Page 98 of Angel of Thursdays

“Okay. Send me a message with his Chinese name,” she said, and then hung up. May squeezed his eyes shut, held it for one, two, three seconds, then sighed and let it pass. His eyes were blurry when he opened them again.

May pocketed the phone, got off at Lincoln, and walked the two blocks to Irving Street, toward Sparrow. He needed to sleep for approximately five thousand hours.

* * *

May stalked his way into the café without even glancing at the window box or the specials board. He felt like a weather event. He felt like a hurricane, girl’s name and all, if it was hurricanes they named after women. It didn’t matter. He launched himself into the stool across from Cassiel and said, “I called my mom. And I’m going to walk into the ocean.”

Cassiel’s mug paused mid-sip.

“I called her on the bus.” May dropped his backpack on the floor. “Dinner’s on Thursday at six, next week. —Sorry if we’re meant to be doing the pissy shit from Tuesday. I can’t.”

Cassiel blinked at him slowly, the way you were supposed to do with cats who didn’t trust you.

“No,” he said. “Unless this is for the podcast and you’re recording.”

“Oh, that’s—hilarious. Did you miss the part where I’m walking into the ocean?”

“I didn’t feel like commenting.” Cassiel took a long drink from the mug and May watched him, watched the pale sickly color of the mint latte lap over his upper lip, watched the tongue flick out quickly to remove it. He wanted to lean over and bite him. He rested his chin in his palm instead.

Cassiel caught him watching. May kept looking.

“Thursday at six is fine. I need the address.”

May told him, and watched as Cassiel produced his phone and noted it down. The only time he’d seen the man write down anything he said was never, if Oakland didn’t count, and it didn’t, because that was less about what May said and more about what Cassiel heard.

“She asked what your Chinese name is,” he added. “And I told her⁠—”

“Lin Minshuo,” said Cassiel.

May put his face in his hands and did his best impression of a meat grinder with his mouth. He would not be reporting this back to his mother. He would, in fact, be praying that she’d forget about the whole Chinese name business by the time the dinner came around.

“How long have you had that ready to go and why. Actually, don’t tell me. I will make a scene.”

When he peered out from his fingers he saw Cassiel wielding Definitely-A-Smile #14 behind the blue mug. Instead of punishing him as he so clearly deserved, May remembered something. He shoved his hand into his pocket and fished out a purple-pink hair clip, setting it on the table next to the napkins.

“What’s this?”

“For your hands. It’s got a good snap to it. I figured…”

Cassiel peered at it, touched the empty space where the ring had still not rematerialized. Then he looked back at May’s face with a curious expression.

“Where did you get it?”

“It was left to me as a token of esteem by a former lover.” May leaned his elbow on the table and raised his eyebrows.

Cassiel picked it up and tested it. Snap. Slow. Click. Also slow. Snap click.

“If it eases your mind, since you’re obviously burning with jealousy… it’s mine. I used to have curtain bangs. You keep reaching for your ring and then it’s not there so you’re just doing this—” He pantomimed the twitch. “So. Click on that for a while.”

Snap click.

“Thank you,” Cassiel said, and May watched as the clip disappeared into his coat pocket.

* * *

His Thursday shift was short. Lau Kee’s kitchen was quiet on these days—as quiet as it ever got with the clanging and the yelling. The music had gone back to Auntie’s selection, so Uncle’s campaign had failed without May’s support. May shook his head, hummed tunelessly as he scrubbed, and thought of Betty and Mark. Mark and Betty and a tape in Sacramento.

He’d chase it. He’d make Cassiel come—his Watson. And Lauren, if she wanted to. She had a nebulous job, something in engineering that still allowed her to seemingly wander around doing as she pleased. She wouldn’t turn down a road trip.