“You don’t look too bad yourself,” the young woman replied shyly. Nodding towards Jodi, she continued, “And I love the t-shirt you are wearing. I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan. Have you ever seen them live? They are so…” Her words trailed off, and were replaced with a look of consternation. Before Jodi could ask what was wrong, Mary started to apologize. “Oh, I’m so sorry… I didn’t…”

“What is it, beautiful?”

“I just… I didn’t…” the Irish beauty swallowed hard, twisting the napkin cloth nervously in her hands.  “I forgot you are deaf. And here I am talking about music! It’s so insensitive of me.”

Jodi wanted to reach out across the table and take Mary’s hand in her own in a comforting manner. “It’s okay, Mary… you don’t have to apologize for that.” The artist smiled reassuringly; Mary’s mistake was quite common, but it wasn’t coming from a place of prejudice, but of ignorance. And ignorance could only be fought by knowledge. “And just so you know, I happen to enjoy music a lot. I just don’t rely on my ears to experience it, but on the rest of my body. The experience is no better or worse than yours… just different. And no, I haven’t seen them live. What was it like?”

Mary must have been feeling more at ease, because she had no trouble answering. “It was incredible! Saw them at Radio City a year ago… they were so good! I ended up crying when they played my favorite song! Maybe you’ve heard… I mean… know it. It’s called In your room”. Jodi indeed knew it, and proceeded to tap the song’s beat on the table to the delight of her date. “You are very impressive, Miss Lerner.”

“Impressive? Just wait till you see me dancing,” quipped Jodi with a smug smile.

“Are you THAT good?”

“I’m quite horrible, actually,” admitted the artist with a good-natured smile. “But being deaf has nothing to do with that. I made the mistake of learning to dance from my brother… it wasn’t until I was 18 that I was told he had two left feet and no sense of rhythm.”

The girl smiled shyly before saying, “Maybe I can teach you some new moves.”