the baby reaching up towards her. She let the child grasp her index finger as her tone softened. "Besides, I have a new favorite. Isn't that right, Ya Amar?" Akila merely babbled something in response. "I think it's time I tell you about your great-grandfather."

Amunet's daughter rolled her eyes as her two grandchildren groaned openly. They had all heard the story hundreds of times. Yet none of them made to leave. Every time she told the story, some slight detail would change so they didn't even know the validity of her tales. But she was their only pathway to knowing more about their grandfather/father besides a single photo of him, so they listened every time.

Amunet stared into Akila's mismatched eyes as she remembered, the green of one becoming the rolling hills of fields surrounding her village and the blue becoming where the clear sky and ocean waves met in the horizon.

Morocco, 1973

Amunet walked along the bus station of her fishing village in Morocco. Though the village itself was small, certain times of year had it bustling with travelers, as it had a few scenic villas for rent. The village used the profits of these times, along with selling fish to larger towns, to survive.

Amunet's job was simple. She would walk the station and bark for her father's cafe, using her charm and persuasion to drive traffic to their shop. Her long black hair was straightened to perfection and she wore her best, albeit simple, dress. It was there that she met him. Passengers got off of the bus and flooded the street. She waded through the crowd, handing out flyers and speaking to anyone who would listen. Most didn't listen but they did take flyers. They needed somewhere to relax as they vacationed and/or waited for the bus return in a few days.

It was there, in the midst of the sea of people, that they found each other. Or more aptly, collided. He rushed past her as she answered questions of an excited little girl who wanted to know exactly which kinds of cookies the cafe would have. His suitcase bumped her back and she stumbled and fell.

The first sign he was a semi-decent human being was that he stopped. This was hardly the first time she'd been bumped into and most didn't bother to even apologize as they kept moving. It was good that he stopped, that way she could give him a piece of her mind when she stood. Shani gets her temper from her mother, but I always wondered where Kesi got hers...

That was when their eyes met. Most of her anger left her. Most. She paused. He was quite the looker. A fit young man, maybe slightly older than her, he had a chiseled jaw adorned with an even five o'clock shadow and from his mouth hung a cigarette. His full hair poked out from beneath his brown paperboy hat. He wore a loose shirt underneath a brown jacket. Cradled under his arm was a large briefcase. But the thing that caught her attention the most was his bright green eyes.

He looked to be making a decision. She could see him deliberating on whether or not to leave her there, as if he was in a rush to get somewhere. But after the two of them stared into each other's eyes for a second, he made his choice. His nervousness vanished and he flashed her a smile that would have knocked her off her feet had he not already done so. Instead it left her breathless... until she remembered that he did in fact knock her off her feet.

He reached down a hand to help her up and she promptly knocked it away as she stood on her own. His confident smile read as smug to her.

Even his voice sounded confident, which ticked her off more. "So sorry, mademoiselle." He had such a way with words.

"Don't 'mademoiselle' me. You knocked me over, you son of a bitch!" She glared up at him, looking up into those green eyes. He kept the confident smile.

"I'm sorry. However, could I make it up to you...?"

"Amunet." I always wondered why I gave him my name back then. "And you can make it up to me," she took a flyer and pushed it into his chest, almost shoving him a bit, "by eating at my father's cafe."

His smile only grew wider. "Asking me to dinner already?" He always did have a joke for everything.

She huffed but had no actual comeback for his statement. She heard the little girl whisper to her mother "I think that pretty lady likes him." Embarrassed and flustered she took the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it into the water. "No smoking in the cafe." And then she walked off.

Present

Asad commented from his reclined position. "This part always gets me. The oldest and easiest trick in the book, jida."

Amunet paused her tale to look down at her grandson, the fact that the face she remembered so fondly was now smirking at her, and not the way his grandfather did, ticking her off further. "I was not easy! He was just that good. If it was easy you would have found someone by now." He didn't respond, and probably didn't even hear her, because his mother knocked the back of his head for insulting his grandmother and Shani gave him a none too light punch on the shoulder. She returned back to the baby and her wonderful eyes. "Now where was I?"

Later that day, 1973

Amunet was now doing her second job at the cafe, borderline running it. After her mother passed, the shop had fallen to almost ruin before she stepped up. As a kid, she thought all her mom did was bake sweets and man the register, but she quickly found out she was the backbone of their life. Her father, god bless his soul, would be hopeless without her, even without the grief from her passing to weigh him down.

At the young age of fifteen, Amunet made it clear that she was running the show and since that day, all those years ago, not one person had ever questioned it. Some of the old men had taken to calling her by her mother's name for the way she nagged her father. But where her mother lightly encouraged her husband to be productive, Amunet had no problem telling him off until he did what he had to do.

