Re: Good diner: Max and Gwen
Gwen had never known parents. She knew of them, because she had shared memories to call upon, but those memories were totally like reading about parents in a book, and it wasn't the feeling of actually having people that loved and cared about her. But, she reasoned, parents were probably a lot like the man standing on the other side of the counter. He looked super nice around the eyes, and all that gray meant he was totally old enough. Too, he was steady and calm when he told her that she wasn't dying, and she found herself believing him without an empirical data to back-up his words. He didn't know her, and he wasn't aware of any of her cellular conditions, so he couldn't make the claim with any certainty, but (illogically) she believed it, and she thought it was so totally awesome. It was like a placebo effect x100.
She smiled dimple wide. "You do look respectable, sir. You look super distinguished."
Gwen was on her feet by the time he spoke again, and she skidded to a stop. She wasn't bashful or sheepish, but she did look kind of sorry that she'd missed basic social interaction cues. "Oh! I'm sorry. I don't meet new people a lot, and introductions aren't rote yet. I kind of have to remember to do them." Along with that shoved forward hand for a handshake, which wasn't casual at all. "I'm Gwen. Gwen Riley. You're Max Wolff. I've looked up all the businesses registered in town, along with all the town geography maps, and all other publicly available information on residents of Repose." Which might sound super creepy, and which she only realized after the fact.