Murphy's Law

Twenty-Eight Days After

Reorganizing records is a cathartic process. It's like trying to clean the house—I always find stuff I forgot I owned and get distracted listening to rediscovered songs. I have to make a mess before I can make any progress.

I divide everything into two distinct piles: all the LPs I inherited from my mother, whose vinyl collection started when she bought a box of random records and the record player at a garage sale. I mean, maybe some people think I have eclectic taste, but I was still a kid when I figured out how to work the player and watching the record spin around and around was probably more interesting to me than what I was actually listening to.

So, I probably spent some formative years listening to hours of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen before I can even remember. God forbid anyone my age know a Leonard Cohen song that isn't Hallelujah anyway.

I didn't set out to make a playlist, but that's quickly what this becomes—reorganizing and piecing together songs into some kind of narrative, jotting them down on paper. I'm not sure what story I'm trying to tell yet.

Buzzing erupts underneath Johnny Cash. I double check it isn't my record player. It's embarrassing how long it takes me to remember I have other things that vibrate. I have to dig under the bed near the headboard to find my phone. This is why I never answer it. This is one of many, many reasons.

So, is there a particular reason you and the blond one were stalking me?

Well, that's not ominous. Vivian's name is at the top of the screen and I have a moment of being seriously unsettled before I remember she had my phone after the party. Yeah, I'm real sure it was dead.

not stalking. needed nails.

My fingers are too clunky for tiny keys. I hate this thing. I want to force anyone who's ever complained about me not answering texts try to communicate on my hand-me-down phone.

What exactly are you building?

She texts back so quickly she could be on an Olympic texting team. 150 character sprint.

treehouse.

You've got to be kidding me.

This is going nowhere fast. Nowhere faster if I have to keep typing on this piece of junk. I hit the call button, reaching over to turn down my music.

For someone who texts like lightning, it takes three rings before she picks up the call.

"Sitting outside my house and taking off the minute I pull in is pretty suspicious." Vivian jumps right into it.

"So, you get a get out of jail free card because you got my address from my best friend but I can't happen to be at the hardware store?" I counter. That would've been too long to type.

Vivian doesn't have a good answer for me right away. I can practically hear her thinking.

"Privacy's nice, isn't it? I add, filling in a sliver of the silence.

"I was returning your phone to you," she finally retorts.

"Because your boyfriend knocked me out in an alley 'cause you invited me to a party under false pretenses," I say. I wonder exactly how long I ran surf that particular wave of guilt.

Eventually, it's going to run out. As the only tool I really have at my disposal, I should be more careful with it.

"So shouldn't you be avoiding me instead of stalking me?" Vivian inhales sharply. How can she argue against the truth.

"I wasn't stalking you." I lean back, lying on the floor to stare at the ceiling. How am I supposed to argue against the truth?

"What do you—" she pauses, "where are you?"

Weird question.

"I'm in my room. Don't ask me what I'm wearing next," I reply.

"What are you listening to?" Her tone of voice kills me. I do my best impression of Sari's famous eyeroll. Sprawled on the floor, my head's almost touching my record player now. Is it not loud enough on her end to be clearly obvious?

"Folsom Prison Blues." I attempt to keep my tone flat.

"What?" Vivian replies, as if she moved from Murphy from Mars instead of Calgary. It would explain so much if she was interplanetary.

"Johnny Cash? The Man in Black?" I scoff. Her sigh is audible.

"I know who Johnny Cash is. Why are you listening to him?," she says, "what do you even want, Tim?"

There's an opportunity here. What do I want? A better question is what does Vivian have that I want.

"I want to come to you house and give you a proper musical education because clearly it needs some work," I reply.

There's a long pause.

"Hello?" I check to make sure she's still there. Could I blame her if she hung up on me?

"At my house?" she asks.

"You saw mine. Fair's fair, yeah?" I don't breathe until she answers. Vivian is too smart not to be suspicious of me, the same way I should have been way more suspicious of her.

"Is this your weird way of asking to hang out? I actually can't tell," she says, "after I got you knocked out in an alley."

"Maybe," I offer non-committally, and probably infuriatingly.

"I don't understand you." Vivian sighs into the phone.

"Don't hurt yourself trying to."

"Today's not good. Tomorrow's okay, I guess. If you want," Vivian offers, though there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm.

"Can't do tomorrow. Getting my stitches pulled."

"Day after, then."

"Works for me. I recommend not listening to any Top 40 for 24 hours beforehand," I say, making up for her lack of excitement, "gotta go. See ya soon."

I hang up. I have no idea what I just did, but I guess I'll have to figure it quickly.

I guess I know what I'm making a playlist for.

a/n If you're thinking right now that maybe Tim is a little pretentious, you're... not wrong. Any other suggestions for Vivian's musical education?