“No,” he said. His eyes burned into me. “My name is Omar,” he added in heavily accented English.

Molly snorted into her drink. “I don’t remember anyone asking you.”

I squirmed in my seat, swirled the dregs of tequila in my glass. Had no choice but to look up at him again. He gave me a quizzical look, like we’d had this appointment to chat and I was ignoring him. Clearly, he had no intention of going anywhere. I reddened as a flush of heat shot up the back of my neck. I felt chosen in a way that flooded me with joy. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

“What’s your name?” he asked in Spanish.

I told him, also in Spanish. Introduced Britta and Molly, who afforded him a desultory wave or small nod, tittering into their hands.

Britta said, “She doesn’t want to talk to you, okay? Get it?”

I gave her a wilting look.

“Okay, Lily,” he said. “So you don’t care about flowers. Do you like animals better?”

I looked up at him and smiled. “Absolutely.” I thought of the kitten I’d stolen from a shelter years ago, then hidden in my room at my group home. It curled onto my chest nightly, the motor of its purr setting me off into the deepest sleep I’d ever known. One of the other kids ratted me out and I had to take it back, but I never forgot the joy of being in the company of a creature not freighted with being human.

Molly couldn’t hold it in. “Lily, what are you doing?”

Britta just shook her head and smoked, casually cruising the other men at his table. Maybe she was pissed he hadn’t picked her—she was really used to that.

Omar ignored them both. They were fading into the background for me as well, with their sneers and snide comments and I-know-who-you-like-better-than-you-do attitudes.

“Come with me, Lily. It’s close,” he said. “Something a lot better than flowers.”

He pointed to the dark outskirts of the bar, past the blinking string of Christmas lights, toward a cluster of trees and a dense mat of branches with arrow-shaped leaves that drooped down almost to the leaf-littered earth. “I saw something back there. I think you’ll be amazed.” He took a step back as if I were already on my feet and following him. “Just give me a minute. That’s all. Then you can go back to your friends.”

My brain sputtered as to what to do next. I flushed and folded my arms. Sure my friends could be bitchy, but it was a cattiness I knew inside out and could handle in my sleep. They were my fellow warriors at the Versailles; after all, they covered my ass when I overslept or put aside a bowl of stew for me if I missed a meal. But how could I shove this guy in the trash heap of Bolivian men as they saw them? How could they know he had nothing to teach me? Didn’t they wonder what it was he was trying to show me—weren’t they the least bit curious?