Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 7 - Part 1

Once we were stopped I got out. Mikey pulled the brake and met me in front of the car, where the engine clicked away like a sewing machine and the street was a pool of white. He engulfed me in a tight hug and said into my ear, "Take care of yourself while I'm gone, Chickadee."

"I will," I said. "Drive safely tomorrow."

The next day at work I burrowed underground, clawing through an exceptional amount of back work kicked around by lower-level staff. Though both Jennifer and Calvin voiced their appreciation, I was not inclined to accept credit for behavior derived from boredom and an appetite for distraction.

I wandered into the gym that evening and was approached near the end of my workout by a dark-eyed boy—a man, technically, but certainly younger—with a distinguished face and a solid, compact figure. He was beautiful, I figured, by a kind of objective and widely acceptable token, above which I did not suspend myself.

"You used to show up on my phone as nearby," he said. "You look just like your picture. I never got brave enough to text you, though. I don't see you on there anymore."

"Oh, sorry. I got rid of it," I said, referring to the location-based hookup app Marie had convinced me to download over the summer. "It wasn't really doing me any good."

"Aww, that's too bad," he said. "Well, if you're ever interested it would be fun to hang out sometime."

I spent little time processing a response. "I'm actually taken, but thanks. I'm flattered."

"Oh," he said, "good for you. Well, thanks anyway."

As I walked home, what had felt initially like a straightforward decision unfurled, inevitably, to reveal some problematic aspects. For example, although I had removed the app from my phone, I was customarily unlikely to spurn the brave, in-person advances of appealing men. Actually I was only further attracted by the audacity of a face-to-face proposition.

Another issue lay in the specificity of my response; the only other situations in which I had ever claimed to be taken occurred, in fact, when I was still with my ex-boyfriend (a time when I did not shoulder an air of availability and was rarely ever approached in the first place). I liked to believe I carried no illusions—I was no less single now than I'd been a week ago, or a year ago—and yet my behavior had plainly changed. I still held confidence in my resolve to see Mikey as no more than a friend with whom I had begun to share intimate moments, and now acknowledged the importance in conducting myself accordingly.

Wednesday morning I swayed in my seat at the back of the 40A, flicking idly through my work email, when Marie texted asking if I could meet her for lunch.

About five hours later I hurried down to the street and tore several blocks east to a sandwich shop halfway between our places of work. I was only allotted forty-five minutes and desired as much time as possible to sit and talk.

We collided in energetic embrace by the door. After each of us made our orders we sat down and I said, "Before we get into anything else, I need to tell you that Tandon and Dufresne wants me to move to Fern Hill next month. I'll lose my job if I don't."

"Excuse me?" she said. "You can't move. When did they tell you this?"

"Last week. Marie, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was trying to work it out in my mind, and I really just wanted to have fun last time we saw each other."

"It's fine," she said. "Sometimes you've got to process those things." She tore her napkin in two and stored one half in her coat pocket because, as she had once explained to me, she wouldn't need a whole napkin now, and nobody knew what disasters the future held. "How'd you let them down?" she asked.