The Impossibility of Us Read online

  This must be pilau.

  There are skewers of grilled chicken, too, plus flattened bread that reminds me of pita, and a bowl of what looks like diluted milk. There are flecks of green floating in it.

  We sit, staring at the bounty of food, until Mati gives me a nod. “Go ahead, Elise.”

  Confession … Last night I watched videos online about Afghan dining customs. It was all very communal, the way they served and shared and consumed. In most of the clips, men ate separately from women, and utensils appeared to be optional. So now I’m thrown. Here we are, a mix of genders sitting together, and there’s definitely silverware beside my plate. There’s a large spoon beside the platter of pilau, too, which is a relief. I cannot even fathom digging in with my hand.

  I take a kebab and some of the flat bread. Using the spoon, I scoop rice from the platter. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hala watching me, hawklike. I strong-arm a rush of worry.

  Mati’s not shy about loading his plate. He serves his parents, too, a surprising gesture that invokes a fluttering in my chest, like the delicate beat of hummingbirds’ wings.

  The food is good, thank God, and I shower it with compliments, but the fact that I have no idea what animal died to provide the rice’s protein is a little unsettling. Mati explains that the diluted milk concoction is shlombay, and is actually yogurt thinned with water. The green bits are mint and cucumber. After some persuading from Rasoul, I try a sip and, nope—not good. It’s trying to be refreshing, but I’m getting saltwater-flavored-with-toothpaste vibes. It’s a challenge not to shudder as I drink, but I manage because I am not about to insult these people who invited me into their home.

  Still, Hala eyes me cynically, like she’s just waiting for me to make a misstep. As a diversion, I think, Mati launches into a monologue about my photography in a voice that rings with pride. Rasoul picks up the thread, asking about how I got started and what kind of camera I prefer and if I’m one of those people who “snaps pictures using the tiny screen of a phone.”

  I laugh. “On occasion. I don’t always carry an actual camera, but I have a very cute niece and sometimes I can’t resist taking pictures of her, even if all that’s handy is my phone.”

  “Elise has a dog, too,” Mati says. “Bambi. She takes pictures of her as well.”

  Hala’s face twists sourly.

  “In Afghanistan, dogs that aren’t strays are mostly used for work,” Mati explains to me. “Things like guarding and herding.” He smiles at his mother, a smile different from any I’ve seen him wear before; it’s genteel, almost artificial. Still, it helps to unscrew her expression. “Even you might like Elise’s dog, Mama. She is very friendly.”

  Hala gives her head a frantic shake. “Dirty.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Rasoul says, then hacks his way through a few violent coughs. He hasn’t eaten much, I notice. “American dogs are domesticated,” he says when he’s recovered. “If we were staying, perhaps we could befriend Elise’s.”

  If we were staying …

  The hummingbirds that took up residence in my chest a few minutes ago drop into the well of my stomach, already heavy with pilau and shlombay, leaving me queasy. Ever since Mati told me about his August 10 departure, I’ve done my best to avoiding thinking about it. Now that I’ve gotten to know him—now that I’ve grown to care about him—it sucks especially. He has to go, and I’ll be left behind.

  Again.

  He peers at me, eyes darkened with guilt, like he knows what I’m thinking, like it’s somehow his fault that he has to leave Cypress Beach.

  In a voice far stronger than I feel, I tell Rasoul, “You can visit with Bambi anytime. She loves meeting new people.”

  He laughs, which brings another coughing fit, leading to an entire glass of sipped water and a chest pounded into submission. After regaining control, he croaks, “I would like that.”

  When we’ve had our fill, Mati’s mother clears the platters away. I offer to help, but she shushes me with a dismissive wave. Mati smiles his plastic smile, making me want to rescue him from the confines of this cottage. It’s obvious he loves his parents, but it’s even more obvious he’s a different version of himself when he’s with them.

  Tea is a brief affair. Rasoul has evidently burned through his energy store; he sits quietly, sipping from his cup and—holy shit—smoking a cigarette. In the cottage. Exhaling and inhaling through a windpipe that sounds as if it’s been rubbed over with coarse sandpaper. Hala’s cold exterior has yet to thaw. She hasn’t been outright rude—nothing like my mom yesterday—but I get the distinct impression she won’t be bummed when I head out the door.

