Page 37 of Angel of Thursdays

Then Lauren’s birthday campaign began on November 29th.

“Your birthday,” she said, sitting on his workbench—the Demilitarized Lauren Ass Zone, repeatedly violated, permanently contested. “My place. Small. Twelve people max. I’ll handle food. You handle showing up.”

“I always show up,” he said.

“You showed up to your last birthday party forty fucking minutes late because you went to the restaurant next to the venue. And ate alone.”

“I assumed there wouldn’t be food at the silent disco.”

“Maybe someone should have said they didn’t want a silent disco!”

Cassiel had not wanted a silent disco, but his disapproval had been expressed too mildly for Lauren’s notice, and he suspected she was trying to impress the DJ.

“The katsu curry was good,” he told her.

She aimed a Jimmy Choo-clad kick at his stool. The stool jolted and Cassiel grabbed the bench edge to steady himself. The loupe didn’t move—he’d already placed his hand over it.

The planning texts went out in waves. Guest list—their Berkeley circle, the friends Lauren had collected when she’d dragged him to his first QSU meeting sophomore year, Minju and David, Lamaria from Linden & Pratt, Lauren’s roommates.

“Is May coming?” she asked casually, like she hadn’t been waiting to ask, instead opting to make it sound incidental as if Cassiel didn’t know the difference.

“You’re planning the party.”

“You should invite him.”

“He’s not—” He stalled. May was not what? Not family. Not a Berkeley friend. Not a coworker. The categories Cassiel had were insufficient and the category he didn’t have was the one that fit.

“I’ll text him,” Lauren said, having already decided before walking into the room. The question was decoration.

She texted May. May texted Lauren back. May texted Cassiel:

May

Hey!! So I’m coming to your bday Lauren gave me the deets

Five seconds later:

Is that cool i know it’s not a Thursday thing I’d just be crashing the party hahah

Nine seconds after that:

Sorry if it’s weird in which case wrong number

Cassiel read the messages. ‘I know it’s not a Thursday thing.’ Thursday had a rate, a duration, a frame that held everything in place. Saturday was outside of the container. May was coming to a Saturday with no booking and no rate, because three months ago he had written December 7 in a purple Leuchtturm notebook and he’d wanted to. And the wanting was enough.

Cassiel

Yes. Come.

* * *

Lauren’s house on Fulton was an 1887 Victorian she shared with two roommates, a cat, and her conviction that living in a place with crown molding made her elegant by proxy. Cassiel liked the place, the dark hardwood floors, the harlequin-tiled fireplace in the parlor, built-ins stuffed with books, and the stained glass oculus above the stairwell that threw colored geometry across the landing. Viridian, deep blue. Ecclesiastical. Cassiel had stood under that oculus the first time Lauren brought him here, and stared at it until she’d physically steered him into the kitchen.

December 7th came. Saturday. Last year he had been late for defensible but nonetheless impolite reasons. This year Cassiel arrived at 6:48 p.m. to show that he could grow. Lauren was right. You did not arrive late to your own birthday party, no matter what films and TV shows said about the concept of ‘fashionably late.’ Cassiel was fashionably on time.

The parlor had been prepared to exacting standards. His exacting standards filtered through Lauren. No blue lights, no banners or tinsel, string lights wound through the bookshelf brackets, music from a Bluetooth speaker on the mantel, a playlist she’d titled Cassiel Is 28 And That’s Just Fine, at a volume he could tolerate.

“Is this okay?” she asked.