Page 59 of Angel of Thursdays

“Doesn’t mean she’s not calling the shop. Called the business line to ask what time you take lunch. I told her twelve thirty.”

“I eat at twelve fifteen.”

“I know.” Peter had appeared, leaning on the doorframe, coffee in hand. “I was buying you time.”

“I’ll be taking my break at twelve thirty,” Cassiel replied.

Peter’s answering “Okaaay” faded toward the front of the shop.

* * *

Lauren arrived at 12:30, coming through the door, already mid-sentence.

“—and I told him, like, to his face, ‘you have the aesthetic sensibility of a mall cop,’ and he said, ‘that’s actually what we’re going for,’ like, what? Who? Hi Peter.”

“Hi Lauren.” Peter didn’t look up from his newspaper.

“Love the vest.”

“Thanks. Mandy got it for me.”

Peter’s daughter had purchased him a new vest for Christmas, having allegedly told him, “Daddy, you’ve been wearing that ratty thing since I was born,” and took it upon herself to upgrade it. It was deep green and a decided improvement.

Lauren pulled up the stool and sat. She glanced at the Okaeri wrapper beside his mat and rolled her eyes, then dug into her bag, a minuscule thing, and somehow produced an unspilled iced coffee from it.

“I went on a date Tuesday,” she said. “With a man who brought his own salad dressing to the restaurant in a teeny tiny mason jar.”

“Why.”

“Ranch. He didn’t trust restaurant ranch.”

“That’s not unreasonable.”

“Don’t side with the ranch man.” She bit her straw. “He also doesn’t believe in breakfast. Not like a dietary thing—a philosophy. He wrote a post about it on LinkedIn.”

Cassiel’s tweezers moved a jewel into position. She told him about the parking garage project at work, about a podcast she’d heard on the bus about how love languages were bullshit, about whether her roommate’s cat was plotting something.

“Oh—Minju sent me a photo of Hayoung’s outfit.” She swiped her phone and held it at him. His baby niece in a pink hanbok, resolutely looking at something off-camera. “Look at this. I’m gonna eat her hands.”

Cassiel glanced up from the movement. “When did Minju send you a photo?”

“Like, last night?” Lauren wiped condensation off her cup. “She’s coordinating the kids’ outfits. Jaejae wants to wear his Christmas shoes with his little boy dress.”

“He can wear the shoes. And it’s hanbok.”

“Cass, they clash.”

“It’s his Seollal,” Cassiel said.

Lauren looked at him for a beat, lips pursed and eyes squinted. Then she grinned, wide and sudden. “You’re different.”

Cassiel lifted a brow and waited for the conclusion.

“I don’t mean—” She gestured with the iced coffee. “I mean you’re the same, but you’re different. You’re like… one degree to the left.”

“That’s not a meaningful unit of measurement.”

“Oh my God, it’s a compliment. Take it.”