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It’s Wednesday night. Mira’s not coming home until tomorrow, but I figured it would be a nice gesture if I put the record table together for her.
Okay, maybe I figured she’s stubborn enough to try building it herself with her cast propped up on a pile of my books. I’d prefer not to have to stand by like an asshole and watch her do that. And if the finished record table is sitting in the living room with a conciliatory bow on top of it when she gets home, I won’t have to.
I don’t have any bows, obviously, but Delia probably has a collection of them.
She and Burke are at the hospital visiting Mira. The surgery went well yesterday, I guess. When Mira comes home, she’ll be on pain meds and crutches, and she’ll have to spend a lot of time on the couch. Delia told me, again, that Mira should come stay with her, but I get the feeling her sister won’t go for it. I may not have known Mira long, but it’s obvious she’s the kind of woman who doesn’t like to be told what to do. Or to rely on other people. I’ve never found that easy myself, so I can’t hold it against her.
I’m going to make sure she’s okay. I feel a bone-deep need to, because she got hurt on my watch. It may not have been my fault, per se. But itismy responsibility. I asked Delia what would make her comfortable, and she helped me unpack a few of Mira’s personal things. There are now throw pillows on my couch and a print of a squirrel smoking a pipe on the wall. I don’t hate them.
Then there’s the record table. Idohate that. The color reminds me of the Pepto my mother always forced on me when I made the mistake of admitting to a stomach ache. Still, Mira broke her ankle for it—the least I can do is build it.
When I come back with the beers, Leonard’s laughing and waving a stick around like it’s a sword. “This one’s labeled Z. It jumps from G to fucking Z. You think the person who put this together was high? One time when I was high, I thought I’d solved all the mysteries of the universe, but then I couldn’t remember any of the brilliant shit after I woke up.”
I hand over the beers. Leonard takes his with his free hand, still gripping that random thin rod.
I have no idea how that stick could possibly be part of a record table.
“This is going to be a long night, isn’t it?” I ask with a sigh.
“Don’t underestimate the power of beer,” Leonard says, waving his bottle at me.
“Or overestimate it,” Shane puts in.
“I can rebuild houses, I’ll figure this shit out, no problem,” Leonard says. It’s true enough—he and Burke run a house flipping business, L&L Restoration, that they started a few months back, after Burke left his family’s empire. Lucky for him, he still has plenty to fall back on, from this apartment to his trust fund. I don’t say this with any bitterness. If there’s anyone who deserves such a gift, it’s him.
“And you’re supposed to be brilliant,” Leonard adds, pointing to me. “Didn’t you get into MENSA?”
“I only applied because you dared me. Those people are fucking weird, and coming from me, that’s saying something. Besides, putting together poorly labelled furniture isn’t one of my few talents,” I say. I could add that if I were really brilliant, I would have figured out a way to get out of my agreement with my boss that didn’t entail spending years making a complicated computer game. But even though my friends know the basic story about how I came to work at a company I hate for a man I abhor, I haven’t shared all of the shitty details.
“Lucky for you, the word impossible doesn’t exist in my vocabulary,” Leonard continues. “I’m a god of small things.”
Shane gives him an incredulous look. “Buddy, you walked right into this, so I’ve got to do it. That’s what your girlfriend told me last week.”
Leonard laughs the loudest of any of us.
We work on the record table for a while, shooting the shit while Leonard tells us what goes where. He’s surprisingly good at figuring out the for-shit directions. He claims it’s because his mind works in mysterious ways too. We’re toward the end when he looks me in the eye and asks, “You give any more thought to what Josie said?”
“No,” I bluster.
I’m lying, and from the expression on his face, he knows it. Josie the Great is a psychic who Leonard and Burke know. Don’t ask me how. I’m sure they’ve explained at some point, but that’s the kind of don’t-need-to-know information that goes in one ear and out the other.
I’ve only met her once. She took one look at me and told me that I’ve already met my soulmate and made a bad impression on her…the same day I found out my ex-girlfriend works for the company that’s interested in buying the game that may very well save my life.
I’m not the kind of guy who believes in that sort of thing.
Computers make sense. They operate according to logic. People do not. They say one thing and mean another. They ask to be left alone and then expect you to show up with flowers. They tell you they like you just as you are, and the next minute they get upset because you haven’t changed. Some people, like Josie, claim they can communicate with the other side when by its very nature, death is unknowable. Any sort of greater power would also, per force, be unknowable and beyond understanding.
So I don’t really believe Josie the Great is either great or psychic, but…
There’s no denying that what she said, foolish and vapid or not, has been on my mind.
“My boy’s much too logical to believe in that bullshit,” Shane says. “Right, buddy?”
Leonard laughs. “Right. You’re just saying that because after he falls, you’re gonna be next on the chopping block.”
“So you feel like something got chopped off, huh, Leonard?” Shane says with a grin.
“Laugh all you want, brother,” he says with a know-it-all smile, “you’ll see what it’s like on the other side soon enough.”
