“Did you make this?”Blake asked, hand cupped around his mouth as he chewed.“It’sreallygood.”
Noel shrugged and then nodded in quick succession before pulling his hood up over his head.“I like baking,” he said by way of explanation.
Blake was surprised—he knew from Matt and Jace that Noel’s secondary source of income was from making fursuits, but baking pastries was a whole new depth of gentleness for him.No wonder Matt liked him so much.
“Let me know if you want more,” Noel said, tucking into a pastry of his own.
Celeste eventually materialized twenty minutes later, toting an iced coffee in one hand and a Trader Joe’s tote bag hooked over their opposite elbow.
“Hi.Sorry.Traffic was shit and I had to park all the way over at the Golden 1 Center,” they said by way of explanation.“Your hair looks nice.”They added offhandedly to Marin.They crossed their arms over their chest, peering down at Noel, who immediately shrunk into himself beneath their scrutiny.“Nice to meet you in person, Noel—are you okay there, buddy?”
“I-I’m fine,” he stuttered, peeling the top off of his Tupperware.“Did you want one?”
“No thanks, I’m set with this,” Celeste shook their head, taking a long pull off of their Dutch Bros.“Looks good, though.Did you guys wanna head in or finish eating first?”
The subsequent search proved to be fruitless.The archives hadn’t been fully digitized, so Noel and Blake were forced to comb each PDF by hand after the search bar failed to provide anything relevant.After visiting the news repository, Celeste and Marin produced two enormous boxes full of microfiche sheets containing hundreds of volumes of newspapers.
“So from 1997 to 2003,” Celeste grunted, hauling their box up onto the counter next to the microform reader.“There are almost eight thousand volumes for us to go through.”
“Eightthousand?!”Blake blanched, struggling to keep his voice at a respectable volume for the library.
“We narrowed our search down to the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Mercury News,” Marin explained, frowning at the collection in front of them.“And they’re all daily publications.”
“How long do the obits run?”Blake asked, hoping to shave off at least a portion of their search.
“Not sure,” Celeste shrugged, reaching inside their box and withdrawing a miniscule file.“I asked a clerk and they said it’s usually one to three days, but it can start any day of the week, so we’ll have to look through every paper individually.”
“Jesus,” Blake balked.He had no idea how they were going to manage to get througheight thousanddaily publications in a morning, let alone in the three days they had remaining—and that wasn’t even to mention the smaller publications that he and Noel were currently looking through.
“We can always omit The Bee if you’re confident about your Bay Area theory,” Celeste suggested.“But that’s only going to take us down to six thousand or so, if I’m doing the math correctly.”
They weren’t, but it was a moot point for Blake to correct them.
“Maybe it’s better for us to focus on jogging his memories,” Noel suggested in a helpful tone.
“You’re right,” Marin nodded.“I’ve already remembered so much in a day just from getting out and about.”
“So we divide and conquer,” Celeste suggested, slotting one of the microfiche slides into the machine.“You and Blake can go out while Christmas and I keep looking.How’s that sound?”
“‘Christmas’?”Noel repeated, looking stricken.
“Would you guys really be okay with that?”Marin asked, sounding dejected.“I wouldn’t want to waste your time if your efforts were going to go to pot—”
“We’resaving your life,dingus!”Celeste hissed, picking up their coffee and using the straw to make an accusatory gesture towards Marin.Satisfied at his chagrined expression, they took a victorious sip.“It’s not a waste of time.”
Noel shook his head, turning back to the aging computer terminal he was sitting at.
“Not a waste at all,” he said.
“See?”Celeste sniffed as they attempted to familiarize themselves with the microform controls.“You wanna know something that’ll make me feel better?You enjoying your day.Now shoo, I’ll text you if we find anything,” they ushered Blake and Marin away with a flap of their hand.
After thanking their friends once more, Blake and Marin headed back out onto I Street, Blake discreetly pulling up directions on his phone for their next destination.Marin glanced over as they idled on the curb.
“You mentioned there was somewhere you wanted to take me after the library,” he recalled, tilting his head in curiosity.“Were we going back to the bike, or…?”
Blake shook his head.“Nah, it’s only a few streets over, if you don’t mind walking in this heat.”
“It isn’t that hot out yet.Besides, a walk sounds nice.”Marin shrugged, tucking his arms behind his back.“Especially if it’s with you.”
