A Supposedly Staggering Infinite Work of Heartbreaking Illumination I'll Never Read

Yellow submarine

For You, The Stars
Chapter Three: Big Sister’s Clothes
Intallment 5

I started making another mix tape for Bella. My hidden message this time would be something about how even though I was now going out with her little sister, I still had my eye on her. That I would treat Cecilia right, but that she was a dalliance, someone I didn’t take as seriously as I took Bella.

I thought about the letters I sometimes wrote to Bella and the more frequent ones to Maura. I wondered when I started signing all my letter “Love, Daniel.” I know when I was a teenager I felt funny writing “Love, Daniel.” I figured it was supposed to mean something, or that I should only write that to my lovers, but all the other closers we were taught as children sounded hopelessly formal. “Sincerely, Daniel” or “Yours truly, Daniel.” (It was never Dan. My parents had never called me Dan and I didn’t even respond to it if people made the mistake of shortening my name.) Then I noticed that girls wrote “Love, their name” all the time. I guess I started doing it too.

Making mix tapes was as real art form before you could do it all digitally. You had to pick the songs, either in advance or winging it. You had to set the levels differently for each album. You had to cue up the LP and the recording deck and sometimes even fade in or out. You had to have just the right beat or half a beat or beat and a half from one song to the next. I really enjoyed the craft of putting together an excellent montage of songs.

I cued up the one song I knew was going to go on this tape and listened to Elvis Costello singing

And it’s easier to say, “I love you” Than “Yours sincerely,” I suppose All little sisters Like to try on big sister’s clothes Big sister’s clothes Big sister’s clothes

Bella was no dummy. I knew she’d get the wink.

Making the mix took my mind of the next step with Simone. I felt like I was just marking time till I could tell her, “OK, we tried— it’s still not working,” and finally pull the plug for good.

Dave came home from his job on the peninsula while I was still making my tape and I took a break from it. We went to the corner sub shop, the Yellow Submarine, that had obviously been named and decorated in the ’70s but had long since passed into the hands of an immigrant family.

We used to laugh at their first-in last-out sandwich preparation method. You would go in there and order your eggplant parmigiana sub, or whatever, and they’d start making it for you, and then someone else would come in and order a sandwich and they’d put yours aside and start making the new one. This could literally go on for hours.

They also made these thick round french fries that seemed fantastic the first time you had them, especially if your were stoned. But then over time you realized they were greasy and flaccid and nasty.

Worst of all, every night they poured out some water or grease or something scummy and it ran down the sidewalk from their door to the curb. There was a permanent rainbow slick there for whatever it was they dumped out every night.

We knew better by then to have or dinners there but it was the nearest place and the quickest if no one interrupted your sandwich, and it was already dark outside.

Walking back around the corner to our place, with the grease soaking through our paper bags, I told Dave that I was trying to figure out when to tell Simone it was really over.

“Are you going to tell her about Cecilia?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Hmm.”

“You know what really worries me?”

“What?”

“I’m afraid that Simone will never meet anyone as great as me ever again. I may have set her up for a lifetime of disappointment. That’s a huge burden of guilt for me to carry.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dave. “You’re not that great.”