Good choice of grip. People tended to adjust their greeting to Sasha’s size, meaning they scaled it down and pussyfooted. And while Sasha readily admitted to being small—but worthily proportioned, thankyouverymuch—she was dismissive of people who saw her size as their excuse to patronize. Fools who covered up their nervousness by overacting and pumping her hand like a water pump didn’t rank much better.
This guy did neither. It reminded of how Josiah had held her hand the first time they met: with courtesy and delicacy, not condescension. That earned some brownie points in her ledger.
“Stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch,*” she quoted, brightening; foreign languages were always a mood lifter. Unfortunately, Sasha’s German was significantly more prolific that her Lithuanian (which was…scrawny). Eyes flashing violet between one blink and the next, she pulled a greeting out of memory. “Malonu tave matyti, Serghei.”
Taking out another towelette she passed it over with a polite prašom and switched back to English. “Sorry, my accent is better than my vocabulary and, um, I think that’s not saying much. I promise the food is better than both, though.”
She poured a second Dixie cup of tea and offered it along with a dumpling. Unable to find the Lithuanian word of chives, she settled for German with a wince. “Schnittlauch? They’re these small, green, onion-y…things. Herb things. It’s also got tapioca flour and—and damn, but I’ve got no clue how to translate soy sauce, not even in German. Dizzy?” The dobe gave her a quizzical look. “Wait, never mind, I forgot you don’t cook.”
When “off the clock” Sasha tended to sound a little off the bend.
*T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. ("I'm not Russian at all. I come from Lithuania, a true German.")