But there she is, waiting outside The Greenery (Salads, Soups, cheap louis vuitton bags and Sandwiches) under a sky-blue umbrella, wearing not fat white shoes as she promised but penny loafers with little clear plastic booties snapped over them, like bubble-wrapped toys. "Hi. I'm Nelson," he says, more gruffly than he intended, perhaps because he is panting from running. "You shouldn't have waited outside, you'll get soaked," he goes on in his nervousness, starting their acquaintance on an accusatory note.
     She doesn't seem to mind. Her mild eyes, their blue deepened by the blue louis vuitton outlet of the umbrella, take him in as she defends herself: "But it's so exciting out. Feel the electricity in the air? I heard on the radio driving here the eye is over Wilmington."
     "I bet it's soon downgraded to just a tropical storm. North Carolina is where it really hit. Pennsylvania never gets the real disasters."
     "Well, that's good, isn't it?" Annabelle asks.
     Their heads are at the same level. He is short for a man and she is slightly above average louis vuitton bags outlet for a woman. He wonders if a Passerby would spot them as siblings. "Come on, let's go in" he says, still breathless.
     There are six or so other customers, and the last of three booths is free. The interior has that cloakroom scent from long ago of wet clothes and childish secrets. The tidy, self-reliant way Annabelle takes off her white raincoat and red scarf and hangs them up on the peg-hooks by the unmarked door to the restrooms touches cheap chanel bags Nelson; she is an old maid already. But the bright-eyed flounce with which she sits down and slides her way to the center of the table in the booth suggests that she is still hopeful, still a player in whatever the game is.
     The waitress, too middle-aged for her short green uniform, comes over from behind the counter and hands them menus prettily printed with leafy borders but already smudged and tattered by many hands. "Also," she tells them, "we've chanel bags outlet added hamburgers and hot dogs."
     Nelson says, "I thought those were against your principles."
     She is lumpy and sallow but not above being amused. "They were, but people kept asking for them. We still won't do pizzas and French fries."
     "Way out," Nelson says. Laconic responses have become, these eight years, his professional habit, but this occasion will demand more: he will have to give, to lead. To be a provider.