  And then it’s time to do just that. I thank my hosts, giving Rasoul my warmest smile because God, sick as he is, he’s been so nice. Mati walks me to the foyer and watches as I slip my boots on. I straighten, blowing a stray tendril of hair from my face, and he hands me my bag.

  “Thanks for having me,” I say with more awkwardness than I thought myself capable. Then, unsure of how to execute a goodbye with his parents in the next room, I turn for the door.

  A warm hand lands low on my back, sending tiny currents of elation zinging up my spine. The contact disappears before I’ve turned all the way around, but Mati’s there, his expression a combination of plaintive and hopeful. He stuffs his fists into the pockets of his sweatshirt and asks, “Do you need to go home?”

  I shake my head. My face is hot, a silly, instinctual response to his brief touch.

  He smiles—his real smile. “Take a walk with me?”

  elise

  We walk to Cypress Beach’s cemetery, a quaint block of land that’s everything the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery isn’t: haphazard, antiquated, fantastical. Of course, Nick’s not here, which is a mixed bag. The loss of him doesn’t loom over me, but I miss the chance to talk to him.

  I’ve been here before, camera in hand, so the disorderly layout isn’t a problem. I choose a spot in the cemetery’s oldest section, specifically for it seclusion. Its headstones are weather-beaten and crumbling, and its trees are sky-high and blanketed in moss. Light filters through their highest branches, making shadows like lace. I snap a few pictures, then sit on a nearby bench, all crooked and dilapidated. Deliberately, I opt for the far side, just to see how close Mati will park himself.

  He takes the other end.

  “Is this weird?” I ask after a few moments of quiet.

  He glances around. “What? This setting?”

  “Yeah. Do you think it’s gruesome that I’ve led you to two separate cemeteries?”

  “Do you think it’s gruesome?”

  “No. But maybe that’s a problem?”

  He drapes an arm over the back of the bench. His hand is six inches from my shoulder. I could lean into it, if I wanted.

  That would be weird.

  “I suppose it could be construed as gruesome,” he says, “but only by someone who doesn’t know you.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You know me?”

  “I think so,” he says, sounding suddenly unsure.

  I swivel around and put my feet up on the bench’s warped wooden slats, knees bent. I’m closer to his outstretched hand now, and he doesn’t shift away. I wrap my cardigan more snugly around myself because it’s cool beneath the tall, tall redwoods and the whispering Cypresses. “I think so, too,” I say.

  He looks me over, the way I’ve folded in on myself, and because he does know me, because he’s always paying attention, reading my cues like the mysterious words in his little notebook, he says, “You’re cold.”

  “No, I’m okay.” I fail to quell an ill-timed shiver.

  He unzips his sweatshirt, then shrugs it off. He’s got a T-shirt on underneath, not enough to keep him comfortable in the shade. Still, he holds his hoodie out to me.

  “Mati, no. Then you’ll be cold.”

  “I will not.” He gives his hoodie a little shake. “Go ahead.”

  I take it, slipping my arms into the soft cotton. I zip
it all the way up, the way he wore it, and his scent engulfs me. It’s so good—comforting, like being in a bathtub full of warm, rich bubbles. I’m reminded of yesterday, the hug that felt more intimate than any interaction I’ve ever had with a boy. The hug that felt like a promise. I relive it down to its finest detail, wrapped up in his hoodie.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re welcome,” he answers.

  Somehow, there’s more behind our words than a borrowed sweatshirt.

  “Your parents are nice,” I tell him.

  “Baba likes you.”

  “I like him, too. God, Mati, he’s so sick. And he still smokes?”

  “One cigarette, always after lunch. He says it’s a reward for making it to another day, but I think he lacks the strength to quit completely.”

  “I didn’t realize it was…” so bad.

  “I know. Today is a good day, though, believe it or not, and his doctors say he’s showing improvement.”

  “Do you think he really wants to meet Bambi?”