On top of her job waiting tables, she began taking orders and keeping the books. She cleaned everything that wasn't the kitchen and made sure to keep track of anything that broke to make her father fix it. She also added and modified some rules. She ran a tight ship and it was made clear that any customer that wouldn't abide by them was free to leave and never return.

The very first rule she implemented was a no smoking policy. She hated the smell but most of all it was for her father, who she had been trying and failing for years to get to quit. He would use the customers as an excuse. "To make them feel at ease." So she simply made everyone stop. She had already lost one parent and his cough got worse by the year. To his credit he, for the most part, stopped smoking during the work/day hours, but at night he would still go through packs with the other men in town.

It was sunset and the shop was serving its last customers when the man from the station walked in, covered in dirt and looking tired with a cigarette hanging from his lips. But even fatigued, he had that damned smile on his face when he walked in and saw her.

Amunet had been wiping down the counter when he entered. Before she could address him, her father approached him.

"Sorry, my friend, but we are closed for the day. Come back tomorrow."

He didn't miss a beat. "That's a shame. I was invited here for a meal by that lovely woman over there." He gestured to her. Her father turned to look at her, shocked that she, the woman who's turned down every eligible man in the village, sought out a date of her own.

She wasn't having it, the morning anger resurging as she walked over. "Don't say it like that. You owe me." She gestured to his dirty clothes as she snatched the cigarette from his mouth and pointed to the no smoking sign. "And I'm supposed to just clean the mess you make in my shop?" She ignored her father mumbling under his breath, "our shop." She could have that argument later.

"I apologize but I had a busy day and I rushed over here to make it in time after I finished what I had to do. But it seems I was still too late to keep my promise. What can I say? I'm a busy man, Habibi." That fucking smile.

Amunet didn't want to clean up after him but she didn't want him to just get out of his punishment either, so she made an exception. She forced out a sigh. "Sit down and order something."

Her father spoke up then. "Ya Rouhi, we are closed."

She glared at him. "Not yet we aren't. Your friends can wait a few extra minutes, alab." Her father saw that she wouldn't take no for an answer and went off to the kitchen, grumbling about how the oven must be her real father because she sure didn't get that temper from him or her mother.

The man sat and ordered. Several minutes later her father gave him the food and told her to close up when they were finished as he walked out to see his friends. With not much to do until he left, she finished cleaning and then just stood off to the side, glaring at him. A few times as he ate the meal he looked up and met her glare with confidence. He would give her a smile and a wave before returning to the meal, causing her to glare harder.

Eventually, the silence grew too much and she asked him, "Why is it that you are tracking so much dirt in my shop?"

That made him stop eating as he swallowed and looked up at her. "It was for my job. Thought I saw potential in a plot of land, I was wrong."

She knew that all the land around the village was owned by one person or another who didn't actually live there. Just rented out the homes. "And what job causes people to dig up a plot of land that doesn't belong to them?"

"I'm an architect." And then he got a look as if he just realized something. "So sorry Amunet, I never introduced myself." He reached out a hand from his seated position as if to go for a hand shake despite the fact that she was across the cafe, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. Purely a gesture to bait her into approaching him, she knew. The grin never left his face as he continued after a moment. "Oh, come on. I promise I won't bite." More silence and she glared harder. He put his hand down. "On second thought, I think I might be the one to get bitten here." At that, he gave himself a small chuckle and continued to eat his meal as if he were alone and didn't have a woman staring daggers at him.

He finished his meal and stood from the table. He produced a wad of bills and held it out to her. She said, "Leave it on the table."

"Oh please, haven't I disrespected you enough today? I want to make this transaction face to face, like a good customer." With a defeated sigh, she walked over and held out her hand.

Not entirely unexpectedly, he placed the bills in her hand with one motion, using both hands to cup hers in the process. She jerked her hand away and he laughed as he proceeded to walk towards the exit. "For such a hard working woman, your hands are surprisingly soft."

She ignored the comment and went about counting the cash, not putting it past this sleazebag to stiff her on the bill. She was surprised to find that he overpaid by almost double.

"Wait! This is too much."

He didn't turn around as he kept walking but she could hear the smile. "Consider it a generous tip to make up for my mistake this morning and tracking dirt into your shop. Until tomorrow, habibi." And with that he walked into the now dark outside, disappearing from sight. Amunet set aside their interactions as one weird and bad day with the only silver lining being the money. She cleaned and closed up shop and went to her room to start counting the books for that day's profits.

