back of Rewind, complete with shelves full of typewriters and old radios and a workstation strewn with parts. She told August she got the job after wandering in halfway through her final semester at Columbia and pulling a pair of pliers out of the owner’s hands to rewire a 1940s record player. She’s a nerd for the oldies, she always says, and it came in handy. She’s clearly good enough at what she does that her boss doesn’t mind her decorating her workstation with a homemade cross-stitch that says BIG DICK ENERGY IS GENDER NEUTRAL.
She’s looking at August through the giant magnifying lens mounted over her station, so her mouth and nose are normal sized, but her eyes are the size of dinner plates. August tries not to laugh.
“Kissing, okay, we’ve been making out—”
“On the train?”
“Don’t think Niko hasn’t told me about the time under the pizza box after Thanksgiving last year.”
“Okay, that was a holiday.”
“Anyway,” August goes on, “as I was saying, remembering kisses and girls that she, you know, felt something for, brings back a lot for her, and the best way to do that is to re-create them.” The grimace Myla pulls is magnified about ten times by the lens, distorted like a disapproving Dalí. “Stop making that face, okay, I know it’s a bad idea.”
“I mean, it’s as if you like to be emotionally tortured,” Myla says, finally sitting back so her facial proportions return to normal. “Wait, is that what it is? Because like, damn, but okay.”
“No, that’s the whole thing,” August says. “I have to stop. I can’t keep doing it. It’s—it’s fucking me up. So that’s why I came here—I have an idea for something that could work instead.”
“And what’s that?”
“A radio,” August says. “Another big thing for her is music. She told me she doesn’t want Spotify or anything, but maybe random songs from the radio might help her remember things. I wondered if y’all had any portable radios in stock.”
Myla pushes back from her station, folding her arms and surveying her domain of deconstructed cash registers and jukebox parts like a steampunk Tony Stark in a leather skirt. “We might have something in the back.”
“And,” August says, following her toward the storage room in the rear of the store, “I saw Jane step outside of the train.”
Myla whips her head around. “She got off the train, and you led with the kissing? God, you are the most useless bisexual I’ve ever met in my entire goddamn life.”
“She wasn’t off the train, she was outside of it,” August clarifies. “She can walk between the cars.”
“So it’s not the train that’s got her trapped, it’s the line,” Myla concludes simply, unlocking the storage room door. “Good to know.”
August leaves fifteen minutes later with a portable radio and a reminder from Myla to pick up batteries, and when she hands it to Jane, she gets to watch her face light up like Christmas came early. Which, she has to admit, is part of why she bought it. The other reason quickly presents itself.
“There’s this thing I’m trying to remember,” Jane says. “From LA. There’s a taco truck, and Coke with lime, and this song by Sly and the Family Stone … and a girl.” She looks at August. And August could—she could get off the train and return with a wedge of lime and a kiss, wants to even, but she thinks about what Jane said about getting out of here, the way she smiled at the thought of leaving.
“Oh, man,” August says. “That, uh—that sounds like a good lead, but I’m—I gotta clock in. I got a double today, you know, need the money so—anyway.” She gathers up her bag, eyeing the board for the next stop. Not even close to work. “Try the radio. See if you can find a funk station. I bet it helps.”
“Oh,” Jane says, spinning the dial, “okay. Yeah, good idea.”
And August dips out of the train with a wave as soon as the doors slide open.
She thinks—she is pretty sure, actually, that she’s figured out a solution to her problem. A radio. That should be fine.
It starts on a Saturday morning when Jane texts, August, Put your radio on 90.9 FM. Thanks, Jane
Obviously, August doesn’t own a radio. And it would never occur to Jane that August doesn’t own a radio. Even if she did, she’s outside for once, sitting by the water in Prospect Park, watching ducks squabble over pizza crusts and stoners pass a joint