I scrub the tables. Hard.

I look back at the woman in black staring at me.  I smile, then turn away, redirecting my attention to my work.

“Nadia?” she asks.

I look back again, offering a small smile.

“Are you Indian?” she asks me, her eyes wide with wonder. Her children look up from their funnel cakes to make eye contact with me.

“No, no” I tell her. I hesitate before saying: “I am Mexican and Palestinian.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding her head. The women around her look also, each pair of eyes burning with fire.

I smile. “Yeah,” I nod.

“?? ??? ?????” Her tone is swift. Easy going, almost.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t speak Arabic,” I apologize.

She furrows her brow as though I presented to her a math problem that she couldn’t solve. 

She stands. “I was asking if you were Muslim?” She looks concerned; it was a facial expression much like those teachers wore when their student was doing poorly.

“Oh, I’m Roman Catholic,” I tell her. I straighten my back some.

She presses for more information. “What side of your family is Arab?”

“My father.” 

I turn my head from the right to the left. One by one, the women stand up.

“Is he Catholic too?” She crosses her arms as she says this.

“He’s Muslim,” I admit. But my mother is Christian.”

They circle around me now, observing me as if I was a wild animal in a zoo.

“My father knows I’m a Roman Catholic,” I inform them. “I actually have a younger brother who is Athiest and he’s tolerant of it.”

The woman opens her mouth a little.

“Your mother? How did they meet?”

“Um, through friends.”

Bystanders stop walking to see the actors on the stage.

The face of the woman in black grows scarlet red.

“Why did he marry her?” Her pitch develops a sudden sound inflation.

I turn my head from left to right to left again. The women surrounding me wear the same solemn expression. 

Their pupils grow more and more grave. The woman in black raises her gavel, hitting it against the cold, hard desk.
 

“Why did he marry her?” She sharply repeats the question. “What? He couldn’t find a nice Arab girl?”

I back a few steps behind me. I look over my shoulder towards the window. Adrian and Louise lean against the railing, focusing on each and every move I make.

I tuck my orange shirt in, trying not to meet the hungry eyes of the audience.

“I---I don’t know ma’am,”  I stutter.

She turns to grab her purse. She looks at her children then at me again. She points her index finger at the horrible, horrible criminal, her ruby radiating in the moonlight. She speaks rapidly in her native language, her tone climbing the mountain of wrath higher and higher with each word. The children nod, their eyes never leaving that of the woman’s.

The jury remains quiet, eager for the judge to raise her gavel again.

The woman dressed in black throws her bag over her shoulder, throwing me a disgusted look.

“You have offended us,” she tells me. She raises her gavel again. “Your whole family is a disgrace.” The gavel slams itself against the cold hard desk one last time, sentencing the convict to a lifetime sentence for his felony.

I return my attention to the table. 

The audience continues to sit in their seats.

Rub. Scrub. Push.

A warm hand squeezes my shoulder. I turn my neck. Louise.

He offers a half-hearted smile. 

“I saw what happened.” He shifts his weight. “Are you okay?”

I shrug. “It’s whatever. I just want to work.”

He looks at the people who watched what had happened, then at me again.

“You know, you’re a very strong girl.” He nods his head. “Keep fighting.” 

He walks away with his broom and dustpan, sweeping whatever trash he could find.