Chapter 4
MAY
The purple door on the Little Free Library stuck when May tried to close it, so he gave the post a gentle hip check and the latch caught. The book sat behind the glass with its cover facing out for whoever came next.
He’d had it for three weeks, took it from this same purple box on a Monday before work because the cover had a cool sword on it and a strongly worded endorsement from someone whose name was half abbreviated, which May associated with authority.
He’d made it about thirty pages across at least three separate attempts.
It went like this: open book, read paragraph, realize he was still reading paragraph, close book, set on the nearest surface.
The novel moved from nightstand to counter to couch then to his backpack, where it lived a full week alongside a dead pen and an Umaibo he was saving for an emergency.
He’d walked past the Little Free Library a bunch of times since then, every time still carrying the book, and kept walking, and at some point he’d started tallying in the purple notebook, because the purple notebook matched the purple box, and that’s how he was going to remember.
Four tick marks in red ink. Still not done. Until today.
Today he’d stopped. The morning was low and wet on Balboa, enough to bead on the paint of the wooden box. May pulled out the notebook and drew a check mark next to the tallies, thick and deliberate.
He checked his phone on the way to the bus stop.
STDY: one confirmation for tonight. Bea, a nurse at UCSF, needed a plus-one for a department mixer near the hospital.
She’d texted the address once, then three more texts, each adding a worried little detail—right on the corner, there’s a mural, it’s called Beehive (I know).
* * *
The Beehive turned out to be a retro cocktail bar.
White marble, smoked mirrors, funky starburst light fixtures.
The back of the bar had a lounge area with low seating that May wanted to flop down in and not get back up.
Upon inspection, the food menu prominently featured fondue, which May respected, and the cocktail menu began at seventeen dollars a pop, which May did not.
Bea was standing outside when May arrived.
A small, pretty white girl with red hair pulled back so hard his own hairline ached for her.
She was wearing a lanyard, but had swapped scrubs for a champagne blouse before coming here.
Her name badge hung from a retractable clip on her bag, and there was a sticker of a Psyduck on it which made May smile—made reading the words ‘UCSF HEALTH’ more palatable.
“Hey, I’m May.” Big smile, hand out, body language tuned to I’m a nice and normal guy and not a creeper from the internet. He had about a minute to get her laughing before the embarrassment or nerves finished setting in.
“Bea. Obviously. Hi.” She gave a wobbly smile and shook his hand. “I’ve never done this before. Obviously. Like, hired—? Is that weird to say out loud?”
“Only if you keep saying it. I’m May, you’re Bea, we’re friends. Our other friends call us Maybea, because we’re Maybea gonna show up to things, due to our busy, busy lives.”
She laughed, shaking her head at the joke. She’d clearly been the victim of name puns her whole life, and May decided he was taking it upon himself to teach her how to weaponize it.
Inside, the department had spread across the bar.
These were people who saw each other every day, but rarely with no managers around.
May slid in. He was introduced as Bea’s friend.
He shook hands and asked names and got three right and two wrong and corrected himself fast enough that the wrong ones became a bit, which was the trick.
A tall, loud guy at the bar leaned into their circle and said, “Levinson! Didn’t know you had friends outside the ward.”
Bea’s smile froze.
“Yeah, I’m the friend.” May stuck his hand out. “Are you the pickleball guy?”
He wasn’t the pickleball guy, but it turned out he had opinions about the pickleball guy, then about his own thing, which was CrossFit, then about a shift, then about another shift.
May nodded and kept nodding. Bea slipped away to the lounge seats, and when she caught May’s gaze from across the room, mouthed oh my god. May gave her a thumbs-up.
At one stage between Not Pickleball’s third and fourth anecdotes, May’s attention flickered—the room pulling back, the hull closing over—and then it passed, and the guy was still talking, and May was still nodding.
Bea, a few drinks in, stopped watching herself. She did an impression of her attending that May could tell was lethal by the way her coworkers cackled. She was funnier than her nerves suggested.
The gig ended clean. Bea found him again, relieved and flushed, looking like she’d been filled with dread the whole week and couldn’t believe it was over and that it had been fine.
“Thank you. That went… way better than I hoped.”
“You didn’t even need me,” May said, grinning. “You just needed someone in the metaphorical chair. And to distract the CrossFit guy, which my fee covers.”
