Hadn’t planned to, why?
ALYSSA
Stop by my house after work? 5:30. Don’t be late. Don’t eat. Don’t argue.
Alyssa, I don’t celebrate my birthday like that. I don’t need anything. Really.
ALYSSA
Did you miss the part where I said “don’t argue”?
I read her text twice and typed three different replies and sent none of them, then left the office at four-forty-five.
Micah ambushedme before I’d cleared their doorway, with a plate held out in both hands like an offering. Four cupcakes, with the icing thick and uneven and clearly applied by a child with no adult supervision.
“Happy birthday, Mr. Julian! I did the icing all by myself. And I made you this.” He shoved a folded square of construction paper at me.
Three stick figures at a table, smiles too big for their faces. Inside, in careful crayon:
Happy Birthday Mr.Julian. Thank you for helping my mom and being my friend. Love Micah.
I read it twice, the same way I’d read her text. “Thank you, Micah. This is excellent work,” I told him, and meant it, as I watched his whole face light up.
Alyssa came out of the kitchen with a lighter and an expression caught between pride and apology. “Correction. He did half the icing. The other half he ate.” She pushed candles into the cupcakes, and lit them.
Then Micah started singing theHappy Birthdaysong loud, off-key, completely without shame. Alyssa joined him, her voice dropping under his, soft and clear and good, her eyes flicking up to mine ondear Mr.Julian.
I stood there and tried to remember the last time anyone had sung that song to me other than er that morning. I couldn’t. Not since I’d turned twenty and I’d made it my job to make sure everybody else had something to sing about.
“Make a wish!” Micah demanded.
I closed my eyes, because it was expected, and felt the weight of the moment settle around me. What did people wish for? What was the point of wishing for things that either would happen through your own actions or wouldn’t happen at all?
But looking at Micah’s expectant face, I found myself wishing for something I couldn’t define. Something about time moving more slowly, about moments like this existing without the inevitable ending that made them temporary.
I blew out the candles.
“Best cupcakes I’ve ever had,” I said after taking a bite. The icing was too sweet, the cake slightly dense, but there was something about food made by small hands that rendered technical critique irrelevant.
Micah’s chest puffed with pride. Alyssa rolled her eyes, trying not to smile.
Once Micah had extracted a promise of leftover cupcakes for breakfast, he went to grab his overnight bag. “Raschad’s on his way to get him. Sleepover,” Alyssa said, then handed me a small envelope.
“The cupcakes were his gift. This is mine.” She lifted her chin, daring me to object. “Happy birthday, Julian. And thank you. For being a good friend to me. Tonight you don’t run anything. I do.”
I opened it and went still when I read it.Rock the Bellshad put together a rare Southern stop: Eric B. and Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Busta Rhymes, Scarface, LL Cool J, Redman, the whole class of them on one bill. Floor seats. Front row, dead on the stage.
I let out a low whistle, my thumb running along the slick gloss of the print. “Alyssa. These aren’t cheap.”
“Well, somebody keeps paying for things he wasn’t asked to pay for, so my budget has a surplus.” She shrugged. “Go figure.”
“How’d you know this would be my thing?”
“You’re not that mysterious, Julian. You’ve gotIllmaticin your dawn rotation and you still playReady to Die. And I’ve heard you humming Big Daddy Kane at the grill on Sundays when you think nobody’s listening.” She shrugged again like she hadn’t just told me she’d been studying me the way I studied everything else.
I didn’t have a response for that, so I said the only thing I could think of. “Alright. But I’m driving.”
“It’s my treat. I can drive.”