  Mati nods. “I can already picture him playing with her in the yard. Most things Westerners do, he wants to try. He would probably eat pork chops and applesauce if he could.”

  “What about your mother?”

  He grimaces. “She prefers the Afghan way. I wish she would have acted … differently.”

  “She’s an amazing cook.”

  “But with you … I wish she would have been different with you.”

  I give a humorless laugh; I sound like a baying hound. “Yesterday my mom treated you like shit. Your mom was downright chummy in comparison.”

  “Your mom did not treat me like—she did not treat me badly. She was uncomfortable. It’s hard to let go of conceptions we’ve spent years building. When I think about your brother, it makes sense that she’s angry.”

  “Her anger is misguided. Maybe you’re too understanding.”

  He touches the tail of my braid where it’s fallen over my shoulder, rubbing the strands of my hair between his fingers. He must be preoccupied by his thoughts because when he catches himself, he snatches his hand away, glaring at it like it’s got a mind of its own. His expression pulls taut and he moves to shove his fists into his sweatshirt pockets—his “I’m uncomfortable” tell—but he’s not wearing his sweatshirt anymore and, oh, if I could just take his hand and tangle it with mine, all the tension and strain and yearning of this moment would disappear.

  Or not. Maybe it’d be worse, like on the way home from Sacramento, when he held my hand for hours, literally. Every second I spent with my palm enveloped in his was incredible, but I was left feeling … not content. I dropped him off wanting more, more, more.

  Kind of like right now.

  I slip my hands into the pockets of the borrowed sweatshirt, mostly to keep from reaching for him. As his face relaxes, like there’s relief in watching me perform his action, my fingers close over a firm rectangle—his notebook.

  I trace its cardboard cover within the depths of the pocket, its feathered-paper edges, its coiled spine. I pull it out and let it rest on my palm, but I don’t open it. It’s too personal. His lockbox of secrets and wishes and dreams.

  He regards it warily, as if it’s sprouted sharp teeth and a pointed-dagger tail.

  I let my gaze travel from where it sits on my palm, to his face. “Do you write in Pashto?”

  “English, since I’ve been in America.”

  “What would you say if I asked to read something?”

  One corner of his mouth quirks up, fashioning an adorably askew smile. “I would say, ‘You are a very curious person.’”

  This, for some reason, makes me laugh. “I like when you joke.”

  “I like when you make me feel light enough for jokes.”

  I hold his gaze and tell him what he must already know: “I like you.”

  He blinks, languid, thick lashes brushing high cheekbones. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re a flurry of conflict. “Elise … all this … us. It’s very complicated. You understand, don’t you?”

  “I do.” I understand that his response isn’t a rebuff, or a denial of his feelings. It’s the opposite. He likes me, too; that’s why it’s complicated.

  He glances at his notebook, still balanced on my hand, then looks at me. I see trust in his eyes, trust and affirmation and affection, and my skin prickles with heat.

  He says, “You can read something, if you really want to.”

  “I really want to.”

  He takes the notebook and thumbs through it, his face drawn in circumspection. He flips past some pages quickly, wearing an expression like, Oh, hell no, and considers others more carefully. I’m wondering at the criteria he’s using for this prudent selection process when, finally, he opens the notebook’s pages wide and looks up at me.

  “This one was for fun,” he says, smiling reluctantly. “I was just … playing around.”

  He holds the notebook out to me.

  MATI

  Twinkle, twinkle shiny star,

  set ablaze the sky so far.

  In his world she lights a spark,

  illuminating swathes of dark.

  Her eyes, her smile, glowing bright,

  twinkle, twinkle, up all night.

  Waves and gulls, at the beach,

  words to teach and walls to breech.

  In her he has found a friend,

  links to mend, bonds transcend.

  Walking, wandering, toes in sand,

  how he longs to take her hand.

  Dandelions, foggy skies,

  sights now seen through wondrous eyes.

  Glinting in a night of black,

  thanks to her he can’t look back.

  Take a breath, away they’ll fly,

  up above the world so high.

  Twinkle, twinkle shiny star,

  she has marked him like a scar.

