Page 104 of Tell Me What You Want, Or Leave Me

Suddenly, Flyn sidles up to us.

“Are you OK, honey?” I ask.

He nods. I caress his head, then bring my lips to his forehead, as my mother used to do and my father still does. Seeing that he doesn’t have a fever, I breathe easy.

As soon as I can, I slip away from Eric, Joshua, and the cockatoo. I can’t stand another second.

“Jude, you want a Coke?” Flyn asks and I accept.

He fills up a glass, and, as he hands it to me, a friend of his comes for him, and they run off, leaving me. But my solitude is short-lived, because soon the cockatoo and two friends of the same species find me.

“The little Chinese boy is yours?”

I’m trying to work up a poker face, like Flyn does, but I can’t really pull it off.

“Yes, he’s ours, and he’s German.”

“Is he adopted?”

Option one: I tell her to go fuck herself.

Option two: I slap her.

Option three: I explain to the cockatoos that Flyn is German and not Chinese and try to act like a lady.

I decide on option three. I think Eric would be upset by options one and two.

“Flyn isn’t adopted. And, he’s not Chinese; he’s Korean German,” I say and take a sip of my Coke.

The woman blinks.

“But is he your son or your husband’s? It’s clear he can’t be both of yours because neither of you is Chinese.”

Mother of God.

As my father would say, if she were any stupider, she wouldn’t have been born!

I give her an Iceman look, and, just when I’m going to hit her with one of my zingers, Flyn takes my hand and makes me go with him.

All right! He just saved me from a real scene.

We go back to where the food is, and a woman my age, a platinum blonde, says hello.

“I’m María.”

I respond in my perfect German. “Delighted. I’m Judith.”

“The potato omelet is yours?”

“Yes,” I say. “The ones with the black olive in the middle also have onion. The other two don’t.”

“Are you Spanish?”

Well...well...I have not heard that little question in a long time.

I tell her yes. As I sit down and wait to hear that “olé...torero...paella” crap, the stranger shouts, as excited as if I were Beyoncé herself.

“I’m Spanish too. From Salamanca!”

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