One last stop, p.28
One Last Stop, page 28
“I thought you were gonna go back after three?”
August rolls back over and curls around her pillow. “Yeah, that was before I knew trying to save her life might get her killed. Now I feel like maybe she was right to want me to leave her alone.”
Myla sighs, leaning against the doorframe. “Look, remember what we said when you first moved in and I made you listen to Joy Division? We’ll figure it out. We have most of a plan now.”
“I think I know everything, but I don’t,” August mumbles. “Maybe I started with a relationship difficulty level too far above my skill set.”
“Oh, we’re in self-pity mode,” Myla says. “I can’t help you with that. Good luck, though! Talk to Jane!”
Myla leaves August in her unwashed sheets, feeling sorry for herself, tasting strawberry milkshake on the back of her tongue.
Her phone buzzes somewhere in the tangle of her bed.
It’s probably another passive-aggressive text from her mom, or Niko in the group chat checking the household rice inventory from the grocery store. She grumbles and fishes it out from beneath her ass.
Her breath hitches. It’s Jane.
Put the radio on.
She catches the outro of a Beach Boys song, fading into warm quiet, before the early morning DJ’s voice picks up over the waves.
“That was ‘I Know There’s an Answer’ from the album Pet Sounds, and you’re listening to WTKF 90.9, your one-stop shop for the new, the old, the whatever, as long as it’s good,” he says. “This next one’s a request from a frequent caller, one with a taste for the oldies. And this one’s a goodie. It goes out to August—Jane says she’s sorry.”
The intro comes up, drums and strings, and August knows it right away. The first song they chased a memory to, the one they played on her clumsy attempt at a first date.
Oh, girl, I’d be in trouble if you left me now.…
Her phone thumps down onto her chest.
The song buzzes over her little speakers and the music wells up wistful and heartsick, and she pictures that seven-inch single Jane told her about. For the first time, she really sees it: Jane, 1977, on her own and alive.
It’s hard to believe colors looked the same back then, crisp and bright and present, not washed-out, grainy sepia, but there it is. Strings and faraway vocals and Jane. There’s her skin glowing golden under crosswalk lights as she carries a bundle of new records home. There’s the stack of books on her nightstand. There’s the Indian place she used to like, the cigarettes she used to bum when she was stressed, the woman down the hall who makes the terrible pierogies, a tube of toothpaste rolled up at the end with CREST in the big block letters of a discontinued font.
There’s the bright red of her sneakers, fresh out the box, and the sun that used to fall across her bedroom floor, and the mirror where she checked the swoop of her hair, and the blue sky over her head. She’s there. Only leaving what she means to leave. Exactly where she’s supposed to be.
Jane’s been on the train thinking of home, and August has been at home thinking of Jane moving in, cooking breakfast, building a life with her. It feels like a million years ago that she sat over a plate of fries at Billy’s and told Myla that they had to help her no matter what. Even if she lost her. She really did believe it.
Another text. Jane.
Come back.
Maybe that’s the worst thing August can do. Maybe it’s the only thing.
She rolls out of bed and reaches for her keys.
13
Radio transcript from WTKF 90.9 FM
Broadcast November 14, 1976
STEVEN STRONG, HOST: That was “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, and you’re listening to 90.9 The Mix, your home for everything you want to listen to at the push of a button. Hope you’re staying warm out there, New York—it’s a cold one tonight. Up next, I have a request from a Jane in Brooklyn, who wanted to hear from some of our favorite British boys. This is “Love of My Life” by Queen.
Jane’s not on the train.
August tries to pick her way through the people clogging the aisle, but it’s packed tight and she’s too short to see over their heads. She ends up jostled to the end of the car, and she clambers up onto the one empty seat to see if the boost helps.
It doesn’t.
Something lodges in her throat. Jane’s not there. She’s never not been there before.
