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The pause. The purpose of holding back. She was here at this café, trying to muster up the courage to apply for a job, after all.
    "What's your name?" Abel said breaking the un-awkward silence, as if he could sense it heading in that direction.
    "Marigold," she answered.
    "Were your parents hippies or something?"
    That made her laugh. She knew asking about his parents’ spiritual beliefs had been rude, and she liked that he didn’t let her off the hook.
    "Sort of. My parents are writers,” she explained.
    "I see. And you?"
    That's when Marigold looked up at him plainly, deciding if she should say anything more than the obvious, that she was a girl.
    “I’m looking for a job.”
    He pointed to the door, the one they had blocked for much too long.
    “This place?”
    “Yeah, I ‘d thought about it, but I don’t think it’s for me.” She didn’t want to work at this café, one glance at the familiar owner and she knew it was a bad idea. They’d had a run in before. Actually, she had with every shop owner on this street. Here, however, she’d been dressed like Lady Gaga wielding a fake blood splattered coat, pretending she’d just witnessed a murder. Maybe not her finest moment. Mostly because she’d video taped the whole wretched scene. And posted it online.
    “Not thrilled about the prospect?”
    “Would you be?” she asked, peering in the café window, then quickly looking away when she received an evil eye from the cashier.
    “Not really.”
    “Do you want to get coffee?” she asked, anxious to leave the sidewalk.
    “I thought you were getting a job?”
    “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She stuffed the resumes in the messenger bag hanging on her shoulder.
    “Me either.”
    His honesty caught her off guard, in a good sort of way. In an “I’m not trying to be anything other than me” sort of way.
    “Great, but let’s go somewhere … else.”
    Silently she led him around the corner to a diner she’d never been to before mostly because it looked like the only patrons were over seventy.  Abel held the door open for her, and she started to roll her eyes but stopped because for some reason she knew Abel wasn't holding the door to be anything more than kind. Feminism wasn't in his vocabulary in the way she had come to understand it. Kindness was first nature to him. He would hold open the door for a young boy or old man or stray cat.
    A waitress with tired eyes sat them at a corner table where they both ordered black coffee.
    “Did you want anything else,” Abel asked. Marigold shook her head no, but before the waitress walked away, Abel stopped her.
    “Could I also get a stack of pancakes, a side of bacon, scrambled eggs, and, if you have any, a bowl of applesauce. Oh, and a glass of milk.”
    The waitress smirked at his requests,  “Not sure about the applesauce. Peaches okay?”
    “Danka.”
    Marigold realized he was Amish, like, for-reals Amish. She watched as he placed his hat on the empty chair beside him, pushing dark hair from his face.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “It’s okay. Everyone stares. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
    “I’m not uncomfortable.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m sure. Uncomfortable only comes if the police show up.”
    He cocked his head in an effort to understand, but Marigold didn’t want to go into details of her past. Instead she brushed it off and added, “I’m used to people looking at me is all I meant.  I spent my freshmen year pretending I was in a Swedish hip-hop group, my sophomore year waffling between a French painter and pseudo dreadlocked Rasta. My junior year I was … all over the place.” She shook her head and looked at her coffee, biting her lip wondering if she should say any more. Deciding against it, she raised her eyes instead, taking in the warmth radiating off him.
    “And senior year?” he asked.
    “Oh. Then I was just me. Just Marigold. I stopped trying so hard.”
    “You look nice as ‘Just