We Contain Multitudes

by Sarah Henstra

  Now it’s the next morning. I keep thinking about the news this morning. A Taliban strategy: Dress fifteen suicide bombers in US military uniforms. Sneak them past the NATO base perimeter. Blow up eighteen Harrier jets.

  So I guess the math looks like this: fifteen Taliban lives equals $200 million and one gigantic eff-you to the USA. I mean they try not to say too much on the news for exactly this reason. Telling the world about it will just make it mean more.

  In the middle of the night I woke up from a falling-off-the-roof dream. I lay there in bed listening, but it wasn’t Uncle Vik. It was my own heartbeat. I dreamed it was saying, Help. Help. Help. Help.

  I listened to it for a long time before I woke up for real.

  Then I remembered you, Jo. Your tent. It seemed impossible that it was just over twenty-four hours ago. Impossible that it happened at all. I lay there trying to remember your body with my body. Hunting around for any sign of you on me. I mean I even stuck my nose into my elbows and armpits like a dog, looking for your leftover scent.

  Don’t say anything to Bron and Shayna about the test. I’ve heard Bron making study dates and talking about all these strategies for getting a good score, like an attack ratio et cetera. I mean I don’t think I can handle them taking cracks at me about it, even if they are just joking around. Or if they don’t think it’s a joke, that might be even worse. Bron has this way of looking at me like she’s trying to decide what to fix. I don’t think I can handle her making me her personal SAT project.

  Sincerely,

  AK

  PS: What a pathetic way to end this letter. It’s pathetic to end it talking about Bron. I mean I can’t believe I talked about the Taliban after what happened in your tent. After us! I don’t know how to talk about us, Jo, but I swear I don’t want to not talk about us. I don’t even want to talk about any of these other things.

  Wednesday, December 9

  Dear Kurl,

  I owed Abigail Cuttler a letter today, so I don’t have much time left in class for this one. I’m still writing to her as well as to you. I asked Ms. Khang before class this morning if I could possibly go back to writing only to you, but she said she’s confident I can handle two correspondents. I only need to meet the minimum of one letter to each per week, she reminded me.

  Once class had started and we were all supposed to be writing our letters, Ms. Khang came over to my desk, crouched beside it so that I had to lean over to her, and whispered, “Please don’t think I want you to write fewer letters than you have been, though. I didn’t mean that. What’s happening between you and Adam is wonderful.”

  “What’s happening between you and Adam.” For a heart-stopping moment I was absolutely certain Ms. Khang had been reading our letters all along. I blushed so deeply that my scalp prickled, and the surprise sent tears filling my eyes so that I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t look at her.

  I overreacted, I realized, a few moments later. Ms. Khang was merely referring to the frequency of our letters, not their contents. In my defense, it’s always unsettling to have a teacher crouch by your desk and whisper to you, isn’t it, no matter what she might say? You assume you’ve done something wrong. Then you worry you might have morning breath, or something stuck between your teeth. The whole time you can feel your classmates straining to hear what’s being said.

  The bell has rung, and I’m still sitting in Ms. Khang’s classroom trying to finish this. What I wanted to say before I see you tonight—before we’re with the girls and I don’t have a chance to say anything privately—is that you needing to take the SAT is not bad news at all, Kurl. What you don’t realize is how much I’ve been hanging around Bron while she studies, and how much that has taught me about SAT strategy.

  Kurl, I can tell you with absolute confidence that you will get a perfectly adequate score on the test if you approach it strategically, and you will have no trouble approaching it strategically if you let me show you how. So long as you can stomach the idea of a sophomore SAT coach, the girls will never need to know.

  Whoa! You just walked into the classroom. You’re talking to Ms. Khang at the front of the room, and you’re both glancing over at me and smiling.

  “Hurry up, I have to work,” you just called over to me. Now my face is overheated again and my heart is pounding and I’m scribbling like a moron, trying to finish. Bron told me you’re coming with us to the Decent Fellows’ gig at Rosa’s Room, so I’ll see you tonight.

  Yours,

  Jo

  Thursday, December 10

  Dear Little Jo,

  Sorry I was so late getting to Rosa’s Room. Roofing went late and then my uncle made me do the dump run. By the time I got cleaned up and made it to the bar, the Decent Fellows’ show was already at halftime. Intermission, I guess you would call it in the context of music. The band was sharing pitchers of beer around a couple of small tables. I didn’t notice you there at first, because your scarf was over your head tied with a bow under your chin. Bron was sliding this pair of pink mirrored sunglasses onto your face.

  I took a chair and said hey to everyone in general.

  You ripped off the scarf so that the glasses clattered to the table. Oh, hi, Kurl, you said.

  I was introduced to the band members I hadn’t met yet: Derek the mandolin player and Scarlett the fiddler/singer.

  So you’re the football star, Scarlett said.

  Something like that, I said. I was thinking again about how much I like the way you always say, Oh, hi, Kurl, like that, like it’s no big deal, but meanwhile you pretty much jump out of your skin.

  Cody said to Lyle, Dude, just a couple tunes, seriously. For old times’ sake.

  Lyle smiled but shook his head.

