Page 10 of Angel of Thursdays

“Anywhere at all?”

“I go to work. I go home. Sometimes I go to my friend’s place.”

“That’s three places.”

“That’s comprehensive.”

May shook his head, smiling. It was different now from the smile he’d entered with, though if Cassiel were to be quizzed on precisely how it was different, he wouldn’t be able to articulate it.

“Then we met at work,” Cassiel offered. He was not good at fiction. “I fix watches. You…?”

“…don’t own a watch. Kind of you to diagnose me with employment outside of the gig economy, though, if that’s what you’re doing. I work at a restaurant in Chinatown. So… maybe we go with that. Unless you’re not a Chinatown type of guy?”

It was feasible that Cassiel could have been there. It was feasible that he’d walked into a restaurant and seen this man with his big eyes and wide mouth and over the course of weeks decided to invite him to Chuseok. It might not hold up under scrutiny, but it was not impossible.

“I’m a Chinatown guy,” he said, absurdly. “—I’ll be a Chinatown guy at Chuseok.”

May snorted, then produced a small battered yellow Field Notes notebook from his pocket, along with a rollerball. He jotted.

“Chinatown connection, Sept 17, Fremont, smart casual,” he muttered as he scrawled.

Cassiel leaned over very slightly to inspect the handwriting. He found it wanting.

May looked up. “That’s a few weeks away. Did you want to meet up again?”

“Yes,” Cassiel said. “Next Thursday, if your job permits.”

“It’ll permit,” May confirmed. “We could actually meet there, if you wanted to go method. Lau Kee, next to Zeke’s Crystals.”

Cassiel considered the merits of this. It would add some textural realism to the story if he knew, tangibly, what the restaurant felt like, but it was a shift in location that would involve charting a different transit route and Cassiel did not want to deal with that.

“I’d prefer to stay here.”

“That’s cool, too. I like this place.” May smiled easily. “Okay, well, I think that’s me.”

He stood, unfolding from the stool casually, and put his hand out. It was awkward, neither professional nor personal, but Cassiel took it. The hand was warm, the palm callused.

“Thursday,” said May.

“Thursday,” confirmed Cassiel.

“I’ll text you a normal amount. Like, a professional number of texts. Minimal typos.”

“Your track record suggests otherwise.”

May snorted again, then turned, crossed the café, and pushed the door open. The fog was there at the threshold, grey and patient. May stepped through it, walked past the front window, and was out of sight.

Cassiel stayed and looked from the now-empty stool to the front of the shop where a man in the window seat was glaring at a tablet. There was only light and shapes beyond the glass. He took a sip from his mug.

He sat in the room a while longer, then picked up his phone and looked at his notifications. Lauren had sent him five messages, and David had sent him two.

He swiped to check in on whatever the latest Lauren Briar Heineken emergency was, and heard it—he had been humming again. Three fragmented notes, heard only because the room was quiet and the man with the exclamation marks was gone.

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.