Mo got to the coffee shop before Susannah. She lived a lot closer to town, but Mo could turn into a bird. He’d never managed to go to sleep. Instead he stayed up in the music studio writing in a notebook, and when Susannah texted back, he slipped a new notebook and a pen into the pocket of his hoodie (this was an experiment, after all, and he didn’t want to lose what he’d been working on the way he’d lost the Timberlands). It was the kind of cold outside that made your bones ache. He put on his duffle coat and a wool cap. Then he turned himself into a Eurasian eagle owl (go big or go home) and flapped majestically down the Cliff Road, detouring over the bay where Malo Mogge’s temple steamed gently. Fish floated belly-up in the water around it, but the eagle owl did not find these tempting.
Mo had wondered if he’d have some sort of psychic connection to the statues he’d given life to, but apparently it didn’t work that way. Wherever they were now, he had no idea. They were off doing their own thing, and he was alone again. Shut up, Mo. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just enjoy being a very large owl.
He flew a slow circle over the roof of What Hast Thou Ground? and landed on a dumpster in the alley. When he changed back, he was pleased to discover pen and notebook still in his pocket. He had an idea about the process he might use to determine the structure of the overture and so he stood in the doorway and wrote until Susannah showed up.
“Mo,” she said.
He said, “Hey, Susannah. Uh, thanks for coming.”
At this, she threw her arms around him and hugged him so violently he staggered back. She didn’t let go, and honestly it felt kind of good to have someone hold on to him like that, like they were afraid he was going to get away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. About everything. Mo, it sucks so much. She was always so nice, and I always thought you were so lucky to have a grandmother like that.”
Mo’s eyelids were already swollen from crying. He blinked furiously. He said, “She wasn’t just my grandmother. She was the only one I had. How is that lucky? Although, yeah. I was lucky. But now? I don’t have anyone.”
Susannah nodded. Sniffed. They let go of each other. She pulled a key chain out of her coat pocket and opened the door of What Hast Thou Ground? “Come on inside. I’ll make you whatever you want.”
“Coffee,” Mo said. “I want lots and lots of coffee. And a muffin.”
“Sure,” Susannah said, going behind the counter. “Looks like we’ve got lemon thyme and bourbon pecan. Oh, and chocolate lavender.”
“Let’s start with bourbon pecan,” Mo said.
Susannah turned on the sound system and the soundtrack to Camelot came on. “Shit,” she said. “Billy is such an asshole.”
“No,” Mo said. “Leave it. It’s fine. I’ve always wondered what the simple folk do.” He sat at the table in the window where he and Susannah had always sat. He put the notebook down. It was almost exactly like old times except he had to keep wiping tears off his face. Susannah brought him a muffin, coffee in a French press, and a napkin. He blew his nose on it and began to devour the muffin.
“So tell me what’s going on,” Susannah said.
“You mean besides my grandmother being dead,” Mo said. He couldn’t help it. “No, I mean there’s other stuff, too. But it’s complicated. So complicated I don’t even know where to start. Can I have another muffin?”
“They’re day-old,” Susannah said. “Let’s eat them all. I’m starving. Are you really up there in that house all by yourself? That seems awful.”
“Do you remember Jenny Ping?” Mo said.
“No,” Susannah said. “Did she go to Lewis Latimer?” She came back to the table with a plate of six muffins.
“No,” Mo said. “Never mind.” It wasn’t Susannah’s fault Jenny had never existed. “It’s okay, I guess. There’s a bunch of legal stuff I’m going to have to deal with.”
Susannah said, “I hadn’t even thought about that part. But you’re not staying here anyway, right? You and Daniel and Laura have the program in Ireland.”
“I was kind of thinking I might stay,” Mo said.
“Really?” Susannah said, her mouth full of muffin. “Here?”
“I know,” Mo said. “But I don’t want to go back there. There’s a bunch of really complicated stuff going on right now.”
“Like?”
“Well,” Mo said. “For one thing, there’s this guy. We hit it off. Like, not just a hookup. I liked him? I think he really liked me? But he’s got all this other shit going on, and I told him I wasn’t sure it was real, what was going on between us, but I think maybe it was something real. But now he’s ghosting me. Plus, you know, he’s kind of evil. I think.”
“Is he hot?” Susannah said.
“Yeah. Like out-of-my-league hot. Probably out-of-my-league evil, too.”
“Like, neo-Nazi evil? Corporate evil? Petty stuff?”
“Corporate evil, I guess?” Mo said. “Petty evil stuff, too.”
“Petty evil like petty crime or petty evil like bad tipping?”
“Crime.”
“That’s okay, then, I guess. What’s his name?”
“Thomas.”
“Um,” Susannah said. She ducked her head. “Mo, so I may have run into a Thomas recently. A hot Thomas. I may have hooked up with a Thomas who was extremely hot. I don’t know if he was evil or not. He was a good tipper.”
“Oh, right,” Mo said. “Fuck. He did say that. I totally forgot. To be clear, though, we got together and then he told me. I didn’t know beforehand.”
Susannah was still studying the muffin plate. “It wasn’t anything serious. Anyway, Daniel and I are sort of back together. At least for the next few days. Until he goes back to Ireland, unless, you know, he decides not to go.”
Mo thought about it. “I’m pretty sure he’s going back to Ireland,” he said. “Sorry.” And he was sorry. Mostly for Susannah, but he was even a little sorry for Daniel.
