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 me. 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