The Big Rewind by Libby Cudmore Page A

Facebook update? Give me a Sony any day. Where did you even find this?”
    I hoped the mozzarella in my mouth would disguise my lie. “I found it while, uh, Dumpster diving. I thought I’d give it a listen.” I may have told Sid my intentions, but that didn’t mean everyone else had to know.
    She examined the tape with a jeweler’s eye. “ Cure Kit— sounds romantic.” She turned it over and cracked the case. “No track listing, no artwork, what is this, amateur hour? Who is this GPL? Someone needs to have a word with him about proper mix tape etiquette.”
    She took it over to the elaborate stereo setup and popped it in. The tape opened with Squeeze’s “Tempted,” and already, I felt a silent tension hook reverberating in my chest. Track two—the Smiths’ “I Want the One I Can’t Have”—didn’t do anything to make me feel better.
    â€œAww, this guy is pining,” Josie cooed. “But seriously, the Smiths? The eighties are over; find a new band. Or at least a new Morrissey song. Heaven knows he’s written plenty.”
    I wished I could listen with the same sarcastic nostalgia as Josie. I want the one I can’t have and it’s driving me mad, Morrissey wailed. But GPL already had KitKat. Clearly Bronco wasn’t standing in the way; the three track lists already in KitKat’s binder implied that the two of them were in agreement about their love. So far, this was more suitable as a confession of wine-drenched abandon, and all I could think of was the first time Catch had said he loved me, parked in his ’89 Camry while we waited for Reese to get out of work so we could all go to the drive-in. We were eating Red Vines and drinking Dr. Pepper, and he’d just blurted it out like it had been swelling inside him for days. I was so surprised that all I could do was cram another Red Vine into my face because love was too fucking common for people who felt things as deeply as we felt things. I couldn’t let myself believe him because if I had, that might have meant I was penetrable, defenseless, vulnerable. And that night, after he dropped me off at my shitty little grad apartment without even trying to steal a kiss, I went inside and played his CDs over and over, trying to decipher if maybe he really did love me through U2’s “All I Want Is You” and the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary” and Feeder’s “Just the Way I’m Feeling.” Could you ever really know what a man was thinking in someone else’s words?
    â€œI don’t know this next one,” said Josie as the song changed over to a pretty piano and a delicate woman’s voice. She tapped her iPad and pulled up the lyrics to the Innocence Mission, “My Waltzing Days Are Over.” She took another sip of wine and sat back on the couch. “This is so beautiful,” she said. “I’m downloading it right now.”
    At my age, I’m content to watch . . . so go on, go on . . .
    â€œShit,” I breathed. “He was breaking up with her.”
    â€œNo way,” Josie said. She cocked her head and listened a bit. “No. Nobody makes a breakup mix. She must have alreadydumped him, but he’s still in love with her. He’s trying to win her back.”
    â€œHey Nineteen” by Steely Dan was next, followed by Billy Bragg’s “A Lover Sings.” The mix was coming together almost too perfectly, a soundtrack for mutually broken hearts.
    â€œHe’s saying he’s too old for her,” I said. “That they don’t have anything in common.” I was starting to get a picture of an aging punk, hair weak from years of dye and Elmer’s glue, selling his band shirts at a garage sale, dumping his black jeans off at the Salvation Army. In a way, I was glad KitKat had never received it and instead died believing that GPL still loved her.
    â€œDumped via Billy