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