“Why?” Her impatience was crystalline. I hoped she would hear me out.
From downstairs I could pick out the song “Edie (Ciao Baby)” by The Cult. Of all the appropriately inappropriate moments, of all the misaligned singles in the jukebox of circumstance. I’d had a girlfriend named Edie in my late-twenties. I’d fallen madly, stupidly in love with her, but I was too enthusiastic (read: needy). I was too fast and soon for her and my thirst for her to commit was too zealous. She cut it short, mercifully in retrospect, and I fought the unfairness of her decision alone. It was the first time I’d heard this song in years, and it sounded terrible. Nothing like I remembered it: instead of longing for Edie, for that possible us, all I could think of was being in my twenties and hanging out in dance
