As usual, this chapter carries off previous themes, including Islamomisia, anti-immigrant speech, catcalls/public harassment, and sexism.
"One hazelnut coffee for a Cecelia Abbotts!" calls Aasma, placing a take-out cup filled with hazelnut coffee on the side. A short white woman with waist-length, pastel, turquoise hair takes her cup. "Oh, I like your hair, very pretty," they add. Cecelia smiles her thank you.
She walks away, sipping at her coffee through the hot-liquid straw. Some odd man with a ghost-like pallor and a low, stereotypically English accent says, loudly, "Don't try to tell me that you haven't dressed up like that for us men!"
Cecelia's face flushes as the man's friends laugh - most of them have a heavier accent than the first man. "Yeah, you girls with your 'we dress for ourselves' nonsense!" they mock. Nobody intervenes, and Cecelia just stands there, embarrassed.
"Excuse me!" Aasma calls, stepping out from behind the counter and walking towards the men. "We don't tolerate harassment in this shop. Please leave." One of them throws a cup onto the floor near Aasma.
"Why should we listen to you?" sneer the men. "Look how oppressed you are, you can't even try to dress up for us!"
"Firstly, I am not oppressed by my religion, only by sexists like you. Secondly, I am asking you to leave as the manager of this shop, for harassing both a respected customer and a member of staff. Go. I'd hold the door open, but I fear you'll slam that kindness back in my face quite literally and I'd rather avoid having to have my face reconstructed for many reasons."
"How'd you come to the conclusion that we'd slam it in your face? That's a sexist assumption!"
"You threw a teacup on the floor when I first approached. I'm merely protecting both myself and my customer. Having surgery's no bad thing, but I've got a busy schedule, as I said, and a court case is not what I need. Have a good day. Leave."
"If it wasn't for you immigrants, we'd all have jobs to go to!" snapped one of them, his own accent causing him to spit a bit. Aasma didn't judge his accent - accents were just something they picked up on a lot, especially with people they didn't know - but they did judge his comment.
"There's no wrong thing with being an immigrant, and also, I'm a British citizen who was born in Britian, but you tried. Now go."
As they leave, Aasma turns to Cecelia. "Are you okay?" They know that Cecelia is mute, and they didn't expect Cecelia to retaliate to the men with words. Cecelia nods. "What they did was wrong. You know what, have a cookie on me."
Aasma reminds themself of this. "What they did was wrong."