Page 26 of Angel of Thursdays

May leaned back. The stool creaked. His second drink, the turmeric thing, which tasted like yellow and was pretty nice, actually, was lukewarm but he drank it anyway because waste was waste. “You’re kinda different with her.”

Cassiel’s face did the shuttering thing, a lens adjusting for new light. He raised one brow.

“How?”

“Funnier. You’re funny anyway, but with her it’s—louder?”

Cassiel glanced down at his hands, fiddling with the ring again. “She’s known me a long time.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

May didn’t know what he meant. Or he did, and the explanation belonged in the purple notebook and not in this conversation. Something about watching Cassiel with a person who had years of access, of trust, and seeing the version of him that lived on the other side of all that. The version of this man who made jokes and let someone hug him.

May wanted that same access. That want would bruise if he kept pressing on it, so he checked his phone instead.

11:10 a.m. His shift started at noon. The bus took thirty-five minutes and the walk from the stop to Lau Kee took five, so the math was clear. It said go.

“Thursday,” May said.

“Thursday,” Cassiel replied.

May left through the door and into the fog, which was just weather this time, and the Irving Street traffic moved around him as he crossed toward the bus stop. A man on the corner was arguing into his phone about a deposit that someone had apparently not returned. The word ‘fucker’ was involved, a detail that normally would have made him want to linger. He walked past instead—five steps, then five more.

He made it onto the bus, backpack between his feet, heavier than it should have been. May reached down to check his notebooks and his hand found a plastic bag.

Three glass containers inside. Locking lids. Washed thrice.

He’d sat in that café for an hour and a half and the backpack had been under his stool the entire time and the containers had been in the backpack and not once had the thought crossed his mind.

He hadn’t written it in the notebook last night. He hadn’t needed to, because the containers were in the bag and he’d placed them there. Today, the bag was on his back. He’d carried it out of the apartment and made it all the way to Sparrow. His brain should be able to hold hand over the thing you are physically carrying without a system. It was the bare fucking minimum it could do, and it didn’t.

He yanked the green notebook out and opened it up. Same page as the night before. There it fucking was.

Return containers to Miss Mary. LIDS!!!

Checkbox empty.

The notebooks were supposed to fix this.

And it didn’t even matter, because Cassiel wasn’t going to Fremont before next Thursday, and next Thursday May would be there himself. He could hand them to Cassiel’s mom directly. The whole thing had been unnecessary panic. None of that made it better.

May pressed his forehead against the window and kept it there against the glass. Cold. He breathed in, out, in, then shoved his earbuds in and shuffled his playlist. Neko Case’s voice burst into his ears and he closed his eyes, too angry to hear the words.

7

CASSIEL

THE SIXTH THURSDAY

The jets had been over the city since Monday and every day Cassiel had considered a new act of treason. The roar came through Linden & Pratt’s walls as a low throbbing that rattled the display case glass. Peter and Ross had gone outside to watch and come back grinning. Cassiel stayed at his bench with his tweezers held steady and headphones on. Working.

Ross, the other watchmaker, was a soft-spoken man who Cassiel communicated with through email and nods from their respective benches for the most part. Cassiel liked him well enough most of the time. He was of an age with Peter, and for two entire weeks, the background chatter in the shop had consisted of the two men describing the film Top Gun to each other.

Peter filled the doorway, saying something. The only word Cassiel caught was ‘show,’ confirming it was not important enough to pause the music or take off the headphones.

“Close the door, Peter,” he said.

Peter closed the door.