The Big Rewind by Libby Cudmore Page B

Bragg? That’s rough,” Josie said, draining her glass. “But that doesn’t explain the first two songs. If he’s so tempted, if she’s the one he can’t have, then why is he going to such lengths to break up with her?”
    The Magnetic Fields’ delicate, sorrowful “Smoke and Mirrors” ended side one, and she got up to flip the tape. I helped myself to a few more chicken satay skewers.
    â€œIs this some kind of ‘You can’t friend-zone me, I’m dumping you’ bullshit?” She poured a little more wine into our glasses and I didn’t protest. “If so, fuck this guy.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s it,” I said. “I think he’s trying to say that although he wants her, he knows they can’t be together. It’s complicated.”
    â€œI guess,” Josie said as she tapped her iPad over the unmistakably nineties sound of a chick rocker. “Syd Straw, ‘CBGB’s,’” she said, ID’ing the song. “But if he puts ‘Hands to Heaven’ on here, I’m going to smash my stereo and make you buy me a new one.”
    â€œFair enough,” I admitted. It was even more haunting, now that CBGB was as gone as their love affair. And I don’t know why we never met again . . . but I still think about you sometimes, every now and then. When was the last time they saw each other—weeks, months, years? Was this tape unexpected, one last gem forged in the middle of the night when longing fought off sleep, or the lastspoken line in a long good-bye? And why the hell did love always have to be so fucking coded? I vowed the next time I fell in love I was just going to come out and say it instead of relying on Joe Jackson to do it for me.
    The next song was not “Hands to Heaven.” It was Concrete Blonde’s “Someday.” “He’s pretty heavy on the chick rockers,” Josie said. “Maybe he was gay and that’s why they couldn’t be together—she wouldn’t drive him to Lilith Fair or help him pick up guys at the Inconvenience Lounge.”
    The wine soured in my mouth. This tape was so much deeper than that, and she was brushing the whole thing off like it was a joke. Some people just don’t understand real love, the kind that hurts somewhere deep inside, in a place you didn’t even know you had. GPL understood that. I could only wonder if KitKat had or if he’d been just another fanciful curiosity, a cupcake, a Paperboy cartridge, a party guest who existed solely to be quirky and cute and adore her. I wondered if any of us had been anything more than that—KitKat and I had never had a deep conversation or a cry together, even if I had considered her a pal. But she had a lot of friends, and maybe I was just one more retro toy on an already-overstuffed shelf.
    There were a few more songs on the B-side—Smashing Pumpkins’ “Perfect,” the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” and the Sundays’ “Here’s Where the Story Ends”—but neither of us recognized the last song. I wither without you, a woman cooed, her voice distant behind a scratchy, faded recording. I crumble before you. Josie typed the lyrics into her search, but nothing came up. She tried the second verse, Stars fall flash and slash my heart . Still nothing. She held up the phone to the speaker, but Shazam came back empty.
    â€œRewind it,” I demanded.
    â€œI can’t,” she said. “The rewind doesn’t work—we’d have to listen to the whole thing again.”
    I grabbed my phone and scrambled to make note of the lyrics as they slipped into the nothingness. It struck something insideme, twisted my guts into sick knots of love and longing. I couldn’t remember the last time a song had made me ache so beautifully, and I never wanted it to end.
    But it did end, and there was nothing left to do but finish the