The Rockstar Who Loves Me

Song 4 ♫ Going Crazy

As I nibbled on homemade empanadas in my mom's arms, I felt like I was a kid again. It didn't matter that I was a thirty three year old woman who had a whole head of height over her mother, at this moment it was exactly what I needed.

Even better, Dawn and Quinta kept us company through these hard times, while also enjoying Mom's cuisine while attempting to best her at cards. They were succeeding too, as Mom couldn't stop cuddling me.

"What matters is that you survived and that you got some extra days off of our asshole boss," Dawn said, pushing up her reading glasses up her nose.

Our eldest, and by far not our wisest, was Quinta. She was our neighbor and aside from being the first American friend we made since Mom and I arrived, and someone who became our guide in navigating this strange country, we had bonded over the fact that she was hilarious. In a crazy way.

Pushing eighty years old, she was well past giving two fucks about anything that was deemed polite if it went against her personal beliefs. I was sure that was the key for her to stay young.

She set a card down and said, "And besides, you got a rich cutie's phone number out of the whole ordeal, not a bad bargain."

I scrunched up my face. "A terrible bargain. Because I'm not going to keep dating guys and you know what? I'd rather not have gone through all of that."

Ever practical, Dawn asked, "Can you sue someone?"

I shrugged. "I don't have the money for that."

In fact, when I received an email from the airline this morning I thought it would be to return the money for the flight, or maybe gift me a bonus. Instead, they planned to solve this mishap by offering me a free two-way flight to South Korea that I could redeem any time in the upcoming year. As if I ever wanted to get on an airplane again, let alone with them.

"Forget about that." Quinta waved a hand. "Are you just gonna let the man go?"

Mom sighed. "Men are just trouble."

Didn't I know it.

"Less talking and more playing," Dawn said, nudging Quinta to play her turn.

But since I wasn't playing, all I could do was talk and eat. After finishing off my empanada, I said, "I'm not gonna text him first because then I will look interested, which I'm not."

Quinta narrowed her eyes at me. "Really? Can I get his number instead?"

That made me laugh. "Quinta, no. Besides he's already too young for me."

"Are you sure you're not saying that because he's Asian?" Quinta asked.

Dawn barked a laugh that caught her in the middle of sipping some wine, which spilled down the front of her blouse. "Damn you and your inappropriateness."

Quinta sniffed. "As an old white woman, this is my birth right."

I wanted to laugh and cry because even when she was wrong, no one could ever dare set Quinta Golden right unless she wanted to be right, and she was always right even when she was wrong.

"No, I'm not stereotyping." I reached for a second empanada and Mom immediately pulled me back to her side. "He really looked younger than me."

At first, with the cap and mask he'd been wearing I wouldn't have been able to tell. Next thing we knew, we were losing our minds as everything went to shit. After that we got so wasted that I could see two or three of him, and neither version was clear. It was only when we landed in the US and he wouldn't wake up that I got a really good look at him.