Lana brought seven gray shirts to the clothing swap and one she considered daring because it had dark blue buttons. She was not a sad person, although her wardrobe suggested otherwise. For years she had worked at a reception desk where neutrality was called professionalism. Now she had changed jobs and wanted at least to stop buying things that disappeared in group photographs. At the accessories table she picked up a tie scattered with little oranges.
The man beside her said he had brought it. His name was Damjan, and he looked like someone who knew how to wear such a tie. Yet he was holding one of her gray shirts. Lana warned him it was boring. He replied that he hoped so. He ran the family restaurant, where guests expected a cheerful host even when he did not feel like talking. His ties had become a uniform for a mood.
They leaned against empty boxes while others examined the hangers. Lana tied the tie around her hair. Damjan took out his phone, then immediately returned it to his pocket when he realized taking photographs was not automatically an invitation to intimacy. He said it suited her. Accustomed to practical compliments, she replied that it could probably go in the washing machine too. Both laughed at their awkwardness.
He invited her for coffee at the restaurant. Lana hesitated. She did not want to meet him through the performance he had just described. She suggested a kiosk selling hot drinks by the bus station. There nobody addressed them by name or asked them to recommend the daily special. Damjan was quieter than at the swap. Lana did not try to extract an entertaining version of him. She talked about liking her new job but fearing she might not be good at it.
During the following weeks they met away from his restaurant. Once he arrived tired and without conversation, while she wore a yellow sweater with an oversized label still attached. He removed the label only when she asked. Then she admitted she did not know whether she liked yellow or merely liked having the right to try it. Damjan said it did not have to become her favorite color immediately. They bought pastries and walked without a plan.
She first came to the restaurant several months later, as his guest. Damjan wore a gray shirt and did not apologize for being unamusing. Lana had tied the orange patterned tie around her bag's handle. A waiter recognized it and started to make a remark. Damjan laughed briefly, in a laugh entirely his own, and sat beside her before the soup arrived.