I didn’t want a rebound. I wanted answers. But I followed her out the door into the night.
The club was called Narcissus,which should have been a warning sign, but in 1987 self-awareness wasn’t really thevibe. It occupied the basement of a converted warehouse in the Leather District, all exposed brick and industrial pipes and a dance floor that vibrated with bass so heavy I could feel it in my teeth.
And the music?—
Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” gave way to Madonna’s “Open Your Heart” which gave way to something by New Order that made me want to move in ways I’d forgotten my body could move. The DJ was good, mixing tracks together seamlessly, building energy that crested and fell and crested again.
I’d always loved to dance. When had that changed? When had I become the woman who stood at the edge of parties, clutching a drink, watching other people have fun?
Somewhere in my thirties, probably. When moving your body started feeling like exercise instead of joy. When self-consciousness crept in and never quite left. When I’d decided, without really deciding, that some pleasures were for younger women and I should probably act my age.
But I wasn’t that woman anymore.
Diane dragged me onto the dance floor, and I let myself go. Let the music take over, let my body remember what it had known before I’d taught it to be still and small and appropriate. The bass pulsed through me like a second heartbeat.
This. This was what I’d missed. Not just the physical freedom, but the permission to feel purely happy, even if just for a song.
Robbie turned out to be exactly as cute as Diane had described. Dark hair, great arms, a smile that suggested he found the world generally amusing. He looked at Diane like she’d invented sunshine, which earned him significant points in my book. His friends were nice enough. Kevin the banker, who was indeed boring but also genuinely kind, and Pete,who worked in advertising and kept making me laugh with increasingly absurd observations about the other club patrons.
“See that guy by the bar?” Pete leaned in, shouting over the music. “I give that hair another six months before it achieves sentience.”
I laughed, genuinely laughed, and for stretches of time I almost forgot why I was really here. Almost stopped scanning the crowd for a familiar tall frame, dark hair that needed a cut.
But Jack kept creeping back in. The way he’d looked at breakfast, relaxed in a way he’d never been with me. The careful blankness when our eyes met.
Why had we broken up, exactly?
I knew the broad strokes. I’d pushed him away, he’d gotten tired of being pushed, then I’d called, he asked me to dinner on Valentine’s Day, and I’d said I needed space and never came back. But the details were fuzzy, smoothed by time and self-protective revisionism. Had there been a specific fight? A final straw? Or had we just eroded, slowly, until there was nothing left to hold?
The music shifted to something slower—Whitney Houston, “Saving All My Love for You”—and couples paired off around us. Diane and Robbie were already swaying together, her head on his shoulder, his hand splayed across her back.
“Want to dance?” Kevin appeared at my elbow, hopeful.
“Sure,” I said, because it was easier than explaining that I was preoccupied with a man I’d let go years ago. A man I’d traveled through time itself to find for a chance at a do-over.
Kevin was a good dancer, steady and respectful, and I tried to be present. Tried to appreciate this moment for what it was, a night out, good music, and kind company. But my mind kept drifting to a diner across town, to a woman with a camera bag, to the way Jack’s smile had changed his face when she’d laughed at his joke.
We stayed until two in the morning. I danced until my feet screamed and my voice went hoarse from shouting over the music. Diane disappeared with Robbie around midnight—“Don’t wait up,” she’d whispered, grinning—and I’d shared a cab with Kevin and Pete, both gentlemen who made sure I got home safely without pressing for anything more.
In bed, I stared at the water-stained ceiling and wondered what Jack was doing right now. If he was alone. If he was thinking about seeing me at the diner.
If he was thinking about me at all.
I woke up at eight-thirty,sunlight streaming through the curtains I’d left open, and felt... fine.
Better than fine. I feltgreat.
No hangover. No dry mouth or pounding headache or lingering nausea, despite the multiple drinks I’d consumed. I bounced out of bed, actually bounced, like some kind of cartoon character, and padded to the kitchen with an energy that felt almost obscene.
Twenty-three. I’d forgotten what it was like to be twenty-three. To abuse your body with late nights and alcohol and still wake up ready to conquer the world. At fifty, a night like that would have cost me two or three days of recovery and a lot of Aleve.
I made coffee and stood at the window watching the street below wake up.
Sunday morning. Day two of thirteen.
I needed to do something. Sitting around the apartment waiting for time to pass felt like wasting the chance I’d been given. But what? I couldn’t exactly show up at Jack’s doorand declare my intentions. That would be insane even by 1987 standards.
Groceries. I needed groceries. And more importantly, I needed to get out of my own head.
