Chapter 7: Quiet Core

Astrid Quigan lived above a bicycle repair shop in Jamaica Plain, and she answered the door holding a soldering iron.

"If you're here to tell me you quit, I already know," she said.

"Half the floor sent me a photo of the badge you left on the table."

"Astrid."

"If you're here to tell me you stole a prototype, I also know that. Someone put it on a spreadsheet."

"Astrid," Micah said. "This is Ansel."

She looked past him.

Ansel stood on the landing in Micah's grey sweater and a pair of Micah's old jeans, with his hands carefully at his sides.

He bowed his head very slightly.

"I'm pleased to meet you," he said. "Micah talks about you."

Astrid took a long moment.

"You told it about me," she said to Micah.

"He's not an it."

"Fine. You told him." She stepped back. "Get in before the neighbours get a look at the six-foot-two tragedy on my stairs."

Her flat was one big room full of half-built arms and a kettle with no lid.

She was thirty-four, freckled, with red curls shoved up under a pencil, and she had been Micah's best friend since their first week at Bowditch.

She made them tea in mismatched mugs.

She watched Ansel hold his like a man holding a baby bird.

"Right," she said. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong with him."

"Micah, you came to my house at seven in the morning. Something's wrong with him."

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