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“Phil Collins?”
“No!” Suit Guy shouts back.
“Britney Spears?”
The teenage boys boo.
“Jackson 5?”
A mumble of assent, and she fishes a Greatest Hits tape out and puts it in. “I Want You Back” erupts from her speakers, and it starts again.
August is leaning on a pole now, bobbing her head along, and it’s impossible not to watch Jane. She’s always charming, always coaxing surly commuters into happy conversation, but she’s something else today. A smirking shot of dopamine.
Even if she’s sworn off solving mysteries, August needs to know Jane’s story. She has to know how someone like this exists.
After the Jackson 5, the teens take over with a Bluetooth speaker from a backpack. The adults shout down Post Malone when they attempt it, but they find a compromise in Beyoncé and crank the volume up on “Countdown.”
Jane’s laughing so hard, tears get caught in the crinkled corners of her eyes, and she peels her jacket off and throws it down atop her pile of cassettes.
“Hey,” she says, turning to August, and then she has August by the hand. “Dance with me.”
August freezes. “Oh, uh, no, I can’t dance.”
“Can’t or don’t?”
“Both? It’s, like, better for the world if I don’t dance.”
“Come on,” she says, “you’re from New Orleans. People got rhythm there.”
“Yes, none of which was absorbed by me.”
The music keeps grooving, Beyoncé wailing through a key change in “Love On Top.” People keep shouting and laughing and gyrating in the aisle, and there’s Jane’s hand on the small of August’s back, pulling her closer until they’re almost chest to chest.
“Coffee Girl, don’t break my heart,” Jane says.
So, August dances.
And something happens when she starts dancing.
Jane’s face lights up—really lights up, like Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree, Frenchmen Street at two in the morning, full-scale sunshine. She lifts August’s hand above their heads; August does a clumsy spin. It should be embarrassing. But Jane looks at her like she’s never been more delighted in her entire life, and August can’t do anything but laugh.
It’s like slow motion. Like somebody came into August’s room and threw all her textbooks out the window and said, learn this instead. Jane pulls her back in, fingers brushing through her hair, just behind her ear, and for a second, Jane is the whole point of being in the city in the first place.
August is opening her mouth to say something when the fluorescents come back on. The train shudders back into tentative motion to a round of cheers, and Jane sways with it, away from August. She looks flushed and thoroughly pleased with herself.
August checks her phone—nearly noon. Classes are a bust. The seedy little bar where Niko works is squirreled away a few blocks from here. It should be opening soon.
She looks at Jane, a step away but still close, and she thinks about the way Jane’s hand trailed through her hair, her gasp of laughter in August’s ear. Just because Jane didn’t come to Billy’s doesn’t mean it’s hopeless.
“I don’t know about you,” August says, “but I could use a drink. There’s a pretty cool dive bar right by my stop, if, uh, you’re not doing anything?”
And Jane… stares at her, like she’s trying to work out if August really asked what she thinks she did.
“Oh,” she says finally. August can hear the wince in her tone before she even says the next part. “I don’t think I can.”
“Oh, I—”
“I mean, that sounds nice, but I can’t.”
