Robin Sloan

Thanks to Flickr user niznoz for the CC-​​licensed source image.

Back­story: Bono­bos is an inno­v­a­tive, inde­pen­dent inter­net hab­er­dash­ery. Dave Eisen­berg once worked there, and he men­tioned on Twit­ter that he’d enjoyed Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-​​Four-​​Hour Book Store. I’m a Bono­bos fan and cus­tomer, so I wrote back and said, well hey, how about a short story? We decided on a sim­ple pants-​​for-​​prose arrange­ment: Bono­bos sent me a pair of their khakis; I wore those pants, and con­tem­plated their very essence, while com­pos­ing the wee slip of a story you’ll find below.

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I was still unpack­ing and decid­ing where to put the TV when I saw a flash of move­ment through the front win­dow. It was across the street, and at first I thought some­body was run­ning. Then my brain clicked and I real­ized it was two people—were they fight­ing? Another click, and I real­ized no, they weren’t fighting.

I crouched down. Like an idiot. In my own apart­ment, look­ing through my own front win­dow, I crouched. Well, the win­dow was bare; I felt exposed. I poked my head up over the win­dowsill, and I saw, almost directly across the street, a man and a woman. They were young, him with a head of brown curls and her with red-​​blonde hair cropped and swing­ing around her chin. They were on the side­walk in front of the stoop.

They were danc­ing. They had a boom­box but I couldn’t hear the music over the blood pound­ing in my ears. My knees scraped on the hard­wood floor.

They were not accom­plished dancers. They hadn’t taken lessons for this. But they were going at it one hun­dred per­cent, just absolutely jam­ming. My first instinct was irri­ta­tion. Exhi­bi­tion­ist jerks, I wanted to think. But I couldn’t. He was doing some kind of twist. She had her hands in her hair, push­ing it back, rolling her shoul­ders and her neck. My sniper-​​shot of con­de­scen­sion pinged off double-​​ply adaman­tium armor of joy. In spite of myself—I remind you, crouched, hid­ing in my own home—I smiled.

Then they stopped. He panted and leaned back on his hips. She folded the boombox’s antenna down and scooped it up in her arms. They leapt lightly up the steps and dis­ap­peared into the building.

It was Sun­day after­noon. I dis­cov­ered that they did this every Sun­day afternoon.

# # #

And I have to be hon­est: after that ini­tial attempt at con­tempt, all I wanted to do was join them. For all the Sun­days that fol­lowed, as the canopy of leaves on Jef­fer­son Avenue turned gold and fell, I watched (now through blinds barely parted) and lis­tened and waited for my courage to come.

They didn’t play good music. They tuned that black plas­tic boom­box to Hot 106 and danced to the lat­est, lamest corporate-​​issue R&B jam. Com­pletely unselfconscious.

As the weather grew colder, they added lay­ers, but they always worked from the same foun­da­tion, like a uni­form. Hers was a sky-​​blue sun dress and black tights. His was a white t-shirt—to which he added first a work shirt, then a hoodie, then a deep-​​green parka that bounced up and down—all above a pair of khakis. His pock­ets were lined with bright pais­ley, and when he moved, the pais­ley flashed, like a wink. All through the win­ter, even after snow fell: wink, wink.

I invented a whole cos­mol­ogy for them. They were mar­ried, last name Robin­son. He’d quit his job at a finan­cial news web­site to work at a motor­cy­cle repair shop. She was a high school biol­ogy teacher by day, accom­plished pas­try chef by night. She was also Molly Ring­wald, and also Aphrodite.

Win­ter passed and spring came. At the first thaw, the tights came off; her bare legs flashed and skipped on the wet pave­ment. He was back down to a t-​​shirt with those khakis, that wink­ing paisley.

I had a plan.

I could not fling open the door and run across the street, skip-​​stepping, like some­body out of West Side Story. I could, how­ever, hap­pen to be com­ing down the side­walk on their side of the street, gro­ceries in hand—groceries are like a badge of sanity—and I could stum­ble across their lit­tle dance party. I’d smile, and do a lit­tle half-​​step, and they’d smile back, and I’d say, “What is this, a lit­tle dance party?” and it would be great.

# # #

It was Sun­day, and I was in place, walk­ing with ago­niz­ing slow­ness, arms weighed down with brown paper bags car­ry­ing frozen pizza and orange juice. I was three blocks away, but I swear I was like a Pere­grine Fal­con that day—I could see every­thing! I could hear a mouse’s heart­beat at a hun­dred paces. The mice were all wait­ing for them, too.

They came. Bound­ing down the steps, as always, in a happy hurry. The boom­box came out, the music crack­led, they were danc­ing. Now I was a block away, wait­ing at the light. This was going to work. I was swoop­ing in, radar locked, now tak­ing long slow strides towards my neigh­bor­hood destiny…

There was some­one else com­ing from the oppo­site direc­tion. Molly/​Aphrodite turned, and raised her arms (still danc­ing), and hooted “Lau­ren!” and this other per­son—Lau­ren—let out a belly laugh and scam­pered up to join them—no one ever joined them—hug­ging Mr. Robin­son and bump­ing hips with Molly/​Aphrodite.

My tar­get­ing com­puter mal­func­tioned. My head was spin­ning, my plan was ruined, beyond ruined, because now I was walk­ing past them, edg­ing around their warm ruckus with a tight-​​lipped non-​​smile, like some stuck-​​up senior cit­i­zen, the gro­cery bags crin­kling and so, so heavy in my hands.

Of course I had to keep walk­ing as if my apart­ment was not right there on the other side of the street. One block, two, three. Until I turned and squinted—Peregrine power vanished—and saw that they were gone.

I went home and ate frozen pizza while I searched Craigslist for a new apartment.

# # #

The next Sun­day, I was at the win­dow, watch­ing them again, maybe for the last time.

But this time, Mr. Robin­son turned, and—wink. It was a real wink, not an anthro­po­mor­phic pants-​​wink. Eye con­tact, unmis­tak­able, from across the street, right through the win­dow. Pere­grine power. He tapped Molly/​Aphrodite on the shoul­der, and she looked too and crack, that was the sniper shot. I gasped so hard it rat­tled the blinds. He was smil­ing, and she was motion­ing, come on, come out, come on.

Come on, come out, come on.

What would you do?

This is what I did: I took two steps and opened the front door and didn’t close it behind me and sprinted across the street and I boo­gied down. I took my lit­tle mouse heart in my hands and, even though I was totally ter­ri­fied, I boo­gied down. Her in her sun dress, him in his khakis, me in my track shorts, we jumped and spun and our feet slapped the ground and that bright pais­ley slashed through the air, through the whole gray span of Jef­fer­son Avenue.

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