Jane looks at her like she’s assessing everything about August too. August can’t tell if that’s good or bad. She just knows Jane’s cheekbones look really nice from this angle.

“Hm. That’s a good guess.”

August raises her eyebrows. “Close?”

“You got the job part wrong.”

“Then what do you do?”

She sucks her teeth, shaking her head. “Uh-uh. Where’s the fun in that? You gotta guess.”

“That’s not fair! You’re being mysterious on purpose.”

“I’m mysterious by nature, August.”

August rolls her eyes. “Fuck off.”

“It’s the truth!” She chuckles, nudging her elbow into August’s side. “You gotta put in a little more work to crack this egg, baby.”

Baby. It’s just the way Jane talks—she probably calls everyone baby—but it still goes down like sweet tea.

“Fine,” August says. “Give me some more clues.”

Jane thinks, and says, “All right, how ’bout this?”

She scoots down one seat, unzips her backpack, and upends it in the space between them.

On top of her scarf and cassette player and orange headphones are a dozen cassette tapes, a paperback with the cover torn off, and a battered hardback. Two packs of gum, one almost empty, from a brand August doesn’t recognize. A few Band-Aids, a Swiss army knife, a GREETINGS FROM CALIFORNIA postcard, a jar of Tiger Balm, a set of keys, a lighter, a tube of Lip Smackers chapstick August hasn’t seen since she was a kid, three notebooks, five pencils, a sharpener. She must keep her phone in her jacket, because it’s not in the mix.

“They’re kind of just whatever I’ve found,” Jane says as August starts picking through the cassettes. “They can be hard to come across, so I take what I can get, mostly. Sometimes if I sweet-talk someone who has a lot, I get lucky and find something I want.”

They’re from different eras—first editions from the ’70s, a mixed bag of ’80s and ’90s. There’s a Diana Ross, a Michael Bolton, a Jackson Five, a New York Dolls. Each one well-loved, kept safe from scuffs and cracks. It looks like she treats them like the most valuable things she owns. Since most have to be out of production, August imagines that might be true.

“Why cassettes?”

Jane shrugs. “It’s like vinyl, but portable.”

August picks up the boxy player, turning it in her hands. “I haven’t seen one of these in forever. Where’d you even get it?”

It takes Jane a second to answer, carefully reeling in a cassette’s tape with her fingertip. “I don’t remember. Between you and me, I have no idea how this thing works.”

“Me neither,” August says. “It looks ancient.”

“This one,” Jane says, pulling a cassette from the bottom of the pile, “is one of my favorites.”

Its case is a photo washed out in blue, the words RAISING HELL in lime green letters.

“Run-DMC. You know ’em?”

“Yeah,” August says. “‘It’s Tricky,’ right?”

Jane takes the player and pops open the compartment. “You know … I have this theory that Run-DMC can start a party anywhere.”

She snaps the tape into place and unplugs her headphones. August’s stomach drops.

“Oh God, you’re not—”

“Oh, but I am,” she says, rising to her feet. “Don’t you think these nice stranded commuters deserve some entertainment?”

“Oh no, no no no, please don’t—”

“Watch this,” she says, and to August’s extreme distress, starts to undo her belt. August’s brain cues up a Magic Mike number set to Run-DMC in terrifying and erotic detail, before Jane threads her belt through the handle of the player and fastens it back up.

Oh. Oh no.

“I’m gonna kill you,” August says.

“Too late,” Jane says, and she punches the play button.

The cymbals start up short and sharp, and when the first line hits, August watches in muted horror as Jane grabs a pole and swings herself out, toward the rest of the train, her mouth lining up with the words about how this speech is her recital.

And, God, that tiny, ancient speaker has got pipes. It’s loud enough to cut through the car, but it’s New York, so barely anyone looks up.

Unswayed by the lack of response, Jane jumps onto a seat, sneakers squeaking on the plastic, and August buries her face in her hands as Jane shouts the lyrics.

And, against all odds, Spider-Man kid shouts down the car, “It’s tricky!”

“Jesus lord,” August mutters.

And the thing is, in New York, everyone ends up worn down by the MTA and tourists and rent prices. Everybody’s seen it all. But that also means, sometimes, everyone is the smallest nudge away from delirium—from being trapped on the subway on a Wednesday morning and turning it into a ’90s hip-hop dance party. Because the bass line comes in, and Jane lunges down the aisle, and the high school boys start whooping at the tops of their lungs, and that’s it. It is well and truly on.

It’s possible, August thinks, that it’s not only New York catastrophe delirium making this happen. It’s possible it’s Jane, irresistible and blazing, her shoulders narrow but sturdy under her leather jacket, cassette player swinging from her belt as she rocks her hips. Even the emergency lights seem to glow brighter. Jane is lightning on long legs—the dark never stood a chance.

Suddenly the song tumbles out of the first chorus, and Jane is in front of her.

She throws one foot up on August’s seat, leaning in on her knee, the rips in her jeans spreading open, and her expression absolutely wicked.

“I met this little girly.” She reaches out to skim a hand past August’s jaw, tucking her hair behind her ear. The pad of her thumb grazes August’s earlobe. August feels like she’s astral projecting. “Her hair was kinda curly.”

Jane winks, gone as fast as she came, stomping down the aisle, instigating the riot, leaving August’s mouth hanging open.

As the song pounds on, the couple across the way starts getting into it, her hitting the smoothest Milly Rock August has ever seen, him holding onto the pole in front of her to shake his ass. The woman throws her head back and cackles when he drops it down to the subway floor, and the kid in the red jacket and his friends scream with laughter. Even Pierogi Mom is chuckling.

The next song is “My Adidas,” and then “Walk This Way,” and Jane manages to keep the party going for the entire side of the cassette. She finds her way back to August, grinning with that crooked front tooth, and she jumps up onto a seat and starts loudly reciting the cassettes she has.

“Phil Collins?”

“No!” Suit Guy shouts back.

“Britney Spears?”

The teenage boys boo.

“Jackson 5?”

A mumble of assent, and she fishes a Greatest Hits tape out and puts it in. “I Want You Back” erupts from her speakers, and it starts again.

August is leaning on a pole now, bobbing her head along, and it’s impossible not to watch Jane. She’s always charming, always coaxing surly commuters into happy conversation, but she’s something else today. A smirking shot of dopamine.