Chapter 6
MAY
Miss Mary’s containers were still on May’s counter and this was getting to be a problem.
There had been three in the bright blue plastic bag from Chuseok, and there were still three now, sitting by the sink.
He had washed them perfectly, because he was a professional, and all the food had gone somewhere, eaten by another May, another night, and he’d washed them probably two more times in the following days just to be sure, because Cassiel’s mother activated some ancient Asian compulsion in him about returning kitchenware in pristine condition.
He had the green notebook open on the counter now.
He’d written it down: Return containers to Miss Mary. LIDS!!!
Checkbox drawn. Checkbox left empty. His pen hovered.
The questline was a mess from the start, because the green notebook was for family things, except when it was the closest available notebook in his sightline, then it was for whatever, but this was not whatever.
This was containers and it was Cassiel’s mother and Cassiel was Thursday and Thursday was purple, so possibly the root issue was that he’d written the task in the wrong colored notebook.
May took a deep breath, picked up the containers from the counter, shoved them in a fresh plastic bag and placed them in his backpack ready for the coming day. Quest to be turned in. Rewards still pending.
The two weeks since Chuseok had moved the way his weeks usually did.
Lau Kee shifts Tuesday through Thursday.
On one of those days Ah-Keung asked about the Korean dinner because they’d mutually opted not to re-litigate their usual conversation topic re: Ah-Keung smoking indoors.
May told him all about the fritters and the rice cakes.
He did not tell him about the boy—about Jaewon, who’d grabbed his hand at the table and bitten his arm through the shirt, gently, like a baby lion, wobbly tooth and all.
That lived behind a door May had since closed and locked and put a chair against, not because it was bad but because it was good in a way he couldn’t metabolize yet and the fog would do something weird to it if he tried.
He’d had a STDY booking earlier in the week.
A guy named Paul who needed a plus-one for his ex’s gallery opening, who spent the entire ride over explaining that he wasn’t going to make it awkward, while actively making it awkward.
Paul drank four glasses of a natural wine that tasted like someone had composted a peach and kept asking May what he thought of the installation, which was a projection of GPS data onto a white wall.
May, making good use of his communications degree, settled on a nonsense answer about it being both forward and backward-thinking.
This was the right answer because Paul had nodded thoughtfully and carried on.
The little yellow notebook had the line from before the gig: STDY Paul. Dogpatch gallery Oct 1. Underneath, added on the bus home: Weird Ass Wine.
THE FIFTH THURSDAY
The 29 bus took him south on 25th and then through the park, where the avenues gave way to trees and the light went funny—filtered and green, the canopy closing above them. May had the purple notebook open on his lap.
He’d written, sometime in the last week:
He talks with his hands sometimes
And under that:
Doesn’t know he does it?
He closed the notebook before any other questions could manifest.
Sparrow’s purple paint caught the light differently than last time as he approached—brighter, warmer, less ambiguous.
May checked the time. 9:50 a.m., making him ten minutes early.
He was going to bring this up. He was going to make it an event.
If he moved fast enough he could speedrun getting to the seat and then double back to order his drink.
He hopped through the door. A lady sat in the window seat with a laptop, and Cassiel was in the bench seat against the back wall, because Cassiel was always in the bench seat against the back wall, even though it had no cushions and the spot by the front window was nicer.
But that spot wasn’t negotiable and anyway it didn’t matter.
Cassiel was wearing a white tee. This was huge because it was the first time he’d seen Cassiel not in layers and that was novel enough before the shorts.
Cassiel Minseok Lim was wearing shorts. Linen-like, in some sort of warm brown that he’d call ‘taupe’ or possibly ‘camel’ or possibly something else that would only come up in a conversation about drapes.
The shorts revealed he had knees, and also calves, which were pale but structurally sound, and May couldn’t even find the paleness funny because he was busy acknowledging the structural soundness.
“Nine fifty,” May said, sitting sideways on his stool.
Cassiel looked up from his latte.
“That’s ten minutes early! A personal record! Can you put it in your phone at least?”
“Congratulations.” Cassiel did not take out his phone.
“Come on, Minseok-oppa,” May groused. “No acknowledgment of growth?”
“I congratulated you.” Cassiel paused. “You can’t call me Oppa.”
May leaned in so his chin was perched on his hand.
“So I can call you Minseok?”
