Marta knew only that the man was called Ivan and would wear a blue shirt. Her friend had sent a photograph, but in it he wore a hat and stood far from the camera. At the café she spotted a blue shirt by the window and approached. The man stood, smiled, and moved a chair. They both looked so relieved that the other had arrived that neither repeated a name. Marta ordered tea, although she did not normally drink it.
Their conversation began with the broken parking meter outside. The man admitted he had first paid for somebody else's car. Marta laughed and said she had once waited in the wrong queue for half an hour. Neither tried to sound particularly interesting. After ten minutes she already wanted to make her tea last longer. Then she asked how school was going, because her friend said he taught mathematics. He looked as though she had asked a difficult question in an entirely different subject.
His name was Damjan. He worked in a warehouse and was waiting for a woman called Marina. At first Marta thought her friend had muddled all the details. Then she saw a man in a blue shirt across the room uncertainly raising his phone. At the same moment Damjan received a message saying his guest was late. The confusion lasted briefly but left an awkward question: how do you leave a table where you are happy?
They could invent urgent obligations and abandon their arrangements. Damjan almost suggested it, then stopped. He said he would not want to be the person left waiting without an explanation. Marta admitted she would not either. They exchanged numbers without promises, then continued their own evenings. She told Ivan the truth about the wrong table. She did not compare him with Damjan or attempt to prove that fate had already decided.
Ivan was pleasant, and they talked for almost an hour, but neither suggested another meeting. The following day Marta thanked him for the evening and said she had not felt what she was looking for. Only afterwards did she write to Damjan. He replied that he had enjoyed talking with Marina, but both concluded they wanted different things. He did not claim to have thought only of Marta all evening. She liked his not needing to diminish another woman before inviting her.
They met beside the same window again. This time Damjan wore a gray T-shirt and Marta ordered coffee. He placed a little piece of paper bearing his name on the table. She laughed as she turned it to face him, because she knew who he was. For the first few minutes they were more nervous than before. Confusion no longer protected them. When he began describing his working day, Marta moved her chair closer to hear him better.