No, no, no, not possible. It’s only been a few days since August saw her, less than an hour since she heard from her. That song was just on the radio. She doesn’t completely understand this tether between them, but it can’t be that fragile. Jane can’t be gone. She can’t be.
She drops down onto the floor, panic prickling along the bones of her fingers and wrists.
August didn’t have enough time. They’ve spent months digging Jane up, one scoop at a time, and she’s supposed to live. Jane is supposed to have a life, even if it’s not with her.
The track bends, and August stumbles. Her shoulders hit the metal wall of the car.
Maybe she missed her. Maybe she can get off at the next stop and try another car. Maybe she can grab a train in the opposite direction and Jane will be there, like always, book in hand and a mischievous smile. Maybe there’s still time. Maybe—
She turns her head, glancing through the window at the end of the car.
There’s someone sitting in the last seat of the next car over, absently looking back at her. The collar of her jacket’s flipped up around her jaw, and her dark hair is falling in her eyes. She looks miserable.
“Jane!” August shouts, even though Jane can’t hear her. All she must see is the cartoonish shape of August’s mouth miming her name, but it’s enough. It’s enough for her to jump out of her seat, and August can see Jane call her name back. It might be the best thing she’s ever seen.
She watches Jane lunge sideways—the emergency exit—and she reaches for hers. It comes open easily, and there’s the tiny platform she remembers so well, and Jane’s on the next one, close enough to touch, beaming out the back of a speeding train, and August was wrong—this is the best thing she’s ever seen.
There aren’t perfect moments in life, not really, not when shit has gotten as weird as it can get and you’re broke in a mean city and the things that hurt feel so big. But there’s the wind flying and the weight of months and a girl hanging out an emergency exit, train roaring all around, tunnel lights flashing, and it feels perfect. It feels insane and impossible and perfect. Jane reels her in by the side of her neck, right there between the subway cars, and kisses her like it’s the end of the world.
She lets August go as they exit the tunnel into blazing sunlight.
“I’m sorry!” Jane shouts.
“I’m sorry!” August shouts back.
“It’s okay!”
“Do you fuckin’ mind?” a guy yells from behind her.
Oh fuck. Right. Other people exist, somehow.
“You better get over here before someone pushes me off!”
Jane laughs and jumps over, grabbing August’s shoulders on the way, the momentum carrying them through the door. August catches Jane right before she staggers into the pissed-off guy in a Yankees hat.
“You done?” he says. “It’s the fuckin’ subway, not the fuckin’ Notebook. Wanna get us all fuckin’ stuck here for an hour while they scrape a couple of lesbians off the fuckin’ tracks—”
“You’re right!” Jane says through a slightly hysterical laugh, snatching August’s hand up and tugging her away. “Don’t know what we were thinking!”
“I’m actually bisexual!” August adds faintly over her shoulder.
They make their way to the other side of the car, past strollers and umbrellas, past khaki-covered knees and bags of groceries, to a pocket of space near the last pole, and Jane whips around to face her.
“I was—”
“You were—”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I should have—”
Jane stops, holding in a mouthful of laughter. August has never been so happy to see her, not even those early days when she was a fever of an idea. She’s not an idea anymore—she’s Jane, hardheaded Jane, runaway Jane, smart-mouthed Jane, bruise-knuckled, soft-hearted agitator Jane. The girl stuck on the line with August’s heart in the pocket of her ratty jeans.
“You go first,” she says.
August leans her shoulder against the pole, edging closer. “You were—not totally wrong. I was doing this for you, or at least I think I was, but you’re right. I didn’t want you to go back.” Her instincts say to shift her eyes anywhere but to Jane, but she doesn’t. She looks Jane straight in the eyes and says, “I wanted—I want you to stay here, with me. And that’s fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
There’s a second of quiet, Jane looking at her, and then she shrugs her backpack off and hands August something from the side pocket.
“You’re not the only one who has notebooks,” Jane says quietly.
