able to compete with him, and I certainly didn’t want to meet him without some mental preparation.
October met my eyes and touched my arm, and who knows what she felt there, because she said, “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll sort this out.”
Diego came bumbling into the kitchen, and I could hear Chris a few steps behind. October went to the table and sat down with a mug of coffee in her hands. I backed up as far away from her as I could get, all the way to the sink.
From the vantage point of the hallway, Chris saw me before I saw him. He was saying something to October about how good it felt to shower in a familiar bathroom, but he stopped abruptly, midsentence, presumably when he spotted me. That’s when I glanced his way, and he and I made eye contact.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
I was about to say the same thing.
“Harp?”
If I hadn’t been leaning on the counter, I would have fallen over.
“Cal?”
October was looking back and forth between us, bewildered.
“Cal?” I said again.
“Harp?” he repeated.
The shock wore off for him faster than it did for me. He threw his arms around my neck and pulled me into his chest like I was his long-lost brother. And, in a way, I was.
“Is it you?” He was shaking me and grinning, and his breath smelled strong and medicinal, like he’d just used Listerine. He held me by the shoulders and looked at my face. “How is this possible?”
“Hold it.” October looked at me, mortified. “You’re Harp?” Then she looked at Cal. “Joe is your best friend, Harp? From high school?”
Cal nodded vigorously. “I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe this.”
He hugged me again, and for one second I forgot everything except that Cal Callahan was standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen him in fourteen years, and even though I thought of him at least once a day, I couldn’t have quantified how much I’d missed him until that moment.
And then everything inside of me started to tear apart.
“Shit. Cal.”
He threw his head back and howled with laughter. “No one’s called me Cal since high school! Come to think of it, you’re the only person who ever called me Cal.” He looked at October and said, “I’d declared, the summer before our freshman year, that I was dropping my first name, and I asked everyone to call me Cal. I wrote it on all my papers and tests, but nobody bought it. Not my teachers, not my mom, not Harp’s mom. Only Harp.”
“And Bob,” I reminded him. “Bob called you Cal too.”
“But with contempt!” Cal laughed.
“Who’s Bob?” October asked.
“My dad.”
“How is old Bob Harper?” Cal said. “Still as pleasant as always?”
I wasn’t ready to start catching up. There was already too much to process. I shook my head and said, “I need to sit down.”
Cal ran his hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. “Fucking Harp.”
October looked at me and said, “You told me you were from Spokane.” She didn’t seem angry, just confused.
Cal laughed again. Then he went to the window, pointed and said, “He’s from that ridge right over there! Bob’s from Spokane!”
Cal went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of champagne. “This calls for a celebration.”
“Christopher, it’s ten o’clock,” October said.
“And I’m with my two favorite people in the entire world!” He looked at me. “She was just telling me about her new assistant, how smart and creative and amazing he was. What are the odds it turns out to be you? What are the fucking odds?”
I didn’t know the fucking odds, but I was going to calculate them and perhaps play the lottery since I was so lucky.
Cal popped the cork over the sink and pulled out some juice glasses from the cupboard. I could feel October looking at me from the table, needing something, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t face her. Nor could I take my eyes off of Cal. He was even taller now, over six and a half feet. His hair was shorter and more stylish than it used to be, and he’d grown into his face in a good way. Birdlike features on a kid look weird, a little sinister even, but on a grown man with some depth and character, the effect is striking. Cal had transformed from an owl into a hawk.
He handed out the champagne, we clanked glasses, and I drank mine in one gulp. October didn’t touch hers. Cal