You dance to Graceland on repeat and watch the blue floorboards under your striped socks, polkadot socks, classic Hanes. More than once, you drop the wine glass while twirling, sweep up the big chunks, and push the rest under the stove with the knitting needles and pizza crust. Then you cry and grocery shop for more eggs, more cilantro.
Your mom used to play Paul Simon when you’d have tantrums or nightmares. Isn’t this music just so easy? she’d say, whirling you around the brunswick green carpet before tucking you back under the sheets. When she found the CD broken into a dozen little mirrors after her boyfriend got sick of it, she used epoxy to make the scraps into a single coaster for his old fashions. At least he stopped ruining the table.
One night you meet a stranger in a cab on your way back from the store. With paper bags in hand, you hope he doesn’t peak in and see the copy of Teen Beat. He comes home with you. He says he’s a “sensory scientist” which means he feels faces to evaluate products like razors and face cleansers. You’re not sure you believe him, but his smell gives you flashbacks to your childhood neighbor’s house. He doesn’t try to feel your face.
None of the records on the shelf interest him, so Graceland plays for the third time that day. Both wine glasses shatter, and you laugh at the slippery blood on blue. You sing “Diamonds on the Soles of your Socks” and dance harder than usual. When you finally fall to the bed, leaving your newly tie-dyed red and white socks hanging over the rug —like the polite girl you are— he asks, “What’s your WiFi password?” and you whisper, “Icanttellyou, no spaces or capitals.” And you don’t cry when the needle lifts and leaves silence.