Something moved at the corner of Cassiel’s mouth. May was keeping a mental tally—Almost-Smile #6—and one of these days he was going to see the real thing and that was going to—be very nice.
“My friend might show up,” Cassiel said, instead of answering the question, his cheeks slightly pinker than before. This could have been a trick of the light, but May knew it wasn’t.
Then May blinked, the words catching up to him. “Your friend?”
“Lauren. I may have mentioned her.”
He had mentioned a Lauren. Only once. It was clear she was important, because Cassiel had said ‘Berkeley’ and ‘friend from college,’ and that had been two pieces of information for the price of one—he went to UC Berkeley, and he had a friend.
“A Lauren was… mentioned,” May said slowly. “I’d love to meet her, actually. But uh, what do you mean by ‘might’?”
“She asked if I was free this morning.” He fiddled with the fidget ring. “I said no, but that’s irrelevant to Lauren.”
May was beginning to get a picture of what this dynamic was. He smiled.
“Well, fine by me.”
Cassiel nodded at the counter. “Did you order?”
“Not yet,” he said. He saw it for the distraction tactic it was and decided not to call it out. “I wanted to sit down first. Speedrun strats.”
Cassiel offered a hm and for a second looked like he might actually have something to add about something, which could have been speedrunning (unlikely), more on the subject of Lauren (also unlikely), or a comment on May’s time management skills (probable).
But then he simply stood up, moving out from behind the table so May was basically forced to look at his legs again, and headed to the counter. May followed.
He’d been working through Sparrow’s specials each week, written on a cute blackboard framed in natural wood that matched the flower box outside, because Cassiel paid for the drinks, meaning May could try things he’d never order on his own budget.
Today he wanted real caffeine, so he ordered a rose cardamom dirty chai latte and hoped the dirty would do the trick.
Cassiel ordered his second latte, paid, and they both moved back to their spot.
“Has Auntie confirmed when the dinner is?” May asked. Miss Mary’s Mandu Dinner was pending a firm date.
“Thursday evening. You’d come straight from work?”
“No way. I’d want to go home first. Wash the Lau Kee off me before Fremont.”
“From Outer Richmond that’s—”
“I’ll figure it out,” May said. The STDY payment would cover the fare, and anyway, it wasn’t a big deal.
He looked down at his phone, saw a notification from a game reminding him that his energy had replenished, glanced back up.
The door hadn’t opened yet. Cassiel’s posture shifted.
He did that sometimes, carefully rearranging his limbs when something was Wrong, but this wasn’t that.
It was more a… bracing for impact. His eyes moved to the door, and a moment later, the latch caught, and May followed his gaze.
Lauren was not what he expected. He realized immediately that the problem was his.
Cassiel had given him nothing, so his brain had generated a composite from ‘friend,’ ‘Lauren,’ and ‘Berkeley.’ In his head she was a blob of generic Bay Area girl of ambiguous ethnicity, and the composite bore no relationship to the woman currently crossing the threshold of Sparrow.
Lauren was model tall, skinny, white, slightly sunburnt, with alarmingly straight blonde hair in a blunt bob that ended exactly at her jaw.
She was wearing stripey green and white shorts and a faded Japanese Star Wars tee.
A pair of espadrilles and an orange handbag finished off the fit. Her eyes were obscured by aviators.
She found Cassiel instantly, dramatically lifting her sunglasses to smirk at him as she sauntered over to their spot.
“Hi, I’m Lauren.” She stuck her hand out to May. “You’re May.”
“May-be,” May said, taking her hand and shaking it firmly. “Hi, Lauren. He’s told me nothing about you.”
“Uh huh, because he gets off on being withholding.” Lauren claimed a stool from the adjacent table. She sat down, crossed her legs, and gave Cassiel an accusatory squint. “I’ve been trying to get him to send a pic or tell me anything about you for two weeks and he gave like, one adjective.”
“Which one?” May tried to think of some he’d like. Cute? Not likely. Funny? Also not likely. Interesting? That had potential.
Lauren looked at Cassiel.
“Personable,” said Cassiel, which was the second thing he’d said since Lauren arrived.
“Woooow,” said May. “I think I got that on a school report once. ‘May is personable and talkative, which can be distracting for his classmates.’”
“Personable is good,” Lauren said airily. “Coming from him, personable is basically—”
“Don’t,” Cassiel said.