It’s a tiny, battered Moleskine folded open to a page covered in Jane’s messy handwriting: Overwatch. Frank Ocean. Easy Mac. Apple vs. PC. Postmates. Barack Obama. The Golden Girls. Instagram. Jurassic Park. Gogurt. Jolly Ranchers. Star Wars. What is a prequel?
“What is this?”
“It’s a list,” Jane says. “Of things and people you’ve mentioned, or Niko or Myla or Wes, or people I’ve overheard on the train. There’s a lot I have to catch up on.”
August pulls her eyes up to search Jane’s face. She looks … nervous.
“How long have you been making this?” August asks.
She rubs a hand over the short hairs at the back of her neck. “A few months.”
“You—you want to know all this stuff? You never asked. I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I didn’t, at first,” Jane admits. “I wanted to go back, and I was so determined to get there that I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t want to know anything that might make it harder. But then there was you, and I wanted to know what made you you, and I—I don’t know.” She kicks the toe of her sneaker against the floor. “At some point I guess I decided … it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I had to stay. It could be okay.”
August clutches the Moleskine to her chest. “I—I know I said—but I didn’t think you’d actually want to stay. You really mean that?”
“Part of me, yeah. You were right. There’s a lot more to it than going back to where I started. I mean, I ride this train every day, and I see gay people just holding hands in public, in front of everyone, and most of the time, nobody fucks with them, and that’s … I don’t know if you realize how crazy that is to me. I know things aren’t perfect, but at least if I stayed, it’d be different.” She’s been studying her cuticles, but she looks up. “And I could be with you.”
August’s mouth falls open.
“With me.”
“Yeah, I—I know what it would cost me, but … I don’t know. All this—this whole mess—it scares the shit out of me.” She swallows, sets her jaw. “But the thought of staying with you doesn’t scare me at all.”
“I didn’t—I thought this was just a good time to you.”
That earns her a short, quiet laugh.
“I wanted it to be, but it’s not. It hasn’t ever been.” Her eyes have this way of swallowing up the grimy fluorescent light of the train and transforming it into something new. Right now, when she looks at August: stars. The goddamn Milky Way. “What is it to you?”
“It’s—you’re—God, Jane, it’s … I want you,” August says. It’s not eloquent or cool, but it’s true, finally. “Whatever it means, however you want me, as long as you’re here, that’s what it is to me, and maybe that sounds desperate, but I—”
She never gets to finish, because Jane’s yanking her in and kissing her, drinking down the rest of her sentence.
August touches her face and opens her eyes, breaking off to demand, “What does that mean?”
“It means I—you—” Jane attempts. She leans down for another kiss, but August holds her stubbornly in place. “Okay—yeah, I want that. I want what you want.”
“Okay,” August says. She licks her lips. They taste like a clean room and a full house and a 4.5 GPA. Like her own specific heaven. “So, we’re—we’re together until we’re not, if that’s what it comes down to.”
“Yeah,” Jane says.
It’s as simple as that, one syllable dropping off Jane’s tongue, two pairs of sneakers tucked between each other, this long career of wanting but not having and having but not knowing folded up into a word.
“Okay,” August says. “I can live with that.”
“Even if I end up leaving?”
“It doesn’t matter,” August says, even though it does. It matters, but it doesn’t make a difference. “Whatever happens, I want you.”
She rises up on her toes and kisses Jane, short, soft, a flashbulb burst, and Jane says, “But in case I do end up staying … you have to teach me about my list.”
August opens her eyes. “Really?”
“I mean, I can’t just jump into the twenty-first century without knowing how the wifey works—”
“Wi-Fi.”
“See!” She points at August. “Tip of the iceberg, Landry. You’ve got so much to teach me.”
August grins as the train stops at Union Square and commuters start piling off, freeing up a few spaces on the bench. “All right. Sit down. I’ll tell you about the Fast and Furious franchise. That’ll be a good hour.”
