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1994
“Hey, can I borrow this?” Steph said.
“Yeah, sure,” Tim said, even though he was still untangling himself from the Robin uniform and had no clue what she meant. He yanked his shirt up over his head and leaned down to look over Steph’s shoulder. She was kneeling in front of his CD cabinet, rifling through his collection. “Hey, that album’s killer.”
“Yeah, this guy Tyler at the record store gave me the rec like a month ago,” Steph said. It still amazed Tim, the way she spoke. Like she knew everyone, like the streets of Gotham were hers to lose. “A month later and I still don’t have the start-up capital. Not a lot of places hiring underage girls with my kind of record.”
“You can have it if you want,” Tim blurted out. He blushed. “I mean, I can always buy another copy.” And now he sounded completely entitled, huh? Tim’s foot. Meet Tim’s mouth.
She stared at him. “I’m not going to take your killer album, dude.” Steph said. Then she fidgeted. She made to put the CD back on the shelf. God, he’d ruined everything. Tim needed to fix things, fast.
“Why don’t we put it on right now?” Tim said. Steph’s face brightened, and the sun came out again.
“Holy fuck,” Steph said when the album finished. They were lying on his bed together, centimeters apart. Tim watched her open her eyes and turn on her side to face him, and tried to make it seem like he wasn’t. “You’re right. Tyler’s right. That shit is mind-blowing.”
“Right?”
“Mhm,” Steph said, and rolled to lie on her back once more. “They’re on a whole nother level over there,” she told the ceiling.
“I don’t know,” Tim said. “I like Oasis. But nothing else I’ve heard really comes close to American rock. Like, no British person could make The Downward Spiral.”
“Point,” Steph said. “Counter-point. Tim. Honey. You gotta tune in to Blur.”
“Never heard of them,” Tim said.
“Blur. Modern Life is fucking Rubbish, baby.” Steph snapped her gum. He never saw her open a pack, but she always had a piece of gum to snap for emphasis. “This was good, but it’s kid’s stuff. Blur will change your life.
“I’ll check them out,” Tim said. In that moment he thought he would listen to anything if she was the one recommending.
Twenty-four hours later, he’d eat those words.
1995
“It’s derivative, Tim. I’d think you of all people would understand the concept.”
“And The Great Escape isn’t? C’mon, Steph,” Tim said. “You’re grasping at straws.” They were huddled together in the listening booth, Tim’s back to the glass door, concealing Steph’s body in the booth with him so the cashier didn’t kick them out again.
“That’s not what I mean. Blur is building on their sound. You can’t plagiarize yourself, Tim.”
“Oh, first they’re derivative, now they’re plagiarists!” Tim said. “Holy escalation, Spoiler!” He straightened up for emphasis and banged his head on the glass door behind him.
“This is bad faith, Tim,” Steph said. “I just hope you understand that.”
“I’m going to say something now,” Tim said, “and you’re not going to like it.”
“I’m not sure what that preamble is even meant to accomplish.”
“Are you sure,” Tim said, “you don’t prefer Blur because the lead singer is hot?”
Steph leaned back as she contemplated the question. “What a strange question, Tim. Of course that’s why I like them.” She stared at him. He stared back, a deer in the headlights of a speeding train. “I’m a woman, Tim. I make all my decisions with my pussy.”
Tim groaned and blushed and banged his head again. “Steph, you know that’s not what I meant—that’s what the preamble was for! That exact reaction!”
“Sorry, Tim,” Steph said. “It’s just, as a woman, I can hear ugly. And it turns me off.”
“Okay,” Tim said. “How about this. I’m not convinced you hate Oasis at all. You liked Definitely Maybe.”
“Oh, I hate Oasis,” Steph said. “Definitely Maybe was fine the way a best of the 1960s comp is fine. It was dated the minute it hit the shelves.”
“I don’t think that’s how you really feel. You loved Definitely Maybe,” Tim said again. “But the minute I told you I didn’t like Blur, you pulled a 180 and turned on Oasis completely.”
“Let me get this straight,” Steph said. “What you’re saying is, my music opinions—like everything—are actually about you?”
“This is bad faith, Steph,” Tim said, smug. “I think, when I told you I hated Blur, you felt bad about hyping them up. But by then you were stuck. You couldn’t backtrack. Your only choice was to double down.”
“When you told me you hated Blur I thought you might be tone-deaf,” Steph said. “There were serious internal debates for weeks. Like, am I really going to date this clown?”
“How’d those debates work out?” Tim said. He was in the mood to test his luck. Riding a high of great music just did that to a guy.
“Still on the fence,” Steph said. “Jury’s been deadlocked for months.”