The next day

The man arrived at the shop in the early afternoon. He entered and greeted Amunet's father like an old friend, even giving him a cigarette. Of course Amunet confiscated the nicotine but the damage was done. The man ordered a coffee and he and her father chatted the slow afternoon away as if they had always been friends.

He didn't even say a word to her. Just flashed her that smile when he walked in and again when he left.

She knew it was coming. She felt it with every fiber of her being and yet she was powerless to stop it.

Later that evening, when they were closing up the shop, her father approached her as she wiped down the counter. She didn't even look at him.

"You know... Ameli... he seems to be a nic-"

"No." Her father nodded and went into the back of the shop. Curious as to what he was doing instead of his nightly hangout she followed a few minutes later and was surprised to find him going over their expenses. The first time in years he'd even looked at that book.

"Dad?"

He looked up from the paperwork. "Hm? Oh, Ameli, Your frie-" he stopped at the glare she gave him. "That man gave me some tips on how to save on some expenses. I'm just running the numbers to double check. You can go to sleep early."

"Oh. Okay."

Not used to having her nights free, Amunet did just that. I must have been running myself ragged. Father had to drag me out of bed the next morning right before we opened up.

The 3rd day

Once again the man arrived at the shop in the afternoon. After a brief conversation with her father, he sat alone at the table. After an hour of watching the regulars, he waved her over.

"What do you want?" She didn't feel like dealing with whatever it was he had planned.

"Is that any way to speak to a customer?" The smile.

"Right now I'm talking to a son of a bitch who's loitering in my shop. Should I call the sheriff or are you a customer?"

He chuckled. "You drive a hard bargain."

She gave a slight smirk of her own. "A girl's gotta make a profit somehow." After the words left her mouth she realized that she fell into his rhythm. She wiped away her smile and returned to her glare. "Buy something or get out." He could always get a smile out of me. No matter how mad I was at the world. Or at him.

"OK, OK. I'll take a coffee and whatever the beautiful hostess recommends." He gave her a wink. She made a noise of disgust and got the coffee while she told her father the food order. The most expensive thing on the menu, of course.

He watched her as he ate. Not that she cared. She went about her work, attending to other, more appreciated customers. But the whole time she felt his eyes on her. When he finished his meal, he waved her over. Reluctantly, she went over to settle the bill.

Once again he held out a wad of cash. Hesitantly, she reached out. Then she snatched the money from him, expecting a repeat of last time. Instead he stayed perfectly still and flashed that unbearable smile at her as he chuckled. "Expecting me to hold your hand again? Sorry Amunet, but if you want that again, you're gonna have to do it yourself."

She hated him in that moment. Hated that he had played her again. Hated that he had her on the backfoot at all times. Most of all she hated the underlying truth to his words. There was a slight disappointment that he didn't make another attempt. What I wouldn't give to hold his hand, one last time.

He left then and she finished her day of work. Later in the day, after they had closed, he appeared at the glass door and knocked. She sighed, feeling the now 'usual' annoyance rise up. She went up to the door but didn't open it, just sternly pointing to the "closed" sign. He just smiled and shook his head, knocking on the door again where her face was.

She jumped at the motion and was about to open the door to give him a piece of her mind. But she stopped. That was what he wanted. Damned if she did, damned if she didn't. He always won their interactions.

All she could do was stare at him, hoping she unlocked the ability to kill with a look while he stood there and smiled through the glass. Then her father appeared behind her.

"Calm down, Amunet. He's here for me." He reached past his daughter and opened the door. "I had some difficulties with his suggestions so I asked him to come help with the math."

The man stepped into the shop, taking off his hat and flashing her the smile. "Sorry to disappoint, but tonight at least, I'm not here for you." The insinuation that he would ever come for her stoked her flames. She wrote off both of them for the night and went to bed, laying there as she could faintly hear them talk about finances. She developed a plan to get back at him for all he put her through. Not much has changed. I still think of him every day.

The 4th day

She woke up in the best mood she'd had since she met that insufferable man. She put on her best outfit, one that really showed off her assets. She knew she was a beautiful woman, but this was the first time she was happy about that fact. He only treated her like that because he was attracted to her. She would use that against him.

The plan was simple. Tear down that ego of his and win. She would lead him on and beat him at his own game. Make him believe he had won and tear the rug out from under him.

Amunet decided to go with the tried and true. She brought out the same dress she wore when they met and ironed it.

Filled with pride from her genius, Amunet hummed to herself a song her mother used to hum all the time as she prepared for the day. Her father peeked his head into her room and she smiled at him. "Good morning!"