A woman dressed like a hotel concierge sits across from a girl dressed like she’s going to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Concierge has black patent leather flats with gold studs on the toes. Concierge is wearing a black dress with tiny white polka dots all over it under a black blazer with a gold name tag on it. There is a thick notepad on her lap.

Diego interrupts my practice. He is black, with thickly-curled hair sitting high on his head. HE wears combat boots, black skinny jeans with holes in the knees, a heather gray shirt under a black sweater with a black and white scarf sporting a tribal design. His accent is thick–possibly Jamaican, and he asks me if he should drop the hyphens in “up-and-coming.” I tell him I don’t know. I would, but I’m probably wrong.

I go back to my writing. Sadie Hawkins girl has a thin white sweater over a black and white, sleeveless blouse and blue pencil skirt. She is wearing black heels. I think it works. Maybe.

Diego interrupts me again. He is writing a paper on dating sites–the positives and negatives. It is difficult to hear him over the noise of chattering students and screaming milk steamers. I say it sounds like a good paper to write about.

Concierge has a large nose, but it isn’t entirely unattractive, it adds charact-

Diego interrupts my thoughts once more. He asks me what I do, where I work. He’s not bad-looking, just young, and I am awkward.

Sadie Hawkins looks eager and interested–the kind of feigned interest only applicable on an interview, or a date. She stands up, and the blouse and skirt become one–it is, in fact, a dress-

Fucking Diego. Nice kid, really, but he starts talking about his medical career. He wants to sell pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to hospitals. He likes traveling, he likes hospitals–that last bit is weird. Strangely, his English gets better when he starts talking about this–“hospital, travel, pharmeceutical”–probably because he has a lot of experience with these words.

Two new people sit next to Concierge. A girl with a baseball tee with a big blue “K” on it, light blue sneakers, black shorts. Her hair is in a ponytail with a pink ribbon. She will be Cheerleader. A boy is also sitting with them now. Green and yellow and blue flannel. Fat. He will be Fat One. Cheerleader is obnoxiously busy–shaking her foot and gesturing with her pen as she speaks–she is constantly changing her position. Fat guy just sits there and grins. Oh god, he has grass green shorts. Good luck, Concierge.

Diego taps away on his laptop. I wish I wasn’t so awkward.