I spent the first half of Friday judiciously hungover. Marie, Sloan and I ate sushi for lunch (our first meal of the day) at a place near to her condo in Celadon. The sky had remained solidly overcast throughout the night, trapping in a cradling warmth that now accompanied sunlight as the clouds began to part.
We sat out on the restaurant's terrace along with several other souls clamoring for a brief glimpse at weather that wouldn't find its permanence for another couple of months.
"February," said Marie, "I'm beginning not to hate you so much."
"Too late," Sloan said. "March is two days away."
She bore the expression of someone who had been robbed. "That's ridiculous. It's literally not possible."
"It's literally the end of February," he said.
I, too, took unwarranted offense to this revelation. My six week verdict had shrunk surreptitiously to just over one month, a new span of time that felt vastly curtailed.
Sloan sat propped up on his elbows, purple hood pulled up over his head, the top half of his face mostly hidden behind an enormous pair of sunglasses. "Jesus, guys. At least it means summer is one month closer."
We silently agreed.
I returned to my apartment around three o'clock, peered into the closet and fished Mikey's note out of a pocket in the lining of my coat. I lay on my bed, opened it once again and studied the drawing. I discovered no palpable details beyond what I'd observed the first time. However I paid special attention to the way the quick pencil lines had fallen to paper, emerging one by one, less though mindfulness than with an effortlessness that saw me feeling, of all things, pacified. I left the paper unfolded and anchored it with a small, smooth stone on top of my dresser.
I estimated the past day to have spit me out sixty dollars poorer-completely unsustainable, although I anticipated no further haphazard spending.
Mikey texted me about an hour later. "Did you know that Yakima is the Palm Springs of Washington?"
"Could you clarify?" I responded.
"It says so on a billboard outside of town. I can't confirm anything. I've never been to the real Palm Springs."
"I haven't either," I texted. "That seems like a strange comparison though. What compelled you to text me about this?"
"Just thought you needed to know. You're welcome."
"Oh, excuse me. Thank you."
He responded with a smiley face.
I did not hear from him again until just after midnight, when he texted to let me know he'd arrived safely at home. "Sorry for texting so late. I stopped in Seattle to see an old friend. I passed your street when I was on the highway. I wish it had been earlier. Maybe we could have hung out. Hope you are well."
"I'm still up," I texted. "Glad to hear you are safe at home. I am free to hang out tomorrow if you're not busy."
A few minutes later he texted, "That would be awesome. Want to go for a run? I can pick you up if you want."
We relayed a few more messages back and forth, settling on three o'clock because Mikey had work obligations earlier in the day.
As I prepared for bed I recalled a conversation with my dad that had occurred a few years earlier. I'd returned home for Christmas from my first semester at college, where I had morphed into a kind of fortuitous advocate for open communication (something for which my adolescence had hungered in some ways, and by which was completely satisfied in others). I told him how I knew my being gay was not something we had ever truly discussed. I said that if my sexuality made him uncomfortable, we should talk about it. I remembered him foregoing an immediate response to instead stand and tread in his work boots over creaking slats to the fire, where he added a massive piece of chopped pine to the flames, tending it briefly. Once reseated in his worn cloth recliner he turned to me. "If your sexuality made me uncomfortable I would have told you already. That is my responsibility. But it doesn't make me uncomfortable. In fact, I resent the idea that a person's unchangeable qualities would make anyone uncomfortable. That's just not fair, and I hate it."
I lay in bed trying to call up the way Mikey had spoken about his own father. Within the context of who I was, he did not sound like a very accepting man. I sensed that Mikey carried a forceful deference to his parents, which, given what had happened, I supposed was all but inevitable. I turned inward. If Mikey had held up a mirror for me to regard myself, I would have seen someone frivolous and fortunate-a person whose experience had been unburdened, easy and painless. I felt a bitter pang of ungratefulness seep into my chest. These were not the quelling thoughts I usually focused on before sleep, and I suspected they were to blame, at least in part, for the unpleasant dreams that followed.
By the time Mikey was due to arrive the next day I felt much better. I had stumbled into a folder on my aging computer which held files containing various poems, snippets and one longer, unfinished project that I'd written over several weeks at school. After inadvertently barring myself for months from accessing this particular interest, my eyes now fell to the words on the screen as if they were not my own. It was a rare and brief opportunity that lent me unencumbered perspective on my writing, to which my reaction was mostly favorable.
Mikey arrived in full running regalia, his hair now cut short of the sides. An easy few inches were also absent from the top.
"My god, your hair," I said. "Take a look at that."
"Got it cut before work this morning. It was time. Kicked myself for not doing it before the trip. I looked like a child before."