Jane does, kicking one foot up and folding her hands behind her head.
“Man,” she says, smiling up at August. “I’m having one hell of a year.”
* * *
August waits until the next day to bring it up.
Sometimes, the process of bringing back Jane’s memories feels mystical and profound, like they’re digging around in invisible magic, pulling up wispy roots. But a lot of the time, it’s this: August shoving a PBR tallboy into a brown paper bag and carrying it down to the subway at one in the afternoon like a lush, hoping the smell of shitty beer will jog something in Jane’s brain.
“Okay, so,” August says when she sits. “I found something out, and I—I didn’t tell you because we weren’t talking, but I need to tell you now, because you need to remember the rest. This might be really big.”
Jane eyes her warily. “Okay…”
“All right, so, um, first let me give you this.” August hands her the beer, shooting a glare at a tourist who looks up from his guidebook to goggle at them. “You don’t have to drink it, but Jerry mentioned that the two of you used to drink them together, so I thought the smell might help.”
“Okay,” Jane says. She cracks the can open. The tourist makes a disapproving noise, and Jane rolls her eyes at him. “You’re gonna see worse things than this on the subway, man.” She turns back to August. “I’m ready.”
August clears her throat. “So … have you ever heard of the New York blackout of 1977? Huge power outage across most of the city?”
“Um … no. No, I guess that was after I got down here. Sounds like hell, though.”
“Yeah, so … you remember Jerry? The cook at Billy’s?”
Jane nods, her mouth quirking in a fond smile. “Yeah.”
“I talked to him about you, and he … um, I think he told me how you got stuck.”
Jane’s been holding the PBR up to her nose to sniff it, but she lowers it at that. “What?”
“Yeah, he—the last time he saw you was your last day in New York. The two of you went to Coney Island and got drunk together, and y’all were waiting for the Q when the blackout happened. He said he never saw or heard from you again. And if that was supposed to be your last day, it would explain why none of your friends looked for you when you disappeared. They basically thought you ghosted them.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t a ghost.”
“No,” August says, biting back a smile, “it’s, like, an expression for when you cut contact with someone without explanation.”
“Oh, so they … they thought I just left without saying goodbye?”
That brings August up short.
She leans in, touches Jane’s knee. “Do you want to take a break?”
“No,” Jane says, shrugging it off. “I’m fine. What’s your question?”
“My question is if you can remember anything else that happened that night.”
Jane squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m—I’m trying.”
“He said he fell on the tracks, and you jumped down to help him back up.”
Her eyes are closed, hand still curled around the beer. Something faint slides over her face.
“I jumped down…” she repeats.
The doors open at a new stop, and a tourist pushes past them, his suitcase slamming into Jane’s knee. Her beer sloshes out of the can and all over the sleeve of her jacket, dripping onto her jeans.
“Hey, asshole, watch where you’re going!” August yells. She reaches out to brush the beer off, but Jane’s eyes have snapped open. “Jane?”
“He spilled a beer,” Jane says. “Jerry. We were … we were drinking Pabst from my backpack on the beach. It was the middle of a heat wave, and he kept giving me shit for carrying my leather jacket around, but I told him he just didn’t understand my devotion to the punk lifestyle, and we laughed. And he…” Her eyes slide shut, like she’s lost in the memory. “Oh man, then a wave knocked him off-balance and he spilled his whole beer, and I told him it was time to get him home before I had to fish his stupid drunk ass out of the Atlantic. We went to catch the Q, and he started throwing up, then he fell on the tracks. I—I remember he was wearing a fucking CCR T-shirt. And I helped him out, but then I—oh. Oh.”
She opens her eyes, looking right back at August.
“What?”
“I tripped. I dropped my backpack, and every—everything I care about is in here, so I was trying to get it, and I tripped. And I fell. On the third rail. I remember seeing the third rail right in front of my face, and I thought, ‘Fuck, this is it. This is how I die. That’s so fucking stupid.’ And then … there’s nothing.”
