Maddy and Me

Chapter 24: Mr. and Mrs. Perez

Ted Perez walked into the room with a black suit on, saying "Hello!" as his eyes landed on Sonny. 

She put on her best smile, stood up and extended a hand, not wanting to have to hug a stranger. "Hello sir."

He shook her hand and said, having the voice and visual of a game host, "Please don't call me 'sir' or 'Mr. Perez'! Just call me Ted!"

Sonny saw through him, the entire school knew about him; the only imperfect part of Maddy's "perfect" self. "Then, hello Ted. My name is Sonia Rosenberg," she said smiling. Maddy exited the kitchen with cups and so did Mrs. Perez with the salad bowl.

"Nice to meet you." They sat down.

"So! Maddy told that you were a girl! But you look like a boy to me!" 

Maddy was about to sit down peacefully but the second the comment left her father's mouth, she felt like she fell on a seat of needles. Both her and her mother shot lasers at Mr. Perez.

Sonny saw it and lightly chuckled. "As much as I'm delighted to receive a compliment like that, I'm still a girl."

"Oh sorry. I didn't mean to... offend  you."

"I understand sir- I mean, Ted. Today, telling certain people that they look like their opposite gender or that they look like, uh... neither male nor female, is a compliment. So I take what you said as a compliment. Thank you."

"Uh... you're very welcome."

Mrs. Perez who stood for the past minute and a half to serve the food, said with a small smile, "I didn't know what you'd like to eat, so I made some steak, mashed potato and salad."

"Well, it looks absolutely delicious," she said raising her plate when Mrs. Perez stretched her left arm to grab it.

Once she was done serving food to everyone including herself, she sat down and Sonny took a bite of everything and complimented the chef for the scrumptious meal. Sonia smiled and accepted the compliment as sign of Sonny being a lackey. I want to see what she would say if she knew I bought the steak from a restaurant.

After a few moments of silence and eating, she began the interview, "So where are your parents from Sonia?"

Don't talk with a full mouth. She quickly chewed and swallowed the food she had just inserted and answered, "Um... My mom, Gina, is a second-generation immigrant from India. She's grew up in DC and her parents are from the state Kerala."

"Oh 'God's Own Country'," exclaimed Ted.

She precipitously chuckled and said, "Yeah. And my dad's one fourth German."

"Oh!" reacted Sonia, "That's quite a combination! And do you have any ...German-Indian traditions?"

"We don't follow any German traditions; we only speak the.. occasional butchered German and sing 'Silent Night' in the original German every Christmas," she said with a smile. "But unlike that, Indian culture is quite deeply... weaved into our lives. Well, not Indian culture as such because India has many cultures."

Then she started info-dumping out of nervousness. "Indian cultures are similar to each other at least by principle but they are different. Since my grandparents are from Kerala, we follow the culture of the Malayalis. Like, we celebrate a festival called 'Onam' which is celebrated by people of every religion and social group in Kerala regardless of where they are in the world. A lot of the food we eat is Indian, we speak the mother tongue, Malayalam, and we go to a Malayali church which is like, 10 minutes out of town. So... yeah."

Maddy was so done with that evening that she just wanted to die, Ted got lost on his plate in between. Sonia, on the other hand, calmly listened to everything and replied, "Hmm... Do you know which tradition your church follows?" 

"Yeah, we're Protestants," she said after swallowing some salad.

"Oh! We're Catholics. ...So if you were to get married, to a girl, would your church accept it?"

The others at the table looked up from their plates. "I... don't know."

"Would you still go to church even after you leave your parents? Would you go to a church that doesn't have any Mul- any of your Indians? What about Maddy? If you two got married, will you force her to go to your church? Wi-"

"Mama!" yelled Maddy, glowering at her mother across the table.

"What? We're fine with you two getting married but we need to know this. Which church and who converts?"

Maddy, with the knife still in her hand, stood up to resume yelling at her mom when Sonny put her left hand on top of Maddy's right. Sonny peacefully said, "Ma'am, first of all, does which tradition we follow matter? We believe in the same God, right? Then what does it matter? Second, I don't care if I have to shift to a Catholic church. My parents won't have a grudge or anything. Third...," she turned to her left and asked Maddy, "do you have any preference?"

Maddy yelled with her eyes locked on her mom, "No! I don't! And it shouldn't matter because we haven't even been on a proper date! We are still getting to know each other! We can discuss about marriage and everything else when..." she looked at Sonny who donned a nervous face, "we become adults and ...if we still are together. That's fine right?"

"Of course," Sonny answered smiling. Maddy sat back down and they ate for a while in awkward silence until Mr. Perez decided to interrupt it.

Ted said with a grin, "So Ms. Rosenberg, do you have a nickname? Because it's weird calling you my wife's name." Mrs. Perez subtly rolled her eyes.

Sonny smiled, "Yeah, my friends call me 'Sonny'."

"Would you consider us your friends?"

She chuckled. "Sure! Why not?"

He also chuckled. "So Sonny, how's school?"

"I'd say it's going good. My grades vary between 'A's and 'B's."

"That's very good."

Sonia then, in a subtle aggressive manner, asked, "Is there anything else that we should know about you?"

She inhaled deeply. "Yeah, two things," Sonny replied firmly, alternating her view between the adults, "One is that I have two older brothers and a younger sister. The oldest, Sam is who you talked to today. He's one of the best mechanics in town after studying at the community college downtown that everyone shits on. The second born is Rahul. He is studying Geology at MIT. Then my sister, Rebecca is 12. She's in East Highland Middle School. She's smart too, she has a 4.0 GPA."

"Two, I'm not the only queer person in my family. Sam is gay and he's one of the first queer folks in East High, so he got bullied and beaten up for it by the older Jacobs boy and his friends. Even my non-queer brother, Rahul got bullied and beaten up for Sam so bad that he ended up in the hospital. My dad is a former boxer, he's got a few titles around LA. He quit it all when Rahul was born. Since then, he runs a private gym that mostly concentrates on boxing, wrestling and weightlifting. 

"The point is, we've been through a lot and we're quite a strong and clever lot. So, if you're afraid about me being a girl and whether I'll be able to defend Maddy, when she actually needs it, don't worry. I can throw a good punch. We've also got a vendetta against the Jacobs, so my family will also join without question."

She looked at Maddy and said, "I'll be there for her even if we don't work out as a couple."

Mr. and Mrs. Perez were speechless while their daughter proudly blushed.

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AN: I hope you liked the two chapters!!! If you did, please leave a vote and let me know!

         Next chapter comes out Monday.

         Also, happy Onam to all those who are celebrating!!!!🥳

         Love,
         Perse