The Cigarette in the Sauce

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He looked down and there was a cigarette in the sauce. He got even angrier. He had been listening to them talk for quite a while now. About how she shouldn't be here, and definitely not with him. What did they care? Whose business was it that he was with her? Surely not theirs. He had kept his mouth shut until this point but he could no longer control his temper. He took the sauce bowl and threw it into the corner. At the sound of the bowl clanking she looked up. She could tell there was something wrong from the look in his eyes even though she hadn't been paying attention to what they were saying. "What?" she asked. All he could do was make a gesture to the bowl. But she couldn't see into it. "What is it?" "Someone threw it in there." She could see the look on his face was black. He wasn't happy. The only thing she could think of was one word. She couldn't ask him about it though, not in there. After a while he got up she quickly stood up and grabbed her bag thinking he was trying to pay for the meal she had eaten the most of. He laughed and motioned to his empty pockets "I'm going to the bathroom." She went and paid the bill anyways. He immediately suggested they leave. "I wanted to hit him" he said to her as soon as they were outside. "They're stupid, what can you do." "If my friends were there I would have challenged them to try it again." "But they weren't and they can't always be there. Whether it's one person or many it's still going to happen." "When you're there." "So what do I do, just leave China? Then it's one point to them and none to me." He laughed at her because he knew she was telling the truth. "All I would have had to do was make one phone call and he would have been shaking in fright." "To whom?" "My boss' boss. He knows a lot of people in the Mafia and he can speak Dalian hua." They had reached her door and she unlocked it so they could both go in. "Hey!" She called to her roommate. "Racist pigs." She had finally said it. That one word which she had been thinking since it had happened. Racism. It doesn't seem to change. Racism, racism, racism. It never seems to go away. No matter where it is. It had happened to them the other night too. When they were walking along the street and talking about nothing in particular. The stranger next to them had turned while she was mid-sentence and yelled something at them. Of course she didn't know what it was as it wasn't her mother tongue but he knew. And she knew it hurt him. She was used to it - with India and China combined it was old news to her. But it wasn't to him, and it was far from the last time he was going to see it.

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