  I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing.

  —Rumi

  elise

  The day after my lunch at Mati’s cottage (the day after he let me read about stars and scars and wondrous eyes, the day after I nearly swooned in the middle of a busted-up cemetery), I’m cruising out the gate with Bambi and her trusty tennis ball when Ryan intercepts me.

  “You’re headed to the beach, aren’t you?” he says over the hedge.

  “Yep.”

  “Perfect, because Xavier and I are about to meet up. If you’re going to hang out with Mati, we can double.”

  I hesitate, wavering between my need to be a good friend, my wish to lay eyes on Xavier, and my selfish desire to keep Mati to myself.

  “I take it your lunch with the parents went well,” Ryan says with a pointed raise of his brow. “It may not have, if it weren’t for me. Keep that in mind while you’re trying to come up with an excuse for ditching us.”

  I crack a smile. “Oh, all right. You guys can tag along.”

  “Cool. I’ll call Xavier and tell him to head for the beach.”

  Bambi woofs, wagging her tail at the gate. I wave an arm. “Call while we walk.”

  On the way, I text Mati to fill him in about Xavier, and by the time Ryan and I reach the beach, we find the two of them waiting near the top of the stairs. There’s a red Wrangler parked nearby, a US Air Force sticker adhered to its rear window. Ryan was right—Xavier is good-looking. He’s almost as tall as Mati, with a similar wiry build. His skin is brown, his eyes nearly black, and his smile is warm. He’d blend right in with the company of young soldiers who came to Sacramento for my brother’s burial. He greets Ryan with an affectionate shoulder bump, which makes me smile. It’s nice, seeing Ryan so happy.

  I’m equally happy when Mati reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “Good morning, Elise,” he says and, benign as they are, his words feel like a secret—a private exchange between the two of us.

  Xavier’s brought a football, which strikes me as kind of funny. Ryan’s not exactly sporty, and though Nicky taught me the ins and outs
of soccer, helmets and shoulder pads weren’t his thing. Somehow, I can’t see Mati throwing a football on the streets of Kabul.

  But as soon as we hit the sand, he and Xavier are tossing the ball back and forth, the gap between them stretching wider and wider as they make their way down the beach. Ryan and I follow, taking turns throwing Bambi’s tennis ball into the surf. When we reach the end of the sand, we stop to watch her frolic, chasing seagulls like she was born to do it. Ryan asks about yesterday’s lunch, and Mati tells him how impressed his parents were with me, a half truth, I’m sure—I doubt Hala spent the evening singing my praises. Then I feel obligated to admit to Mati that Ryan schooled me on how not to make a fool of myself during a Muslim meal. He seems touched—that Ryan went to the trouble to tutor me, or that I bothered to learn, I’m not sure.

  After our long walk back, Xavier and Mati persuade Ryan and me to play a game of catch. I’m terrible and Ryan’s not much better, but Mati surprises me with his athleticism. I mean, he’s tall and lean and his arms are corded with muscle, but football. It’s so … American.

  We pass, and pass, and pass, and then, conversationally, Ryan says, “So Jordan called yesterday.”

  Xavier’s spiral flies wide.

  Mati retrieves the ball, brushing sand from its leather. “Jordan is your…?”

  “Ex,” Ryan says. He glances at Xavier, then quickly away. “He’s having second thoughts about ending things.”

  “Why?” Mati asks. He tosses the ball to me, and I make a lucky catch.

  “He’s thinking the distance between our schools won’t be so bad after all.”

  I throw a wobbly pass to Xavier, hoping to distract him from the awkward topic Ryan thrust upon us. He connects, but sloppily.

  “How far apart will you be?” Mati asks.

  “We’ll both be in Texas. Couple of hours’ drive.”

  “Oh.” Mati sounds let down. I try to catch his eye, but Bambi’s barreling toward him, wet and sandy, and he has to dodge her before he’s bowled over.

  “Miles are miles,” Xavier says, throwing the ball to Ryan. “There are ways to stay in touch—if you want to.” Like an oh-so-casual afterthought, he adds, “What did you tell him?”