"I really like it," I said, surprised at my own audacity as I reached up and ran my hand over the top. He did look categorically older now. "I didn't know you would already be changed," I said. "Let me put some stuff on."
"It's a beautiful day," he said. "Not too cold at all."
"I know. Can you believe it?" I left the door to the bathroom ajar and asked him about his trip.
"It was really great, actually. This time I left myself a little room to explore. It's not a bad place down there."
"I liked your picture. And the Honda did okay?"
"The Honda was a complete sweetheart," he said. "That's the kind of driving I enjoy. Out on the open highway. The city commute just isn't the same."
"I'm the same way," I said, emerging from the bathroom.
The levee seemed a natural destination. It was where our first impromptu run had occurred, after all. We descended the steps to where he had parked his car and on the landing between the first and second floors Mikey stopped and looked back at me. I halted behind him. His lips spread into a bashful smile. Within his eyes, chaperoned by forthright, inkwell brows that turned slightly downward at the ends, lived a child incapable of driving for hundreds of miles, negotiating with company reps and accepting whatever other liabilities arose from such a situation.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. "Sorry. Happy to be back, that's all." He turned away and continued down the stairs.
Once underway I asked Mikey more about his trip.
"They put me up in a good hotel," he said. "They took me around downtown...out to dinner...it was great. Actually, I spent a lot of time walking around on my own. I even took a little time to draw-on a business trip. I mean, fuck. Can't say I've ever done that before."
"That's cool," I said. "What do you think changed?"
He said nothing for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. "I guess I'm just thinking about my experience differently...or something. I'm not exactly sure."
"No need to question what's working," I said.
"Exactly." He signaled out of the passing lane. "So what did you do with the rest of your week?"
I thought a moment. "Nothing big. Actually, I went out late with friends Thursday night. Skipped work yesterday."
"Oh, well that sounds big," he said. "What did you do when you went out?"
"We just got drinks and went dancing. I had a little too much. Well, we all did."
He smiled. "I'm jealous. Haven't done that in a while. Did you meet anyone nice?"
"You mean, like, guys? No. I mean I'm sure they were around, but I wasn't really looking."
Mikey nodded. "Sorry, that's kind of a weird question to ask."
A small, focused arc of light strayed across the dashboard and I followed it with my index finger. "No it's not," I told him. "That's definitely how some people hook up. Can't say it's happened for me very often, though."
"But it's happened?"
"Well, there was this guy in Germany," I said. "His group joined ours at a club one night. He made a really good impression on me. Like, even the next day I was thinking, 'I would bear this man's children.'"
Mikey laughed and I smiled to myself at how much I'd just sounded like Marie.
"I take it you spent the night with him?" he asked.
"Well, yeah. It's funny, though. We only fooled around a little. Mostly we just cuddled and talked and stuff. It was...I don't know. Never mind."
"It was what?"
I paused for a moment as my thoughts spooled up again. "It was, like, kind of sexy in its own way, I guess. I mean, when we weren't messing around." Unexpectedly, telling him this left me feeling awkward.
He moved a hand to the top of the steering wheel. "I think I understand what you mean."
He asked me to tell him more about traveling in Europe. I had mentioned the trip to him before, but only in passing. Presently I attempted to stick to highlights from our travel schedule and list some of the well-known sites we'd visited, but kept lapsing into small, anecdotal pitfalls, in which I would explain how Marie's hair once caught fire while we were in Italy, or about that one night in Prague when we'd become too drunk to locate our hostel. These stories seemed to interest Mikey the most anyway.
"I would really like to travel like that," he said as my rambling waned and we entered a dirt parking lot next to the levee.
I nodded, but didn't say anything in response until we stepped out onto the path, performing absent stretches. "Is there anything stopping you?" The breeze disagreed slightly with my bare arms and calves, but I knew I would warm up quickly once we started running.
"You mean from traveling?"
I nodded, tugging my left foot up to meet with my upper-thigh and butt before switching to the right.
"Just work," he said. "Sophie could take care of things while I was gone. But if she went with me...we'd just have to plan ahead, I guess. It's a worthwhile goal." Suddenly Mikey turned toward the water. "It's a cat," he said, and was gone, stepping down the embankment toward a wall of reeds that grew near the base.
I followed and watched him tempt the siamese house cat out from where it crouched in the tall grass. It approached him with a casual, friendly demeanor, speaking in soft, quick mews. I knelt down next to Mikey and held out my hand. The cat sniffed inquisitively at my fingers, brilliant blue eyes wide and alert. Much of its body was covered in creamy fur, long and light, but the face, spine and tail dissolved into a rich coffee-brown.
"You're such a sweetie," Mikey said, running his hand over its back and up its tail. He looked over at me. "Do you like cats much?"
