Written by: Petrana Radulovic
I.
It’s the start of it all, a hot summer night, your hands on the keys of a piano in a small smoke-filled bar. And your eyes meet hers across the room, where she sits, out of place a bit, looking for someone who maybe should’ve showed up a while ago, who maybe was not going to show up. She meets your eyes and you smile. Her eyes widen for a moment and then she smiles back and something about her smile makes you giddy.
II.
“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” she admits, when you’re done at the stage and you buy her a drink and asks what she’s doing alone.
You’re not an asshole, so you don’t egg her on, don’t ask where her boyfriend is now, don’t pursue it.
You ask, instead, about the necklace she’s wearing, the one with a quote from The Great Gatsby on it, and she touches it gently as she recites, “At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
III.
Her boyfriend shows up. You smile, greet him. You’re not a threat. You’re not an asshole, so you don’t egg her on, don’t egg him on.
It’s summer and you get a drink with your friends and it’s late now. Maybe you should be home. They ask about that girl at your gig and you smile and shake your head and your best friend slaps you across the back and tells you to get a hold of yourself before you do something you regret.
IV.
You see her again the next night. You’re not playing that night, but you’re in the back, leaning against the counter, watching the person who is playing. You see her walk in, slightly on her tiptoes, glancing around, searching, looking.
You call her name.
She turns around and then there’s that smile again.
You ask her what she’s doing here.
“That music,” she says. “I can’t get that music out of my head. I need to hear it again.”
V.
You dance with her that night. It’s just dancing. You’re not in the bar, you’re in the streets and music spills from every corner and well, you did tell her you were going to help her follow the music.
She looks at you and her eyes are shining. She smiles. It’s all light.
VI.
You think about how her lips would taste.
Even when you kiss other girls, who taste sweet, who taste spicy, who tease you and flirth with you and want you, you think of dancing with her in the music and in the light and you think of how she would taste like a breath of fresh air.
VII.
She comes again. Always alone.
You’re not an asshole, you don’t egg her on.
She tells you that she is sad, sometimes. That her whole life has been planned out for her by her parents, by her grandparents, since the moment she was born. Attend a posh school, learn how to dance, go to university for something respectable, marry her boyfriend, support his political career, have two kids, smile, don’t let it show.
You tell her that nothing in your whole life has been planned.
She tells you she’s jealous.
You tell her that she shouldn’t be jealous of not knowing how you’re going to pay rent month after month.
She’s quiet now. Doesn’t know what to say.
Sorry, you say.
She’s still quiet, but leans into you, her head almost on your shoulder.
VII.
The tail end of summer is different, is wrung with a thick feeling that you can’t quite shake off. The air is heavy around you. She leaves for school soon, leaves with her boyfriend, leaves to continue to study something respectable, continue to support his political career. She still shows up almost every night, even when you don’t play. You still follow the music with her.
When the wind blows through her hair, as she bounces slightly ahead of you, beckoning you to follow, you try to memorize the way her hair moves.
VIII.
Everything is rosy, everything is beautiful, you dance one last time.
She’s closer now than usual, her head on your chest.
You close your eyes.
IX.
You wave good-bye to her at the street corner, near her bus stop, and walk away. You look back once. Then not again.
X.
She’s gone. The rest of the weeks drag on. You find yourself at the bar again, looking for her face. It’s never there. You go through the motions. You think you see her on the streets, but it’s just a girl with her smile, with her hair, parts of her, but not her, never her. The pavement shimmers with heat, till the first rains of autumn.
XI.
You think of her a lot and you are both happy and sad. You’re not sure which one wins out, so you just close your eyes and think of the music that you followed.
But, slowly, you forget the curve of her cheek. Slowly, you forget the sound of her voice when she laughs, the quote that was on her necklace. Slowly, you forget how her hand felt on your shoulder, how her hair looked in the wind, how warm she was when you danced. When you close your eyes, you can’t picture the glow of her smile exactly, or the way she stood on tiptoe when she first came looking for you in the bar, or the way her lips curved when you said goodbye. Slowly, you forget.
You don’t want to.
But it happens.