“Between you and me,” Cal went on, “Rae called me yesterday and told me she was worried about October. She was the one who suggested I come back. I canceled a bunch of radio promos to get home for a few days, which did not make my label happy. I expected October would be glad to see me, glad I’d made the effort, but when I walked in this morning she seemed more spooked than excited.”

Fucking Rae, I thought. What a yeah-saying, feet-shuffling, raisin-and-almond-eating buttinsky she was.

“Did she say anything else?” I asked nervously. “Rae, I mean.”

Cal shook his head. “October gets like this when she’s overworked. Super-introverted. Doesn’t like to be around people. But I’m usually an exception to that.”

“She has been working like crazy the last couple of weeks.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” he said.

Cal and I went to a local brewpub for burgers and beers. At first we were seated near the window, but Mill Valley is a small town. Cal kept getting tapped on the shoulder by people who knew him and wanted to say hi or knew who he was and wanted to meet him. Especially women. He still clearly commanded—and enjoyed—the attention of women.

I found it amusing and fascinating that so many people recognized my old friend. Of course I was aware of how successful he had become, theoretically anyway, but I’d never considered how that success might play itself out in his daily life. I’d never even imagined Cal in Mill Valley as an adult. I’d always imagined him wandering the streets of New York, cool, carefree, and invulnerable, a force field around him like a rock star superhero.

It was touching for me to see how well he handled the attention. Despite all he’d accomplished, he was the same person I’d known in high school—funny, talkative, focused, and flirty. Success hadn’t seemed to change him in any overt way. If anything, it had loosened him up a bit. He finished his first beer before I finished mine and asked for another round before we ordered our food. The teenage Cal would have stopped at one and lectured me about discipline. The adult Cal was a lot more relaxed.

After a pushy man with a sweater tied around his neck came over and insisted Cal take a photo with his son, Cal chatted up the hostess, who agreed to move us to a reserved table in the back of the restaurant where Cal could sit facing away from the room; we weren’t bothered again.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re really famous.”