“The one in the purple tie?”
“Exactly.”
I gave him the look I would give the man.
“You’re hired.”

Ambrose wasn’t really so eccentric, he just did something like that every once in a while to keep a hand in the eccentric game. The truth is, he shopped at Sears without a shred of irony. Even so, he would never have said a word to me if I hadn’t somehow become reed thin over the summer and quite accidentally gotten the chic-est bob ever to sally forth from Supercuts.

Ambrose handed me a drink from a tray that was going around on the arm of a very worried waitress.

“Have you ever been a muse before?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Never?”
“Jim Jackson was once inspired to write about me on a bathroom wall.”
“What became of it?”
“Luke told everybody Jim was gay.”
“And what became of that?”
“It turned out Luke was gay.”
“Who’s Luke?”
“He’s over there.”
“He’s hired too.”

Of course I’m an orphan. What became of all this was the type of thing that never happens to people with concerned parents, or at least not to decent people with concerned parents. Decent people realize that it’s very important to value family ties. Besides, it wasn’t glamorous all the time. It mostly was, though. Luke and I had planned for just such an eventuality all along. We were entirely premeditated and wonderful at hiding it. That was why Ambrose needed us.

It’s late to be leaving the city, but we have to speak to Him. I know what He’ll say. No. I know how what He’ll say will feel. It won’t be a slap in the face so much as a long shallow gash exacted, maybe, with the sharpened edge of a monocle. We can’t do it without Him.

Nicholas is driving and talking to me. He is nervous-upbeat. We both wore trench coats, which is fortunate because it’s raining now. We didn’t know it would rain when we put them on. We didn’t know we would look the same. I’m not listening to him. I am watching God’s tears trace wet comet-tail trails across the windows, and uttering a gentle-gutteral “Mmm” in response. He isn’t satisfied by this. I tune in.

“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” “I couldn’t tell you.”

We laugh at this. So intimately, Nicholas and I. Is this how it was when there were only two people in the cart to the guillotine? Were there ever only two in the cart to the guillotine?

“You’re over-dramatizing this in your head, aren’t you? You’re making French Resistance analogies.” “French Revolution.” “Close enough.” “Not at all.” “How bad can it be?”

I won’t tell him if he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t because he was never under His thumb all the way. He was a father-figure of sorts to me. Of a very strange sort. Now I’ll be soothing.

“Nice coat.”

And he smiles. He turns on the radio and I put my head back to listen. The box rattles slightly on the backseat where he placed it so lovingly. Le Marseillaise echoes faintly in my brain. I wonder if Nicholas can hear it.