Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 7 - Part 2

"Are you dating this guy?" he asked.

"No," I said. "It's complicated."

Our beers arrived.

"To hot people," said Marie as we clinked our glasses gently together. "Has anything else happened with him?"

"We're still hanging out. We've...uh...messed around a few times," I said, grinning.

"Details, please," she said.

"Maybe after I've had a few more drinks."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a tease, Wyatt."

"And you're so demanding," added Sloan, gesturing toward Marie with his drink.

"You saw the picture. Can I help it that I want to know what the guy looks like with his clothes off?"

"He's not really my type," said Sloan.

"What happened to that girl you brought to bubble tea?"

"She's...I don't know...not that into breasts, as it turns out."

"Did she know?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm mean...yeah," he said. "Fuck, I don't know. Probably. I thought I made it clear when we first met. Besides, I'm fucking flatter than most guys I know."

I laughed and Marie drank deeply from her beer. "It's her loss," she said. "Anyway, historically you do not have any trouble meeting girls."

Sloan leaned sheepishly against the wall. "I can't argue with that."

"And he's modest, too," she announced, projecting her voice out around the room as if someone eligible was stationed nearby.

Sloan swung an arm out across the table at Marie, who ducked out of his reach. Once she had straightened herself up she said, "I think we should start planning for another trip this summer. Southeast Asia? Maybe India?"

"It will be hard to swing with work," he said.

"Oh, come on. We said we would be like this. And we weren't supposed to listen to ourselves, right?"

"Right," said Sloan. "I remember."

"We said that no matter what was going on in our lives, we'd drop everything. For a month. Just one month this time—remember that?" She turned to me. "You remember, right? We were trying to be realistic about it, so we decided just one month."

I nodded. I also remembered thinking there was no way I'd ever fall so cleanly away from the careening thrill of travel that I could fathom the tragedy of passing up another chance at it. But now the threat to my stability in the coming months, which perched at the edge of cognizance, pecked at a thin membrane of certainty in which I had encased myself. At the time I had told myself that if I ever began to have doubts about venturing out again, I would do everything in my power to fight them. "I think we should set dates right now," I said. "Otherwise we never will."

"That's the kind of energy I was looking for," said Marie, reaching over and petting my hand.

Sloan downed his beer and said, "Alright, let's do this."

Marie bloomed into a fountain of exuberance, shuffling around the table, squeezing in between us and throwing her arms around our necks. "I love you both so much." She returned to her seat, the server came back and Marie ordered another round, on her.

Each of us was well into our third beer by the time we had concluded our preliminary discussion of this new adventure. The dates of July 15th through August 15th were earmarked, crystallized, inalterable, and I rested a bit more easily on my worn, precarious barstool.