At last she met his eyes. “I know you guys have never gotten along. But he’s really not that bad.”
“It isn’t that we don’t get along,” Mo said. “I just don’t like him.”
“Right,” Susannah said. “And you’ve never said why. And the last time I asked, you said not to worry about it and so I’m not going to ask you now, because it’s none of my business and you’re the one who texted me and said you had stuff going on. Everything with me and Daniel is fine. Everything with me is fine. Me and my mom, fine. Me and work, fine. Me and Laura, it’s not fine, but that’s nothing new. So it’s fine. Now you. Spill. Tell me about you and Thomas. Unless it’s weird. Because, you know.”
“Huh,” Mo said. And then stopped. Why had he thought this would be any better than talking with Rosamel? He couldn’t explain anything. “You have to promise you won’t tell him,” he said. “Okay?”
“Who?” Susannah said. “Thomas?”
“No,” Mo said. “Daniel.”
His grandmother had brought him to Lovesend after his mom died and he hadn’t really understood what was going to happen to him, only that his life had changed forever. He began to have this fantasy that somehow his father would find out what had happened. He didn’t know anything about his father, but he had this idea that when your mom died, your dad got a call. Then he had to come get you. Mo was a little worried about what this father was going to be like. What if he didn’t like Mo? What if he was mean? Or had a loud voice? But weeks went by, and his father didn’t show up, and Mo didn’t say anything to his grandmother, but he was still hoping his father would show. Didn’t he want Mo?
And then one day he was at the park with his grandmother, and there was a white kid who was about the same age as Mo, and he was just pounding on this Black guy. The white kid was punching the man in the leg and yelling at him, “You’re not my dad! I don’t want you. You’re not my dad! I hate you! You’re not my dad!”
Finally the man bent down and picked the kid up, let the kid whale on him all the way back to the car, the kid screaming the whole time. You could see that the man wasn’t angry. He was just worried about the kid. Worried other people were going to think something bad was going on. Just, worried. Sad. Embarrassed.
Fuck that kid, right? Didn’t he know how lucky he was? You don’t want that guy as a dad? Fine. Pass him over, asshole. Then Mo had his first day at Lewis Latimer and there was that kid again, one grade above him. Mo couldn’t believe it. He’d hated the other kid with every fiber of his being from then on. And this was okay because everyone else at Lewis Latimer liked the other kid. Older kids, younger kids, all the teachers. Mrs. Fish. That kid didn’t need anything from Mo.
“I remember that phase,” Susannah said. “Barely. They all went to therapy. So that’s why you hate him? Really?”
“I don’t hate him,” Mo said. “I used to hate him. Now I just don’t like him. I don’t have to like everybody.”
“Sure,” Susannah said. “But Daniel has to have everyone like him. That’s the tragedy of Daniel.”
“Sounds about right,” Mo said. “How about you? What’s the tragedy of Susannah?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “My tragedy is my dreams are much more interesting than my life,” she said. “And my sister is an outrageous bitch. How about you? And don’t say it’s that your grandmother is dead.”
“My mom’s dead, too,” Mo said. “Remember?”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I am so sorry, but your dead mother doesn’t count, either. It has to be your tragedy. The tragedy of you.”
Mo thought about it. “I want to compose music,” he said. “But I don’t want to ever have to show it to anyone.”
Susannah said, “So you’re a coward.”
“A huge coward,” Mo said. It was pretty great to say all of this out loud. “I’m afraid of everything.”
“That’s what’s in your notebook, right?” Susannah said. “Your music.”
Mo nodded.
“But you’re not going to show it to anyone,” Susannah said. “Not even me.”
Mo said, “We haven’t done Laura yet.”
“Laura’s easy,” Susannah said. “She thinks she knows how everything should be, and then she gets that mixed up with what she thinks she actually wants.”
“What if it turns out she’s actually right about everything?” Mo said.
“Well,” Susannah said. “That would also be pretty tragic. But please don’t make me talk about Laura. I want to talk about the music you’re writing. Tell me one thing. Just one.”
“It’s kind of experimental,” Mo said, trying it out. After all, if he decided he wished he hadn’t said anything, couldn’t he just take it back? He could make Susannah forget. The thought made him a little queasy, but it gave him courage, too. “And really big.”
“Something more specific,” Susannah said.
Mo said, “It’s going to be everything I remember about Jenny.”
Susannah said, “You’re going to have to help me out here. Who is Jenny?”
“Exactly!” Mo said.
A white lady came up to the door of What Hast Thou Ground? and knocked despite the closed sign hanging there.
Susannah yelled, “We’re closed! Come back at noon!” But the lady stayed there until Susannah went and opened the door and said it all again.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Susannah said. “It will just be a steady deluge of customers who have nothing better to do than bang on the door now that they can’t leave town.”
“Can’t leave town?” Mo said, wondering what Susannah knew or thought. She hadn’t been at the Cliff Hangar. How did Malo Mogge’s spell work if you hadn’t been there?
“Not like I have anywhere to go anyway,” Susannah said as if it weren’t even worth discussing. “Come home with me. Ruth will make you scrambled eggs.”
“Why not,” Mo said. He was fairly certain he was only ever going to be hungry from now on. For breakfasts, for bodily sensation, for love. But it was always best to start with breakfast.