August rolls back over and curls around her pillow. “Yeah, that was before I knew trying to save her life might get her killed. Now I feel like maybe she was right to want me to leave her alone.”
Myla sighs, leaning against the doorframe. “Look, remember what we said when you first moved in and I made you listen to Joy Division? We’ll figure it out. We have most of a plan now.”
“I think I know everything, but I don’t,” August mumbles. “Maybe I started with a relationship difficulty level too far above my skill set.”
“Oh, we’re in self-pity mode,” Myla says. “I can’t help you with that. Good luck, though! Talk to Jane!”
Myla leaves August in her unwashed sheets, feeling sorry for herself, tasting strawberry milkshake on the back of her tongue.
Her phone buzzes somewhere in the tangle of her bed.
It’s probably another passive-aggressive text from her mom, or Niko in the group chat checking the household rice inventory from the grocery store. She grumbles and fishes it out from beneath her ass.
Her breath hitches. It’s Jane.
Put the radio on.
She catches the outro of a Beach Boys song, fading into warm quiet, before the early morning DJ’s voice picks up over the waves.
“That was ‘I Know There’s an Answer’ from the album Pet Sounds, and you’re listening to WTKF 90.9, your one-stop shop for the new, the old, the whatever, as long as it’s good,” he says. “This next one’s a request from a frequent caller, one with a taste for the oldies. And this one’s a goodie. It goes out to August—Jane says she’s sorry.”
The intro comes up, drums and strings, and August knows it right away. The first song they chased a memory to, the one they played on her clumsy attempt at a first date.
Oh, girl, I’d be in trouble if you left me now.…
Her phone thumps down onto her chest.
The song buzzes over her little speakers and the music wells up wistful and heartsick, and she pictures that seven-inch single Jane told her about. For the first time, she really sees it: Jane, 1977, on her own and alive.
It’s hard to believe colors looked the same back then, crisp and bright and present, not washed-out, grainy sepia, but there it is. Strings and faraway vocals and Jane. There’s her skin glowing golden under crosswalk lights as she carries a bundle of new records home. There’s the stack of books on her nightstand. There’s the Indian place she used to like, the cigarettes she used to bum when she was stressed, the woman down the hall who makes the terrible pierogies, a tube of toothpaste rolled up at the end with CREST in the big block letters of a discontinued font.
There’s the bright red of her sneakers, fresh out the box, and the sun that used to fall across her bedroom floor, and the mirror where she checked the swoop of her hair, and the blue sky over her head. She’s there. Only leaving what she means to leave. Exactly where she’s supposed to be.
Jane’s been on the train thinking of home, and August has been at home thinking of Jane moving in, cooking breakfast, building a life with her. It feels like a million years ago that she sat over a plate of fries at Billy’s and told Myla that they had to help her no matter what. Even if she lost her. She really did believe it.
Another text. Jane.
Come back.
Maybe that’s the worst thing August can do. Maybe it’s the only thing.
She rolls out of bed and reaches for her keys.
13
Radio transcript from WTKF 90.9 FM
Broadcast November 14, 1976
STEVEN STRONG, HOST: That was “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, and you’re listening to 90.9 The Mix, your home for everything you want to listen to at the push of a button. Hope you’re staying warm out there, New York—it’s a cold one tonight. Up next, I have a request from a Jane in Brooklyn, who wanted to hear from some of our favorite British boys. This is “Love of My Life” by Queen.
Jane’s not on the train.
August tries to pick her way through the people clogging the aisle, but it’s packed tight and she’s too short to see over their heads. She ends up jostled to the end of the car, and she clambers up onto the one empty seat to see if the boost helps.
It doesn’t.
Something lodges in her throat. Jane’s not there. She’s never not been there before.
No, no, no, not possible. It’s only been a few days since August saw her, less than an hour since she heard from her. That song was just on the radio. She doesn’t completely understand this tether between them, but it can’t be that fragile. Jane can’t be gone. She can’t be.
