Everybody Knows Your Name by Andrea Seigel

Tommy Hilfiger?”
    I laugh. “I don’t know any Jewish people except you,” I say. And that makes Dillon laugh too.
    Robyn presents Dylan with a pair of velvet slippers, and I head over to check out my new outfit in the mirror. Studying myself, I try to imagine the Mattress King, with his purple robe and his scepter made of mattress springs, bowing down before me.

12
    As I’m pushing the button for the elevator, I catch my reflection in the mirrored doors. The feeling is like I’m one of those guys in a movie who’s jumped into someone else’s body.
    They trimmed my hair and now it lays different somehow. Zara, the hair stylist, said it was her version of young Elvis. I know it’s only a new hairstyle and a fashion magazine jacket, but I have this odd sensation of not recognizing myself. What’s more, I can’t say if I’m excited or freaked out about it.
    The mirrors slide away and reveal Magnolia. You know that rush of adrenaline or whatever it is you get under your chest that lets you know that you wanted to see someone more than you’d even realized? That’s what I have right now.
    â€œHi,” she says.
    â€œHey,” I say.
    â€œAre you getting in?” she asks at the same time I’m asking her, “You getting out?”
    She shakes her head. “The past couple of nights I’ve told my mom I’m hanging out downstairs, but I’ve actually been going to the ice room. For personal space. I make sure to at least make the stop down here so it isn’t a gross lie.” She has this habit of talking with her hands, demonstrating what’s up, what’s down for me as if she operates on her own compass. It’s pretty cute.
    I step into the elevator. “You hang out in the ice room?” Her floor is pressed, and I hit mine.
    â€œIt’s not much to look at. But the ice cubes don’t suggest new choreography to me.” She leans against the opposite wall, her hair falling down around her face. “You looked like you were getting pretty close with that starfish yesterday.”
    I look doleful. “She left me for a sea urchin.”
    The elevator chimes because we’re at my floor. I take a look at Magnolia. I feel suddenly compelled to hook a finger in the loop of her jeans again and pull her near me, but I just say, “Have a good night.” I walk out.
    â€œFord—”
    I turn, and she’s blocking the sensor with her hand so the doors won’t close. “I heard a rumor going around that both of your parents are dead.”
    All the adrenaline from first seeing her plunges down into my stomach like it’s a fist. “Right,” I say. “That’s true.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” Her face transforms, and she looks like she could almost cry. The change startles me.
    â€œNo, it’s okay—”
    â€œNo, that’s just what you say.”
    I nod.
    â€œMy dad died from cancer a few years ago, so I know too.” She removes her hand from the sensor. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it now. Or ever.” The elevator doors begin closing. “Since I’m assuming that’s a big part of what you’re trying to leave behind.”
    We look each other in the eyes. Doing that makes me want to tell her what I’ve done. I could just tell her I made up a stupid lie. But then the next thing I know, I’m just looking at myself in the shiny door, and she’s gone.

13
    For the first show I’m going to be singing “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” Nirvana made it popular in the nineties, which is why I can use it, but it’s a much older song. No one even knows who wrote it. It just appeared out of the mists of the old Appalachian Mountains almost a hundred years ago.
    I love songs like that. They seem ancient and mysterious to me, like they have secrets I’ll never totally understand