Girl in Pieces

This city is dry and stifling hot. Everyone keeps telling me I’ll get used to it, that I’ll grow to love it, that the winter will cool down a little, but the sun is a giant ball of fire that doesn’t quit. Just biking from my apartment to the library downtown leaves me in a full sweat, with the underarms of my shirt soaked and my bike seat wet.

There are nine new unread messages from Mikey. It’s like I’m starving him out and I don’t know why. I don’t have anything from Blue, but I write to her anyway, just one word, Hey. It’s like reaching out to get a grip before you fall off a cliff, but no one is there.

But the last email from Mikey catches my eye. The subject line says birthday/a while longer. I click it open and read it.

You probably heard by now about me and Bunny. It’s crazy, I know. We are going to be out on the road a little longer now—at least until November. I’m taking a leave from school. We’re going to do that album up in N. California. There’s a record deal, Charlie. I didn’t want to be without Bunny any longer, and things just seemed right. When I get back, I have something really important to talk to you about. And hey, it’s okay that you haven’t written back. I understand. I hope you are okay. And, Charlie: happy birthday.

I stare at the word: birthday. Then I close down my mail and leave the library.

It takes me a good forty minutes to find the right place on my bicycle. I have to ride deep into South Tucson to find what I want. When I find it, a shabby little panadería that smells like sheer heaven, I choose the most cream-filled, icing-topped confection behind the smudged glass of the pastry case. After studying the coffee list, I ask for a café de olla. I sit in a sticky chair by the window, the sweetness of the pastry collecting in my mouth, the creamy, caramelly drink warming my hands. I wonder what Mikey wants to tell me that’s so important he couldn’t just say it on email. Maybe Bunny’s pregnant. Maybe Mikey is about to have his perfect life with kids and a wife and a rock band and everything he’s ever wanted, while I’m dehydrated and tired and should be drinking water, but I’m not, I’m drinking coffee, spending seven dollars and sixty-eight cents to wish myself a happy fucking eighteenth birthday that I’d forgotten all about.