Blink.
(Breath.)
Blink.
“That was strangely intense,” Skye says.
“It was,” J agrees.
“I liked it.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s much more direct than drinking.”
“I think that’s why I liked it.”
J knows that V would like it, too. Celebrating not by raising a glass but by recognizing the other person for a collection of silent seconds.
“How long are you in the city?” Skye asks.
“Well, I have this other wedding now,” J answers, then explains the history.
“It’s interesting, what you do,” Skye says when he’s done.
“How so?”
“Well, you use your songs to connect to people. And then you have to figure out what to do with those connections.”
“It’s different. The song I wrote for you was about you. The song I wrote for her was about calling someone on a payphone.”
“But that’s the tricky part, isn’t it? Once you connect with a person, you only have so much control over how long it lasts, and in what way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to getall zenon you, but I just think that once you connect with someone, it makes an imprint, and that imprint is always there. You might not notice it. You might forget about it. But it’s there. And there’s always a possibility the connection will continue, even if you think it’s over. Like, you hook up with someone and assume it’s just a one-night thing. Maybe two years later, you bump into each other and it happens again. Or you bump into each other and it’s awkward and he doesn’t even acknowledge you when he sees you on the subway platform. Either way, that imprint surfaces. Same with exes. Same with people who’ve passed. Any reminder can cause a reconnection. I like that about being human. I like that we feel our lives have this one storyline, but there are all these tiny subplots—microplots—that we carry, never knowing when they’ll connect, and if they connect, what they’ll spark. You say your girlfriend thinks that being with you will only take her backwards?”
“Yes, that’s what she told me.”
“Well, tell her that’s not possible. Time doesn’t work that way. There is no backwards. There’s not even an over.”
“But you’re about to end things with Detroit, aren’t you?”
“I am. And I’m sure that the end will be messy, and hardly an end, only he will be mostly in the past, because I won’t spend any of my present with him. Not anymore. But that’s not going on with you and her, is it? You’re still here. She’s still here. You’re in the present, waist-deep in the constant conversation.”
Yes, J thinks, but what if, after all the talking, their definitions are still unreconciled?
He knows the answer: He will go home alone. He will lose the connection. He will try to make a new start.
He doesn’t want that. He is sure he doesn’t want that.
He shifts the conversation back to Skye, to what Skye will do next. Skye doesn’t come right out and say, “I’d still like to kiss you again,” but the vibe is there. It is not, however, the prevalent vibe. What’s more important is what Skye said about how this random encounter could end up changing their life. J can see that, because J believes Skye will leave Detroit, will find their own place, their own footing. It would have probably happened anyway, but it’s happening now because J needed a fake wedding and wrote a real song.
He has a hard time wrapping his head around how this works. He thinks about it after he says goodbye to Skye and walks over to the East River, just to get some skyline into his afternoon, even if it’s just Brooklyn he’s seeing (or maybe Queens—he has no idea). How is his connection with Skye different from his connection to Tara? How is his connection to them different from his connection to V, or at least his initial connection to her? Isn’t anytime you meet someone new a random encounter, even if there’s every reason for you both to be there? Why do some encounters flourish and others fade? And if things with V don’t work out, as things with previous girlfriends didn’t work out, does that mean there’s some kind of limit on how much connection he can share with another person? What if, despite all his eforts, everyone else in his life is merely passing through? What does that leave him with? And what would it mean if the answer is that it leaves him with more than enough?
He texts V.How is your day?
He just wants to keep the conversation going.
In his head, it is still constant. But he knows that’s only one side of it.
