dinner

"No, it's not closed. We're inside at a table."

I walk towards the front of the near-empty restaurant, talking on the phone.

"Am I looking at you sitting in your truck?" It soon becomes clear that I am. As I gather her in, my teacher friend and I tease, but not too much. I agree that the open sign is off and that the parking lot is fairly deserted. But c'mon. "Couldn't you try the door?"

"That's enough laughing!" She protests, but she's smiling. It elicits another giggle. Soon she'll know us better; I'm glad she wanted to come.

She's more or less grown up now; she runs a store her father owns, she's raising her motherless sister. She has as much responsibility as anyone. More. But she still wants to call us "Mrs.", and she's still shy to come to the door.

And thus we have adopted her, kind of. There is no overt plan. No conversation about it at all, really. Just a notion to invite her, a quick response. A teenager in gold jewelry and a cloud of perfume, waiting in her truck.