“My name is Ferris and, before 2020, I was a car-singer.”

This I confess to the pizza box, the several unwashed glasses of water, and the over-cluttered coffee table in my studio apartment. It is what I miss most about February, back when there were still places to go, still reasons to leave the apartment. I sound nothing like the great Freddie Mercury, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t belt Queen at the top of my lungs during my commute to work.

I guess having work was nice too.

I got dressed for the first time all week, beyond transitioning from one pair of pajamas into another. It almost felt surreal sliding into jeans again, which is admission of some sort of defeat in an of itself. The hamper is overflowing again, but I need to savor chores as the only thing I ‘need’ to do. Surely it can fit another day’s worth of clothes.

That’s my excuse, anyways. It’s about noon, so I still have an hour to go. That’s just enough time to make yet another turkey and mustard sandwich and settle my internal debate: shoes or no.

I’m halfway through a bit when I see the roll of painter’s tape on the coffee table.

My first spoken word of the week: “Shit.”

I grab the tape and its partner sharpie and shove the coffee table to the side with my sockened feet. Something falls off but it doesn’t sound like glass so that’s a problem for later.

step 1: Rip off a thumb’s worth of tape.

step 2: Number it.

step 3: Consult the printed guide about where it goes on the floor.

step 4: Repeat until out of tape.

It was nice to hear my own voice again. The walls here are too thin. At least in my car I can drive faster than humiliation can catch me. I don’t think shoes are a good idea. As thin as the walls are I don’t think I’ve ever trusted a floor less than this one, and my downstairs neighbors would probably hate me if I danced on hardwood above them.

Still, the diagram on my phone and the tape on the floor matched up pretty well. A simple 12 step dance. 12 doesn’t sound bad, what’s the worst that could happen?

My alarm goes off. 12:59. I rush to the window.

The street is loud and narrow, even with the rest of the PNW locked down. Delivery drivers, essential, deliver packages and food. IF my loud neighbor is to be believed, at least one of those boxes holds a dvd box set of Lost. He thinks this whole thing is a waste of time, and I’ve got better things to do than argue with the concept of nonsense itself.

She opens her curtains across the street exactly on time. There’s this moment each where her focus is fastening it to the side where I get to see her face in profile, and for whatever reason, that stands out to me. She looks at me, smiles at me with closed eyes, and waves.

I wave back. I’m probably grinning like a goon.

She looks down at her phone, then back up to me. She points at it, confusion painted across her brow.

I forgot to turn the TV on. I hold up a hand and dive back for the remote. After correcting this dumb mistake, she gives me the thumbs up and goes back to her phone.

My TV changes.

Hazel’s iPhone is connecting

The Spotify splash screen comes up

Playing from playlist: Some Swing Things

I look out and giver her the thumbs up, then jump into position. Her music choice today is swing; muted brass bands and soothing vocals. This first song sounds like it was dredged up from the depths of the 1930’s themselves. My right foot lines up with the 1, my left on the 2.

She’s moving in the corner of my eye, so I start. 3 4, 5 6, 7 8, er- 9? 10!

I’m laughing, nearly tangling myself up, socks were a bad, bad idea. But it’s too late.

I have a strong suspicion her name is Hazel. Truth be told, we’ve never spoken but the first time we get to that it is going to be my first question. Sometimes I imagine how the conversation might play out. There are a thousand different answers.

‘No.’

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘No, and secretly, I killed Hazel and stole her phone.’

‘Yes, and secretly, I killed a different Hazel and stole her phone.’

All of them make me smile, though I should stop putting words into other people’s mouths.

12, 34, 56, 78

The next song is faster. In the videos I watched, the dancers swung the arms quite a bit. So I start to do the same.

910, 1112, 12

It’s silly. We’re probably not even doing the same dance. Glancing over confirms it; she’s stepping in a box with her arms around an imaginary dancer. We’re dancing so far apart and yet it feels like she’s sharing the cramped space with me. Each step and sway she makes is just so easy to transplant across the pavement and into my apartment.

I step off the numbers.

The last song of the day is slower than the others. I try to mimic the dance she was doing. Where her arms wrapped up around someone taller, I kept mine lower. I assumed that’s how dancing worked. Before Covid-19, honestly, I hadn’t danced at all.

One of the bits of tape was stuck to my foot, but I didn’t care. We slow danced, together alone. Two idiots unashamed and in the privacy of their own apartments. Well, perhaps only one idiot, but I was enough to bring down the average for the both of us.

I honestly can’t remember when we started doing this. I remember seeing her dancing alone one afternoon. She saw me and closed her curtain for a week. I made a point of checking to see if it had opened back up, and the day that she was finally looking out to the glorious sight of me air-guitaring my brains out.

I suspect she will deny that she laughed, but I know better.

Our songs are over for today. I assume she has to work, these little dancing breaks are always precisely 15 minutes long. I go back to the window.

Her neighbor, a middle aged man wearing a sports Jersey, raises his eyebrows at me so fiercely that, well, I can tell from across the street. My face is bright red. I shake it off and turn to ‘Hazel’, if that is her real name.

Her smile is bright enough that, well, same deal.

She unhooks the curtain and starts to close it, phone in hand. My TV plays her final song, the one she’s played every day for the last month through my speakers.

‘Tomorrow’ from the musical ‘Annie’.

As I peel tape off the floor, I decide I should probably watch it one of these days. We two car-singers will have something to talk about.