She drops down onto the floor, panic prickling along the bones of her fingers and wrists.
August didn’t have enough time. They’ve spent months digging Jane up, one scoop at a time, and she’s supposed to live. Jane is supposed to have a life, even if it’s not with her.
The track bends, and August stumbles. Her shoulders hit the metal wall of the car.
Maybe she missed her. Maybe she can get off at the next stop and try another car. Maybe she can grab a train in the opposite direction and Jane will be there, like always, book in hand and a mischievous smile. Maybe there’s still time. Maybe—
She turns her head, glancing through the window at the end of the car.
There’s someone sitting in the last seat of the next car over, absently looking back at her. The collar of her jacket’s flipped up around her jaw, and her dark hair is falling in her eyes. She looks miserable.
“Jane!” August shouts, even though Jane can’t hear her. All she must see is the cartoonish shape of August’s mouth miming her name, but it’s enough. It’s enough for her to jump out of her seat, and August can see Jane call her name back. It might be the best thing she’s ever seen.
She watches Jane lunge sideways—the emergency exit—and she reaches for hers. It comes open easily, and there’s the tiny platform she remembers so well, and Jane’s on the next one, close enough to touch, beaming out the back of a speeding train, and August was wrong—this is the best thing she’s ever seen.
There aren’t perfect moments in life, not really, not when shit has gotten as weird as it can get and you’re broke in a mean city and the things that hurt feel so big. But there’s the wind flying and the weight of months and a girl hanging out an emergency exit, train roaring all around, tunnel lights flashing, and it feels perfect. It feels insane and impossible and perfect. Jane reels her in by the side of her neck, right there between the subway cars, and kisses her like it’s the end of the world.
She lets August go as they exit the tunnel into blazing sunlight.
“I’m sorry!” Jane shouts.
“I’m sorry!” August shouts back.
“It’s okay!”
“Do you fuckin’ mind?” a guy yells from behind her.
Oh fuck. Right. Other people exist, somehow.
“You better get over here before someone pushes me off!”
Jane laughs and jumps over, grabbing August’s shoulders on the way, the momentum carrying them through the door. August catches Jane right before she staggers into the pissed-off guy in a Yankees hat.
“You done?” he says. “It’s the fuckin’ subway, not the fuckin’ Notebook. Wanna get us all fuckin’ stuck here for an hour while they scrape a couple of lesbians off the fuckin’ tracks—”
“You’re right!” Jane says through a slightly hysterical laugh, snatching August’s hand up and tugging her away. “Don’t know what we were thinking!”
“I’m actually bisexual!” August adds faintly over her shoulder.
They make their way to the other side of the car, past strollers and umbrellas, past khaki-covered knees and bags of groceries, to a pocket of space near the last pole, and Jane whips around to face her.
“I was—”
“You were—”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I should have—”
Jane stops, holding in a mouthful of laughter. August has never been so happy to see her, not even those early days when she was a fever of an idea. She’s not an idea anymore—she’s Jane, hardheaded Jane, runaway Jane, smart-mouthed Jane, bruise-knuckled, soft-hearted agitator Jane. The girl stuck on the line with August’s heart in the pocket of her ratty jeans.
“You go first,” she says.
August leans her shoulder against the pole, edging closer. “You were—not totally wrong. I was doing this for you, or at least I think I was, but you’re right. I didn’t want you to go back.” Her instincts say to shift her eyes anywhere but to Jane, but she doesn’t. She looks Jane straight in the eyes and says, “I wanted—I want you to stay here, with me. And that’s fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
There’s a second of quiet, Jane looking at her, and then she shrugs her backpack off and hands August something from the side pocket.
“You’re not the only one who has notebooks,” Jane says quietly.
