Page 24 of Angel of Thursdays

“I’m the genius who put him onto the app,” she confirmed. “You’re welcome. But I mean, how did you meet according to whatever you’re telling Miyoung?”

She called Cassiel’s mother by her first name. That felt significant, but he’d wager she didn’t have the same bones-deep terror of calling a mom-generation person anything but the correct word. Miss Mary was Miss Mary in May’s head, but out loud it was only going to be ‘Auntie.’

“Oh,” said May, brightening again. “Oh. The story is, Cassiel found out about this little place in Chinatown called Lau Kee, and he came in one day for lunch, and the handsome dishwasher swept him off his feet. It’s airtight.”

“It’s not airtight,” Cassiel said, reasserting his existence by being negative.

“It held up at Chuseok.”

“My mother was distracted by the songpyeon.”

“Your mother was distracted by me.” May turned back to Lauren. “Which brings us to an important point. I must reiterate: You’re Lauren From Berkeley Who Told Cassiel About Lau Kee.”

Lauren’s face glowed. The delight started in her eyes and spread outward until her whole posture changed, shoulders squaring, chin lifting, as though she’d been cast in a role she’d been born to play. “I am that Lauren.”

“And without you, this love story doesn’t happen!”

“Oh my God, right? What’s my motivation?”

“You eat there all the time,” May said. “You love the siu yuk. You love the… Chinatown vibes. You love the old-ass mounted TV with the janky Chinese music videos.”

“I love all of those things. I’m so fucking cultured.” Her eyes, a terrifying blue, were wide and focused. There was no hesitation in her voice. The conspiracy was building and she loved a scam. “And when did I start going to Lau Kee, my favorite place in Chinatown?”

“You found Lau Kee in 2019 through a coworker, and you’ve been going ever since, and one day you dragged Cassiel along because he only eats two things and you were staging an intervention.”

“That tracks,” Lauren said. “That’s like, reality. I’ve tried to take him places.”

“And the first time he went, I happened to be covering out front. And the rest is history.”

Lauren held up a hand. May high-fived it.

Cassiel looked at the ceiling. “I’d like to note that neither of you have asked me anything.”

“Your character doesn’t get a lot of dialogue in this scene,” May said. “We’re passing the Bechdel test.”

“That’s not what the Bechdel test is about.” The voice carried a beautiful note of resignation.

“Oh, you’re gonna mansplain the Bechdel test to us?” she challenged, jabbing in Cassiel’s direction with a straw.

Cassiel’s eyes went back to the ceiling.

“So this isn’t a date, this is… what, a booked gig?” Lauren asked, shoving them back on the rails, or the rails she wanted to be on.

The word ‘date’ prickled in the back of May’s head. No, it wasn’t a date. Only it kind of was, but a paid one. Cassiel was paying for this. He was paying for the drinks.

“Sort of, yeah, we’re… Cassiel’s mom wants us—specifically me—for dinner next Thursday,” May answered.

“During Fleet Week?” Lauren’s eyebrows rose.

“Oh,” May said. Fleet Week meant the Blue Angels and noise. He could hear them from his apartment in the Outer Richmond, and he had roughly the auditory sensitivity of a brick wall. When he lived at home, he’d been the only one in the house who could happily sleep through the sound of his dad’s snoring. He tried to imagine what the noise of the jets sounded like to Cassiel, who he’d seen flinch at the sound of someone’s ringtone going off in this café on more than one occasion, who grit his teeth every time the espresso machine went grrrnngh.

“He hates it,” Lauren said casually. But Cassiel’s hand had flattened on the table, the same way it had gone flat on his thigh on the BART platform before Chuseok.

“Fremont’s far enough out,” Cassiel said. “You can hear them, but it’s⁠—”

“Tolerable,” Lauren supplied.

“Not going to be an issue.”