Mariana took off her damp winter coat, and settled into her seat to gaze vacantly out the fifteen foot glass windows that lined the gray and burgundy room. This was the first of many coffee houses she would test on a hunt for a new favorite haunt. The graceful steam that rose from her mug warmed the skin of her chin and cheeks just enough so it no longer felt as though it may crack, should she make any sudden facial expression. "It's nice to have seasonable weather at least," she struggled to convince herself. After having recently been displaced from the comfort of her 57th floor condo overlooking Bryant Park, it took a great deal of effort to generate her own positive reinforcement on a day to day basis. North Dakota was not any place for an individual of her skill level and history of accomplishments, but Momma always said, "Follow your heart, girl." And that's exactly what she did. "Never fall in love with an army man," were the words of wisdom her grandmother supplied, which she thoroughly disregarded in a series of affairs with the Army, the Navy, the Marines, and even the National Guard ...the latter of which she often justifies with the old phrase, "It was Spring Break." The last in the line of men in uniform she set out to win over was the man she now called her husband-to-be, and she vowed that she would follow her man to the ends of the Earth, just like the heroines in her favorite fictions would do. Unfortunately for Mariana, her pledge got her plopped in the middle of Cafe Fargo, unaware that off in some subterrainean storage closet at his new base, her fiance Sergeant Folker fiddles around with an androgynously hot female Private's privates.
–KLK