It’s a tiny, battered Moleskine folded open to a page covered in Jane’s messy handwriting: Overwatch. Frank Ocean. Easy Mac. Apple vs. PC. Postmates. Barack Obama. The Golden Girls. Instagram. Jurassic Park. Gogurt. Jolly Ranchers. Star Wars. What is a prequel?
“What is this?”
“It’s a list,” Jane says. “Of things and people you’ve mentioned, or Niko or Myla or Wes, or people I’ve overheard on the train. There’s a lot I have to catch up on.”
August pulls her eyes up to search Jane’s face. She looks … nervous.
“How long have you been making this?” August asks.
She rubs a hand over the short hairs at the back of her neck. “A few months.”
“You—you want to know all this stuff? You never asked. I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I didn’t, at first,” Jane admits. “I wanted to go back, and I was so determined to get there that I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t want to know anything that might make it harder. But then there was you, and I wanted to know what made you you, and I—I don’t know.” She kicks the toe of her sneaker against the floor. “At some point I guess I decided … it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I had to stay. It could be okay.”
August clutches the Moleskine to her chest. “I—I know I said—but I didn’t think you’d actually want to stay. You really mean that?”
“Part of me, yeah. You were right. There’s a lot more to it than going back to where I started. I mean, I ride this train every day, and I see gay people just holding hands in public, in front of everyone, and most of the time, nobody fucks with them, and that’s … I don’t know if you realize how crazy that is to me. I know things aren’t perfect, but at least if I stayed, it’d be different.” She’s been studying her cuticles, but she looks up. “And I could be with you.”
August’s mouth falls open.
“With me.”
“Yeah, I—I know what it would cost me, but … I don’t know. All this—this whole mess—it scares the shit out of me.” She swallows, sets her jaw. “But the thought of staying with you doesn’t scare me at all.”
“I didn’t—I thought this was just a good time to you.”
That earns her a short, quiet laugh.
“I wanted it to be, but it’s not. It hasn’t ever been.” Her eyes have this way of swallowing up the grimy fluorescent light of the train and transforming it into something new. Right now, when she looks at August: stars. The goddamn Milky Way. “What is it to you?”
“It’s—you’re—God, Jane, it’s … I want you,” August says. It’s not eloquent or cool, but it’s true, finally. “Whatever it means, however you want me, as long as you’re here, that’s what it is to me, and maybe that sounds desperate, but I—”
She never gets to finish, because Jane’s yanking her in and kissing her, drinking down the rest of her sentence.
August touches her face and opens her eyes, breaking off to demand, “What does that mean?”
“It means I—you—” Jane attempts. She leans down for another kiss, but August holds her stubbornly in place. “Okay—yeah, I want that. I want what you want.”
“Okay,” August says. She licks her lips. They taste like a clean room and a full house and a 4.5 GPA. Like her own specific heaven. “So, we’re—we’re together until we’re not, if that’s what it comes down to.”
“Yeah,” Jane says.
It’s as simple as that, one syllable dropping off Jane’s tongue, two pairs of sneakers tucked between each other, this long career of wanting but not having and having but not knowing folded up into a word.
“Okay,” August says. “I can live with that.”
“Even if I end up leaving?”
“It doesn’t matter,” August says, even though it does. It matters, but it doesn’t make a difference. “Whatever happens, I want you.”
She rises up on her toes and kisses Jane, short, soft, a flashbulb burst, and Jane says, “But in case I do end up staying … you have to teach me about my list.”
August opens her eyes. “Really?”
“I mean, I can’t just jump into the twenty-first century without knowing how the wifey works—”
“Wi-Fi.”
“See!” She points at August. “Tip of the iceberg, Landry. You’ve got so much to teach me.”
August grins as the train stops at Union Square and commuters start piling off, freeing up a few spaces on the bench. “All right. Sit down. I’ll tell you about the Fast and Furious franchise. That’ll be a good hour.”
Jane does, kicking one foot up and folding her hands behind her head.