Still a little buzzed, Bea giggled. She opened her mouth as if to argue the point, stopped, and just smiled again and told him to get home safe. They parted at the corner.
On the bus home, May leaned his head against the window. The glass was cold because San Francisco, and the city scrolled past blocks of lit signs thinning to shadows of houses. He pulled out the little yellow notebook and flipped to the page he’d started for Bea. STDY Bea. Aug 19 MONDAY NIGHT.
He fumbled for the pen in his backpack and retrieved it, writing unsteadily with his knee as the surface.
Beehive in Valencia. Psyduck sticker!!! Nice night, one dbag.
Satisfied, he capped the pen, closed the notebook and the bus carried him the rest of the way back, his eyes half-shut and his forehead against the still-cold glass.
* * *
Louis sent a photo at 9:47 p.m. of a bowl of tomato egg over rice, the tomatoes in squishy wedges, the egg looking soft, a single scallion placed editorially on top.
The bowl sat on the counter at their parents’ house; May could tell by the chip in the tile, the one from the stockpot incident of 2014 that nobody talked about because their mother had cried and their father had, as usual, said nothing for better or for worse.
The green notebook was already open on May’s lap. The unchecked box—say something nice to your brother NOT LITERALLY NICE. He couldn’t recall why he’d written that specifically, until he scrolled up in their chat history and saw he hadn’t replied to Louis’s last food picture.
Sighing, May sent:
May
omg king.... Tomato and egg so brave so transgressive!!!
Nah but your scallion placement is doing work good job baby duck
That was very nice. He waited.
Louis, perpetually on his phone, replied a minute later with are you dying, followed by:
Louis
no seriously are you okay
May
I’m good!!!
Louis
ok because that was weird
May
It was a compliment
Louis
yeah and you have a brain injury so
May
Me being nice about your eggy tomato isn’t A brAIN INJURY SYMPTOM
Compliment RETRACTED!!!
fuck your scallions!!!
May decided he’d won that one. He picked up the Sharpie and ticked the checkbox with a satisfying flick. Two boxes in one day—purple and green. The system worked.
He started Scarlet’s Walk on his phone and dropped it into an empty mug on the counter for acoustics.
The pill organizer sat next to the sink, days of the week in colored slots—Monday orange, Tuesday blue, Wednesday green, Thursday purple, Friday red, Saturday and Sunday both white.
He popped Monday’s lid and took the pills with water from the tap.
Thursday purple. Little Free Library was purple, his win from this morning. Sparrow was purple too, the painted café with the flowers in the window box. Purple was Thursday.
The bills on the counter from whenever ago had been joined by more. They sat together near the edge, one from the hospital and one from an imaging center. May left them where they were because he could do nothing about them.
He went back to the couch and picked up the yellow notebook with its crinkled cover, which was not purple.
That was annoying for some reason. He’d have to do something about that.
May flipped it open to what he’d been mentally referring to as the Gay Angel Pages since he’d Googled the name Cassiel on the bus home that first day.
STDY Cassiel. Sparrow cafe Irving 10 AM. He likes Choco mint!!?? Argyle sweater lol. Fidget ring, toy thingie? Here he had drawn a fidget cube, which was not a ring. Then on the next line: Fixes watches ← ask about that, followed by: NO ASS JOKES, NO GAY ANGEL REFERENCES ← whew
His thumb traced over the last words he’d written: No scam. Just shy!
He closed the notebook and put it on the arm of the couch. Tori was still singing from his phone. The exclamation mark after shy bothered him now. Too sure. He knew a face, a sweater, a fidget ring, and a drink order. He didn’t know the guy.
THE SECOND THURSDAY
May got off the 29 at Lincoln Way and walked the last two blocks to Irving with his hands in his jacket pockets and his exhales visible in the air.
He was early. 9:51 a.m. This was only their second time meeting, and Cassiel had no way of knowing that May was rarely early to anything, but he still wanted the credit.
The morning was clear, Sparrow’s tiny storefront dappled in sunlight.
The purple that had looked muddy the first time he’d been here was cheerful and plum-like.
The window box flowers were just a bit wilder than they’d been last week—probably.
He liked to think they were. As he approached, he smiled at the sketch of the namesake bird on the chalk sign, and headed inside.
The barista from last week gave him a nod, which May dutifully returned. He ordered something called a Thai jasmine milk latte, turned toward the seating, and there was Cassiel.