"Are you children finished yet" says Sarah, now every bit the prim librarian.
"Wait, I have just one more for us" Aaron says.
"Shoot", says Carl.
"Mommy mommy, what happened to kitty cat? Shut up and pass the soy sauce."
"That is not at all funny", says Sarah. "And it is really downright racist."
"I think it's funny." The voice belongs to Tommy, who is quite visibly Asian, standing over us with a full pot of coffee. Then, faking a thick Cantonese accent, he says, "Mo' coffee fo' yo?" And then he bursts into an unabashed giggle.
"You white people are so squeamish when it comes to not wanting to sound offensive", he says, pulling up an empty chair to join us. "You know something, my wife is white, whiter than the rest of you put together, and boy did I have to teach her to stop dancing on eggshells. It was my mom who helped break her of it."
"You are married to a white woman?" says Jesús, but I think only to assure himself that he heard correctly.
"I am married to a white woman. And she is beautiful And she is a musican And she is going to be performing here later today, for our coffeehouse night this evening. You guys coming?"
"We'll talk about it later", says Carl glancing at all of us.
"And by the way. If you think white people are racist, you should have seen my mom when she first met her future daughter-in-law..."
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