Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 4 - Part 2

We ate quickly and did not remain long after our meal; people lined up along the counter waiting for tables to open up.

During our drive west Mikey confessed that he felt conflicted about work. "When I decided to limit my hours, I did it out of necessity. I really don't think we're meant to spend over forty hours a week focused on the same thing."

I nodded. "I feel the same way."

"I'm still struggling to find a balance. It's so tempting to stay into the evening working on projects. And when I don't, the work does back up. I can either hire more employees or stop taking on new clients for a while."

"One means the company grows and the other doesn't."

"Exactly, so—" he stopped himself for a few seconds. "How important do you think it is for a company to grow?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "I would imagine there are risks either way."

"That's true." He laughed. "There's never a definite answer, is there?"

"If you're looking for one, you're doing it wrong," I said.

"Did they teach you that in Accounting school?"

I laughed. "Definitely not. Formulas and protocol for everything. That's the problem with accounting. It doesn't solve any of life's real problems."

"I wouldn't say that," he said. "Anyway, it keeps people out of trouble."

"Well, that's true."

When we arrived at the northwest corner of the levee the clouds mostly kept to themselves, but Mikey grabbed an umbrella from the center console anyway. "I don't know how far you want to walk, but I'm not convinced it's gonna stay dry." Already a few fearless drops landed on the windshield, but thankfully it was now a bona fide temperate day, at least in comparison with the last few weeks. Mikey wore just a gray cardigan over his t-shirt.

We began to make our way south along a gravel path built upon the levee's ridge. Seagulls whirled around in the turbulent air above the water. The tide slowly crept in to blanket the reeds and stones and mud that tapered unhurriedly out to sea. Other than the one or two bicyclists who passed us by, and a slow-moving elderly couple whom we passed, we were alone as we trudged along under his large black umbrella.

"I'm sorry if I was insensitive about the asian thing earlier," he said. "It's not something I usually take very seriously, and it can come off the wrong way sometimes."

Mikey had made several apologies to me in the brief time we'd known each other and I considered lightheartedly pointing it out, but then thought better of it. "It didn't bother me at all," I told him. "My friends and I still joke about it sometimes."

"Well, I don't think it should matter to me," he said, "but apparently I cared enough to comment on it. I don't know why."

"I think most people are that way," I said. "It's rare that anyone can totally forget about race, living here."

He tugged his fingers through the hair on the back of his head and said, "Hey, did you ever... Was there ever a time when you wished you were something else?"

"Well...yeah," I said. During my childhood and well into adolescence, I had occasionally wished (in a cursory way that did not affix itself to a particular country or culture) that I had been born asian. It was a delicate, personal issue that I kept almost entirely to myself, but suddenly I felt no need to hide it from Mikey. "I didn't have a lot of white friends growing up," I told him. "Most were asian. Sometimes I really wished I looked like them."

"I totally understand that," he said. "And I know how you feel. I used to wish I was white."

"I think your experience makes so much more sense, though," I said. "Movies and shows and stuff were all full of white people. It sets really unhealthy standards. As a kid, I could imagine how it would be pretty overwhelming."