They sat down. Immediately the vibe was different. 

Jo, who loved to demarcate his sphere of influence in the café with his clutter, appeared thoroughly disarmed and helpless. Subjugated by the unusual circumstances, he hummed and took to fidgeting with his hands in his kangaroo pocket. His very long and very bare legs zigzagged uncomfortably under the too-small table, like a scissor lift unable to, well, lift. 

At the same time, the girl, Sailor, looked bored and disaffected to the extreme, like the human embodiment of a negative review.

I looked from one to the other nervously. Was I really supposed to serve these people?

"Sailor," Jo said sharply to his companion, and let the sentence hang. 

Sailor opened her mouth to a semicircle, and then closed it and furrowed her brows at the table instead. If it was unfortunate enough to be sentient in that moment, like I was, it might have felt some shame. 

Jo stared at her. "...Yes?"

The "yes" wasn't a question. Rather, it was a response to a question that Sailor hadn't even asked. This is, I suspected, how they were. Intimacy laced with the kind of potent threats that only intimacy could sanction. 

"I have food already," Sailor muttered, and the emphasis she put on the word "food" was probably the most acid that word had ever encountered in the history of its existence. 

But maybe it was a bit justified. She had formed jacket paws with the sleeves of her windbreaker, and the fabric now appeared to be fully glued to the ice cream sandwich packaging. "Food", indeed.

Jo directed his eyes towards me, and I was struck again by the realization that his sunglasses were actually for me. "She's going to need to know where to wash her hands."

"...Have you never been to the bathroom here?" I asked, genuinely perplexed. 

His eyes hovered over his eyelids, as if deciding how to deal with such an oblivious question, and mercifully, I finally got it. 

"Have you ever been to the bathroom here?" I asked Sailor, pointing at her for emphasis. 

She shook her head. 

I gave her the directions and she quickly went on her way, her slides flip-flopping as she shuffled across the deck. her hands still in prayer pose. Why did everything wear so heavily on her body? She looked like she weighed no more than a couple of figs.

"Thank you," Jo replied quietly, and somewhere deep down, a hatch opened and I could finally catch my breath. 

"She's scared of people?"

"That's exactly it," Jo said, with surprising vigour in his agreement. "She's scared of people."

The rest of the service was unremarkable. They ordered nothing much - an espresso for Jo and a handful of heavy-duty napkins for Sailor. As the next hour crawled by, I kept turning to see what was happening at their table, and once nearly ran into Gianna, who was self-possessed enough to catch both of us. 

"Who's the hottie with the daddy?" She remarked, eyebrows raised. 

I gave her a look that begged her not to talk about it, and she took the hint. But, it did plant the seed of an idea. 

"Sorry, this is so rude, but are you her dad?" I blurted out as soon as Sailor darted off to the washroom again and I had the opportunity to taste my foot in my mouth some more. 

"That's not it," Jo answered quickly and affirmatively. Good heavens, but he really was a nice man. And, probably a vain one...

I looked around cautiously, then made a move to sit down in Sailor's vacant spot. "So - then - "

"Stop. Don't sit there," he said sharply. "Don't touch anything."

"O - kay - "

"She's got some arcane skin condition we're still trying to work through," he motioned to the third seat around the table, and I demurred, thinking that I'd rather not have Sailor sit down and block my exit path. "It's a household management nightmare - shedding, everywhere you can think of - when she comes around, check the back of her legs, it's practically elephant hide. I'm still searching for coverage for her."

I nodded slowly as I rose, unpuzzling the puzzle of it all. At first I wondered whether he was talking about insurance coverage, or pant coverage, or both. Judging by the weird windbreaker - jean short combo she had on in September, it struck me that Sailor might not own many clothes. 

More pressingly, "household management" surely meant, one household? "Er. Right. So...she's...your..."

My eyes darted to his for help, but something in his gaze told me the cavalry wasn't coming. In fact, he seemed thoroughly interested in where my head would go. Fine. 

"...ticket to citizenship?" I finished, determined to be unserious. 

"Not quite," he responded, tilting back in his chair, his hands clasping and unclasping in his pocket. "She holds all my dime bags for me under that windbreaker."

I adored this man beyond reason, and I would never wish him any harm, but I really, really hoped he would fall on his back just then. 

I could hear Sailor's slow shuffling behind and around me. And above that, could faintly detect Amelia's loud snarking with the customers in the distance - her way of signalling that she'd spotted me, and that I would need to get back on the road, pronto.

"I'll be back with your bill," I said, trying to sound chipper, "and some wet wipes!"