And the Band Plays On

We’re in my room, the two of us, the door wide open because it’s summer, and the air conditioner works as often as it doesn’t.

You know this. You’ve been over to my place so many times, you have your own cup in my cabinet. The security guard greets you by name, and the building manager, along with everyone in my hall, likes you better than they like me.

I don’t mind. I like you better too.

I tell you I heard this song the other day. One that played in some store a long time ago. I thought it was awful at first, but it kept on looping. Not in the store. Just in my head.

“The hook was buried so deep in my brain, I knew I would never get it out,” I say. “So I went home and looked it up and listened to it again. It didn’t hit the same, though, so I sort of forgot about it.”

“Okay,” you say. Your drink is by your knee, on the uneven carpet, one wrong move from spilling itself all over the floor. The glass itself seems to be acutely aware of this, having broken out in a cold sweat.

“Except today,” I continue, “I heard it in a different store, and it felt so familiar and weirdly nostalgic, as if it meant more to me than it really did. So I came home and downloaded it, and now I listen to it all the time, even though I would never, ever play it for anyone but you. You know?”

You don’t reply immediately. When you do, your voice is strained, as if it takes a Herculean amount of effort to speak on a day this hot.

“No,” you say. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pursing my lips, I grab my phone, open my music app, and tap a track from my “Songs to Never, Ever Show Anyone” playlist. Soft, almost weak vocals layer themselves over canned claps and something that sounds like a stoned cicada. There are three and a half minutes’ worth of lyrics in this song, but I can only tell you about ten of them, none of which I find particularly poignant or meaningful.

At first, you furrow your brow. You aren’t disgusted, exactly. Nor are you pleased. You’re more fascinated than anything, as if you’re observing the careful dissection of a small, previously undiscovered animal.

A male vocalist briefly takes over. Your frown deepens. You tilt your head to the left, recalibrating. Do you like it? Do you prefer his voice to the girl’s? You aren’t sure. You need more time.

A switch back to the girl. You pull your mouth to the side. Then, deciding you like her voice better, you lean your elbow on your thigh and rest your head on your hand. Beside you, your drink continues to perspire.

We haven’t discussed it yet. What will happen when you go. If you will repossess the cup you keep at my apartment or if it will stay with me. A part of me even thinks we’ll split custody somehow, shipping it back and forth, your glass functioning as our traumatized, eternally distressed child.

The instrumentation prunes itself out, leaving only the voices. The voices and the clapping. A few measures later, the vocals abruptly end. There aren’t even a few seconds of silence, a quick breather after such a befuddling song. If I hadn’t turned off autoplay years ago, we would have been launched right into the next track, with no time to recover.

After about ten seconds of silence, you say, “Okay. I get it now.”

“I know,” I say, because I do. I know it, and I know you. Sometimes, I think you are the only part of my life to make sense. I don’t want to think about the end of this summer. How, once it’s over, you will leave me and my neighbors and my hollow cabinet behind.

For a minute, neither of us speaks.

Then you say, “That song is awful. I mean, it’s just godawful.”

“It is,” I admit, “but it’s familiar now, you know?”

You do. You know. It makes perfect sense to you.

You take a breath. I shake my head. You don’t even need to speak. I wordlessly hand you my phone so you can retrieve the name of the song.

“Thanks.” You tap away on your own device, then set it off to the side. “I can’t wait to add it to all my playlists and complain about it incessantly every time it comes on.”

I give you a mirthless smile. “I hope, when you hear it, you always think of me.”

You turn your head, your eyes hooded. “I’ll always think of you anyway.”

We slip into soundlessness. Above us, the air conditioner cranks out what little relief it can give us from the relentless heat. Somewhere outside, too far for us to reach, an old-fashioned ice cream truck circles the block. Its tinny tune reaches a crescendo, then slowly fades away.

“I want to hear that song again,” you tell me.

I toss you a smirk, trying to ignore the tug in my chest.

You glance back down at my phone. A second later, a grin takes over your whole face.

You know now. You see it.

I’ve already pressed play.

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