  You’ve heard Shayna sing, right? Cody said to me. Back me up, here. We gotta let her up onstage tonight, right?

  It’s not going to happen, Lyle said.

  You never let me do anything, Shayna said. Nothing I do is good enough. And she shoved back her chair and stalked off to the restroom.

  So obviously there’s some sort of family argument going on that I’ve just walked into. But meanwhile I’m noticing how your hair is sticking out all over the place because of the scarf. How you’re trying to comb it back down with your fingers but you’re just making it worse. How the whole time you’re blushing and looking somewhere else, not at me.

  Jo. I know you were embarrassed, and I’m sorry for staring. For not being able to stop smiling. I was close to laughing aloud. You must have thought I was laughing at you but I swear I wasn’t.

  I was just so happy for a second. I mean I was so happy it was making me light-headed. These little things you do. All the little gestures, your quick nervous fingers. I watch you do these things and I think, how could I ever be unhappy? How could anything ever bother me?

  Lyle came around and crouched beside my chair. Hey, Adam, he said.

  I looked down at him, and he turned away from the table a bit so I’d know he wanted only me to hear. I owe you an apology, he said, from last time I saw you. You know, at the Prince thing?

  I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about but of course I knew exactly. So I didn’t say anything.

  That wasn’t about you at all, Lyle said. It was about me—me and Shayna. I shouldn’t have come after you like that. And I’m sorry for what I said.

  Okay, I said.

  You look good, Adam, he said. You look really happy. He stood up and patted my shoulder and went back to his chair.

  I looked at you, Jo, and you were staring at me with a massive question all over your face. Of course I knew you must have talked to Lyle about the Paisley Park thing. I knew that’s why he was apologizing after all this time. But it still worked, the apology. I mean it still felt like Lyle meant it.

  I guess feeling so happy was why it was you and not me who was pissed off when Bron started grilling me with all those questions. She leaned over to us and told us she wanted to write about me for her blog. The Real Adam
Kurlansky, or something. I mean I told you Bron sees me as some kind of project.

  And then the waitress brings over that drink. This fizzy yellow drink with a skewer of melon balls in it. From the man in the black T-shirt over there, she says.

  For me? Bron says, turning in her chair to look.

  Nope, the waitress tells her, and points at me. For him.

  The rest of you all whip your heads around to find the man in the black T-shirt. And then you all whip your heads back around to look at me.

  I mean it’s not that the guy is bad-looking or anything. Lean and tall, these craggy cheekbones. But he’s got to be thirty-five or forty years old. And a man. A man has just bought me a drink.

  He can’t drink that, Lyle says, he’s underage. They’re with us, but they’re not supposed to be drinking.

  So she takes the drink away, and also the beer glasses in front of me, you, and Bron.

  Holy gaybait! says Scarlett.

  It’s my face that’s red now. I can feel it.

  That’s what you get for dressing up, Bron tells me. You finally show up somewhere in a decent shirt, and wham.

  The band went back onstage and started playing. It got too loud to talk anymore, which I have to say by that point was just fine with me.

  After a few minutes Shayna sat down again between you and me. Her eyes were red.

  Are you okay? I asked her, but she just shrugged and kept playing with her phone. She pretty much ignored the band the whole rest of the night.

  I was watching Lyle sing and thinking of you singing. Remembering you on the sofa beside Shayna with your mandolin and remembering you in your tent beside me with your mandolin. I was listening to Lyle’s ordinary voice and thinking of your shivery, heart-scraping voice. I was watching Lyle’s fingers and thinking of your quick warm fingers.

  The whole time the band played I kept sneaking looks at you, Jo, and thinking: How could I be unhappy? I mean how could anybody be unhappy? And also: How is anybody supposed to hide happiness like this?

  Sincerely,

  AK

  Thursday, December 10

  Dear Kurl,

  I realize we’re probably going to cross letters today, but I woke up this morning still irritated with Bronwyn for her despicable rudeness to you at Rosa’s. Frankly, I don’t care what kind of writing she’s aiming to do, with all her talk of “exploding the line between fiction and reality” and “getting under readers’ skin.” She’s calling these new pieces on her blog “Dispatches,” as though she’s sending exciting news out to the world from her special place at the epicenter of it.

  Bron crossed her arms and leaned her elbows on the table. “So, Kurl. Adam Kurlansky.”

  You leaned back a little in your chair. “So, Bron. Bronwyn Whatever-your-last-name-is,” you said.

  She grinned. “Otulah-Tierney. So who is the real Adam Kurlansky?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s start with that cut healing up on your face,” Bron said. “Who would you say are your current enemies, Kurl? Why do you feel the constant need to press up against the rest of the world? Why do you think physical conflict is such an integral component of your identity?”

  You frowned a little, sipped your beer, and glanced around the bar.

  “Mind your manners, Bronwyn,” I said.

  She ignored me. “Kurl, are you poised between fight or flight right now? Are you experiencing an urge to hit me?”

  “What kind of an interview strategy is this,” I asked her, “asking seventeen questions in a row?”

  “It’s not fighting,” you said. “I don’t actually fight.”

  Bron laughed. “I’ve seen you fight.”

