Page 25 of Knot Just for Show

“Listen, I’ll make you a playlist. Ok? There’s no point in me trying to describe the quality of the absolute banger that isSni Bong. You have to hear it for yourself.”

My heart flutters. A playlist, huh? For me, the exchange of a playlist, burned CD, or mix tape made explicitly for the recipient is a gift of incredible emotional intimacy. Something I’ve only done with my closest friends and my ex partners.

“Ok, but what about the kind of stuff you make?” I prompt her, quickly adding, “So that I can make you an appropriate playlist in return.”

“Jazz,” she says without hesitation.

“There’s something about the skill, the freedom, the depth of expression and the passion behind the feeling,” Ursula rhapsodizes, and I can feel my own breaths becoming quicker as I feel my own love of music—making it, living in it, lighting within me.

“When I get to push my voice to doexactlywhat I want it to do in that moment—”

“I don’t really make music much anymore,” she cuts off, my heart still a metronome picking up pace. She said it quietly, a deep current of sadness carrying her vulnerable words.

“Really? Sounded to me like you’re still doing it—and doing it well,” I am quick to correct. “You may not be gigging or recording, but you’re definitely still making music,” I add, to soften the mansplain-y vibe I’m worried I’m beginning to give off.

“Well, that may be true, but I don’t do much making music even by those standards. Mostly in the shower, or in the car, or the odd moment where I’m looking to just fill the silence,” she sighs. I can’t tell if it’s that permeating sadness, or the onset of exhaustion with me or a combination of the two.

“So what do you do instead of making music? What makes the money?” I do my best to salvage what feels like a spiraling first date.

“Makeup artist mostly, less frequently, a hair stylist,” she says on a bitter laugh.

I swing my legs back over the arm of the loveseat, planting my feet on the floor and sitting upright. I look at the wall, at the silly fake portal between our ‘bubbles’—currently glowing a shade of electric blue.

“Oh shit! Do you work out of New York or LA? I bet we actually have some professional overlap if you're on the west coast.”

There’s a lingering moment of awkward silence, and I worry that I’ve come off as wildly patronizing without meaning to.

Instead, Ursula handily redirects me, yet again.

“Hey Ash, what’s your favorite color?”

What? My favorite color? This feels like taking a few steps backward in terms of getting to know one another.

“Ha, I haven’t thought about that in a long time.” I’m admittedly suffering from a bit of conversational whiplash, so my response comes after a too-long beat of silence, and I don’t readily have an answer. I don’t want to be the guy who says he doesn’t have a favorite color though—it’s a fucking sociopath answer.

“No one has asked you that in your other dates either? Isn’t that funny? I feel like this whole situation is really interesting—because I absolutely would have had to fall back on some kind of small talk question like that on areal lifedate, but here—for better or for worse, we all seem to be cutting to the ‘deep’ stuff much quicker,” Ursula scoffs a little laugh before adding, “In case you were wondering, my favorite color is red—or possibly gold.”

I close my eyes again, blooms of color filling my mind’s eye—gilt and

crimson. As the colors fade—a new hue blossoms, I begin to describe to Ursula the first color that comes to mind, “I don’t know its name—but that color that’s like the underside of a rain cloud at twilight, the sheen of a rock dove’s wing, or a wet quartz pebble on an overcast day—not quite gray, not quite lilac, not quite smoke.”

“Oooh, what a romantic description,” Ursula purrs, and I feel more pleased with myself than I reasonably should.

“Finally, we get to asking the real questions,” I kid.

“You’ll have to wait to get the answer to my favorite flavor of ice cream until the second date, though,” she warns sternly.

“Alright, I can respect those boundaries. I expect that we’ll exchange our lists of top five favorite movies by date three. I’m not that old-fashioned.” I try to roll up my brimming excitement over her mention of a second date along with enough levity to cover any apparent desperation, into a coherent response.

“Fine, but no arguments over favoriteFrench Touchalbums until date four. I’m firm on that,” she jokes.

“Of course, ma’am. I am a gentleman after all!” I assure her.

She liked my joke, and she shot back with a ‘French Touch’ DJ reference? Don’t tell the angel or devil on my shoulders—because I might already bein love.

Chapter Nine

Ursula

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