1997
He couldn’t stand the silence. It was worse than any argument Tim could imagine. They’d always argued. Sometimes it was innocent, sometimes it wasn’t. But that was Steph. She always had something to say, even when it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
This new Steph, this Steph who stared out the window in the passenger seat of his car and didn’t say a word—she was a stranger. It ate him up, that they had to start from the beginning. He wanted so badly to pick right back up where they left, laughing and bickering and falling all over each other and staring up at the stars.
“Hey,” Tim said. “Guess what I picked up the other day.”
“I know this one,” Steph said. “Another girlfriend, right?” He heard the phantom sound of gum snapping. She didn’t do that anymore.
Tim rolled his eyes and reached over to pop open the glove compartment. “I know your opinion isn’t historically positive,” he said, filling around, “but the new album got even better reviews than What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?.”
“Oh,” Steph said, examining the cover art. “I see. This was your plan all along. Get me in a moving car, no way to escape, no one to hear me scream…”
“Not over the music,” Tim said, faux-cheerful, and the CD compartment slid open. “I haven’t even listened to it yet.”
“At least we’ll go down together,” Steph said.
When the album ended silence reigned once more. Awkward silence. Uncomfortable silence. Silence that was quieter than silence when compared to the absolute overload of the senses they’d just experienced.
“That was…” Steph said, and shut up.
“Yeah,” Tim said.
“I liked the ballad,” Steph said, which was such a colossally un-Steph-like peace offering it took him aback.
“Me too,” Tim said. “And the first song was okay.”
“Oh, come on,” Steph said. “‘Okay’ is a bit of a stretch. The first song was loud. The next song was loud and the song after that. They weren’t even songs so much as discordant noise.”
“Yeah,” Tim said again, because she was right. “Christ,” Tim said, and leaned his forehead against the top of the steering wheel, “is that what they always sounded like?”
“To me it is,” Steph said, smirking.
“Yeah, and Blur always sounded like malfunctioning circus equipment to me,” Tim said.
“Come on,” Steph said, “you’re telling me you thought I was dead all that time, and you never put on ‘Blue Jeans’ and cried, because that was your dead girlfriend’s favorite song?”
“Not as such,” Tim said.
“Right,” Steph said. Something in her tone told Tim she wished he had. “They don’t even sound like that anymore. They’ve completely reinvented their sound.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tim said. “They’ve only ever sounded like that.”
“I think I might…” Steph trailed off and pulled her backpack up on her knees, reaching into the depths. “Gotcha!” She excavated a blank CD from a clear, unlabeled jewel case. “Mix-CD,” Steph explained, carefully replacing the Oasis CD with her own and not-so-carefully shoving it back in the glove compartment. There were flashing moments of songs as she skipped to the one she wanted, like switching stations on a radio dial.
They listened to the song, and all around them, Gotham listened too. The sun was about to rise. The guitar was a rising sun. He glanced over at Steph, saw her bright hair curtaining her face, obscuring her expression.
“There’s no way that was a song by Blur,” Tim said.
“Believe it,” Steph said, and brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
“It’s good,” Tim said. “It reminds me of ‘Time of Your Life’ by Green Day.”
“Somehow I knew you would say that,” Steph said, and skipped two more songs. “Time of Your Life” played over the car speakers.
“I thought you didn’t like Green Day like that,” Tim said.
“Not as such,” Steph said. “They just remind me of you.”
The sun came up. When he dropped her at home she left the CD in his car. He pressed play and listened to the whole thing from the beginning.
2001
“They’re called Gorillaz,” Tim said, and waved the CD around in the air for emphasis. Steph snatched it from out of his hands and read the liner notes. “It’s this totally new and radical idea for the presentation of popular music and a pretty smart commentary on artifice and celebrity…”
“Woah, boy,” Steph said. “Someone’s gotta cancel their subscription to Spin.”
Tim rolled his eyes and opened the passenger seat door of his car, gesturing Steph inside. “Just give it a shot. You probably heard the big song on the radio already.”
Steph tried to be patient, Tim could tell. But it wasn’t in her nature. Not a minute into the first song she pressed pause, dramatically, and turned to face him. “That’s Damon Albarn.”
“Who?”
“The singer. It’s the guy from Blur.”
“Like the lead singer?”
“Yes!” Steph said. “I had a poster of him up on my wall. I’ve listened to all their albums, like, hundreds of times. I know his voice when I hear it.”
“I fucking knew it,” Tim said.
“Right, isn’t it obvious? He’s not even trying to hide it.”
“Not that, I don’t care about that,” Tim said, and slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “I knew you only liked Blur because you thought they were hot!”
Steph shrugged. “Yeah, that’s obvious too. But I don’t find all of them hot. Just the singer.”
“I think your singer has stage fright,” Tim said.
Steph shrugged again. “Whatever. I like this too, but it’s not Blur.”
“That we can agree on,” Tim said. For the best, he thought. “Hey, you ever listen to Bright Eyes, Steph?”