  “I mean this.” You pointed to the scratch along your cheekbone, something I’d noticed the other night when you came over but hadn’t had time to ask you about. “It’s not from a fight.”

  “Did you bump into a telephone pole?”

  “Something like that.”

  Bron sat back, crossed her arms, and shook her head. “Well, that one’s never true. I’ve been researching this topic. Self-injuries to the face are extremely rare.”

  You leaned forward and put your elbows on the table, imitating Bron’s earlier pose. You gazed at her steadily, serenely. I recognized this tactic of yours, this aggressive expressionlessness.

  “Come on, you have to admit there’s a mystique,” she said. “I’d like to dispel it a little, if I may. Shed some light on the fog.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors,” I told Bron. “You don’t dispel a mystique. And you can’t shed light on a fog.”

  “Everyone’s a critic, Jojo,” she said. She was trying to hold your eye.

  “If you want to be a writer, though,” I persisted, “you should practice writing well”—and was rewarded, finally, by her turning to me with a glare.

  And then the waitress brought over that drink for you, and Bron was forced to give up on her interrogation.

  The girls departed just before the end of the show. Shayna seems fully convinced that open mic night at the Ace is going to prove her big break. They swore us to secrecy about their destination and slipped out before Lyle finished playing.

  I was glad the group split up, not just because of Bron’s annoying behavior but because if I had one personal goal for the evening, it was this: to have the ride home with you alone, Kurl. I’d had no idea how to accomplish the goal and spent nearly the whole last hour of the evening fretting about it. I was worried you wouldn’t offer a ride—wouldn’t think to offer, because you’d make the logical assumption that I’d go home with Lyle after they packed up.

  But you did offer, and the girls had already left, so it was just you and me in the car. I love how normal it feels, the two of us talking. All the awkwardness of when we’re together in public just falls away. We didn’t discuss the show, or Bron’s heckling, or Lyle, or school, or anything immediately relevant.

  What did we talk about? Food. We discussed our favorite foods, which vegetables are most often overcooked, how spicy is too spicy. You told me about this Moroccan stew you saw in a magazine, which they cook in a clay dish shaped like an upside-down funnel.

  We forgot entirely about having to say goodbye until we were already in my driveway. You turned off the engine, and we sat there a moment in silence.

  “Lyle could be home in twenty minutes,” I said.

  You started the car again and put it in reverse. “I’ll just drive around the block,” you said. And you did drive, literally, around the block, and parked at the curb one street away from mine.

  “This is going to sound stupid,” you said, “but do you think I look gay now?”

  I laughed, but you were serious. “What do you mean?” I said.

  “I mean do I look gay? Do I come off as gay now?”

  “Because of your shirt?” I asked.

  You glanced down at your blue button-down as though you’d forgotten you were wearing it. “Is it a gay shirt?”

  I laughed again. “No, it’s not a gay shirt. It’s a completely neutral shirt. Neutral to straight, in fact.”

  You frowned.

  I made another guess. “Because of that man at the bar?”

  “I just feel like maybe I look gay now. I told you it was stupid.” You looked out through the windshield, up at the sky.

  “When you say ‘now,’ do you mean—” I stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean now compared to before you and I fell in love.”

  I stared at your profile. “Is that what we did?”

  You didn’t answer, and I decided I’d misheard. I decided I was doing it again: I was making an issue out of something that wasn’t an issue. I was cornering you like I’d done in the library that day after we kissed. Forcing you to rethink, retract, and withdraw what you’d said. I was an idiot. I wanted to bite my tongue off.

  Yet for some reason I kept going anyhow: “Fell in love. Is that what we did, Kurl?”

  You looked at m
e. Shrugged. “I did,” you said, as though it should be obvious. As though it was as simple as the stars out there in the night sky.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Yours truly,

  Jo

  Friday, December 11

  Dear Little Jo,

  Today this girl had a sudden nosebleed in the cafeteria. Some freshman girl I think. She sort of panicked, stood up saying, Oh my God, oh my God.

  There you were, Jo, next to her like a shot. You pulled this giant white handkerchief from your pocket. You put your hand to the back of the girl’s head and the hankie to her face. Sat her down gently and spoke to her quietly.

  I thought, There it is. The bright flag of your disposition. How you give things to people without needing to stop and think. How it goes straight from your heart to your hands.

  I mean you told me this about yourself in one of your first letters. Quoting Walt to describe your personality: spending vast sums, bestowing yourself on the first that will take you. I can’t remember Walt’s exact words, but I was reading over your first letters last night, remembering. Be real and be true et cetera. I can’t believe how long it took me to see how amazing you are. And now I can’t stop seeing it all day long.

  Sincerely,

  AK

  Friday, December 11

  Dear Kurl,

  As you know, we’re meeting tomorrow morning at the public library for our first SAT-coaching session, so I’m enclosing a test-strategy sheet I printed out last night. It describes how to calculate the ratio between your “attack” percentage and your “get” percentage in order to know the minimum number of questions you’ll need to answer in the allotted time to achieve your target score. I know, I know—it makes for riveting reading, doesn’t it? But you should review it nonetheless before we meet, to save us time.