Chapter 11: A Hickey

A hickey. Finnegan McRyan gave me a hickey. I'm going to kill him. Thank God, San Francisco is permanently celebrating fall, so I'll get away with using a scarf as a fashion statement to hide the small purple mark at the base of my neck. The blue scarf doesn't match my spring jacket, but I have no more time to waste.

Cars move at a snail's pace on the street as I push through my building's front door and stop outside. I wore jeans and sneakers to make the walk to our brunch meetup easier, but now the task is overwhelming no matter my footwear. Yesterday on a map, the walk from Pacific Heights to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood didn't seem so bad. Today I'm already an hour late and the idea of walking all the way past Golden Gate Park for some Tahiti French Toast sounds impossible. It's all uphill.