“Man,” she says, smiling up at August. “I’m having one hell of a year.”
* * *
August waits until the next day to bring it up.
Sometimes, the process of bringing back Jane’s memories feels mystical and profound, like they’re digging around in invisible magic, pulling up wispy roots. But a lot of the time, it’s this: August shoving a PBR tallboy into a brown paper bag and carrying it down to the subway at one in the afternoon like a lush, hoping the smell of shitty beer will jog something in Jane’s brain.
“Okay, so,” August says when she sits. “I found something out, and I—I didn’t tell you because we weren’t talking, but I need to tell you now, because you need to remember the rest. This might be really big.”
Jane eyes her warily. “Okay…”
“All right, so, um, first let me give you this.” August hands her the beer, shooting a glare at a tourist who looks up from his guidebook to goggle at them. “You don’t have to drink it, but Jerry mentioned that the two of you used to drink them together, so I thought the smell might help.”
“Okay,” Jane says. She cracks the can open. The tourist makes a disapproving noise, and Jane rolls her eyes at him. “You’re gonna see worse things than this on the subway, man.” She turns back to August. “I’m ready.”
August clears her throat. “So … have you ever heard of the New York blackout of 1977? Huge power outage across most of the city?”
“Um … no. No, I guess that was after I got down here. Sounds like hell, though.”
“Yeah, so … you remember Jerry? The cook at Billy’s?”
Jane nods, her mouth quirking in a fond smile. “Yeah.”
“I talked to him about you, and he … um, I think he told me how you got stuck.”
Jane’s been holding the PBR up to her nose to sniff it, but she lowers it at that. “What?”
“Yeah, he—the last time he saw you was your last day in New York. The two of you went to Coney Island and got drunk together, and y’all were waiting for the Q when the blackout happened. He said he never saw or heard from you again. And if that was supposed to be your last day, it would explain why none of your friends looked for you when you disappeared. They basically thought you ghosted them.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t a ghost.”
“No,” August says, biting back a smile, “it’s, like, an expression for when you cut contact with someone without explanation.”
“Oh, so they … they thought I just left without saying goodbye?”
That brings August up short.
She leans in, touches Jane’s knee. “Do you want to take a break?”
“No,” Jane says, shrugging it off. “I’m fine. What’s your question?”
“My question is if you can remember anything else that happened that night.”
Jane squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m—I’m trying.”
“He said he fell on the tracks, and you jumped down to help him back up.”
Her eyes are closed, hand still curled around the beer. Something faint slides over her face.
“I jumped down…” she repeats.
The doors open at a new stop, and a tourist pushes past them, his suitcase slamming into Jane’s knee. Her beer sloshes out of the can and all over the sleeve of her jacket, dripping onto her jeans.
“Hey, asshole, watch where you’re going!” August yells. She reaches out to brush the beer off, but Jane’s eyes have snapped open. “Jane?”
“He spilled a beer,” Jane says. “Jerry. We were … we were drinking Pabst from my backpack on the beach. It was the middle of a heat wave, and he kept giving me shit for carrying my leather jacket around, but I told him he just didn’t understand my devotion to the punk lifestyle, and we laughed. And he…” Her eyes slide shut, like she’s lost in the memory. “Oh man, then a wave knocked him off-balance and he spilled his whole beer, and I told him it was time to get him home before I had to fish his stupid drunk ass out of the Atlantic. We went to catch the Q, and he started throwing up, then he fell on the tracks. I—I remember he was wearing a fucking CCR T-shirt. And I helped him out, but then I—oh. Oh.”
She opens her eyes, looking right back at August.
“What?”
“I tripped. I dropped my backpack, and every—everything I care about is in here, so I was trying to get it, and I tripped. And I fell. On the third rail. I remember seeing the third rail right in front of my face, and I thought, ‘Fuck, this is it. This is how I die. That’s so fucking stupid.’ And then … there’s nothing.”
