We Contain Multitudes Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Henstra

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Adams Carvalho

  Cover design by Karina Granda

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at LBYR.com

  Simultaneously published in 2019 by Penguin Random House in Canada

  First Edition: May 2019

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Henstra, Sarah, author.

  Title: We contain multitudes / Sarah Henstra.

  Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2019. | Summary: As pen pals for a high school English assignment, poetry-loving sophomore Jonathan and popular athlete senior Adam explore their growing relationship through a series of letters.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018022802| ISBN 9780316524650 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316524643 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Gays—Fiction. | Poetry—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools— Fiction. | Letters—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H468 We 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022802

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-52465-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-52464-3 (ebook)

  E3-20190404-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Thursday, August 27, 2015

  Tuesday, September 1, 2015

  Wednesday, September 2

  Tuesday, September 8

  Thursday, September 10

  Tuesday, September 15

  Thursday, September 17

  Monday, September 21

  Wednesday, September 23

  Tuesday, September 29

  Wednesday, September 30

  Wednesday, September 30

  Thursday, October 1

  Friday, October 2

  Saturday, October 3 + Sunday, October 4

  Saturday, October 3

  Monday, October 5

  Tuesday, October 6

  Thursday, October 8

  Friday, October 9

  Friday, October 9

  Friday, October 9

  Saturday, October 10, 2 a.m.

  Tuesday, October 13

  Tuesday, October 13

  Tuesday, October 13, 10 p.m.

  Wednesday, October 14

  Thursday, October 15

  Friday, October 16, 9 p.m.

  Sunday, October 18, 3 a.m.

  Monday, October 19, 5 p.m.

  Tuesday, October 20

  Wednesday, October 21

  Saturday, October 24, 9:45 p.m.

  Sunday, October 25, 6 a.m.

  Tuesday, October 27

  Wednesday, October 28

  Thursday, October 29

  Thursday, October 29

  Sunday, November 1

  Monday, November 2

  Tuesday, November 3

  Thursday, November 5

  Friday, November 6

  Thursday, November 12

  Tuesday, November 17

  Monday, November 23, 5 p.m.

  Tuesday, November 24

  Wednesday, November 25

  Monday, November 30, 7 p.m. + Tuesday, December 1, 8 a.m.

  Tuesday, December 1

  Wednesday, December 2

  Friday, December 4

  Monday, December 7

  Tuesday, December 8, 12:30 a.m.

  Tuesday, December 8, 2 a.m.

  Tuesday, December 8 + Wednesday, December 9

  Wednesday, December 9

  Thursday, December 10

  Thursday, December 10

  Friday, December 11

  Friday, December 11

  Saturday, December 12

  Monday, December 14

  Tuesday, December 15

  Friday, December 18

  Friday, December 18

  Saturday, December 19, 6 p.m.

  Monday, December 21, 4 p.m.

  Thursday, December 24, 10 p.m.

  Friday, December 25

  Sunday, December 27

  Monday, December 28

  Monday, January 4, 2016

  Wednesday, January 13

  Thursday, January 14

  Wednesday, January 20

  Thursday, January 21

  Thursday, January 21, 10 p.m.

  Monday, January 25

  Tuesday, January 26, 9 p.m.

  Friday, February 19

  Wednesday, February 24

  Thursday, February 25

  Tuesday, March 8

  Tuesday, March 15

  Friday, April 8

  Sunday, April 10

  Thursday, April 21, 5 p.m.

  Friday, April 22

  Friday, April 22

  Sunday, May 8

  Thursday, May 12

  Friday, May 13

  Friday, May 13, 7 p.m.

  Friday, May 13, 7 p.m.

  Saturday, May 14

  Saturday, May 14

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Saturday, May 14 (continued)

  Sunday, May 15

  Sunday, May 15

  Sunday, May 15

  Monday, May 16

  Wednesday, May 18

  Saturday, May 21

  Monday, May 23

  Thursday, May 26

  Friday, May 27

  Tuesday, May 31

  Sunday, June 5

  Wednesday, June 8

  Wednesday, June 8

  Thursday, June 9

  Thursday, June 9

  Saturday, June 11

  Sunday, June 12

  Sunday, June 12

  Wednesday, June 22

  Monday, June 27

  Thursday, June 30

  Do I contradict myself?

  Very well then I contradict myself,

  (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

  —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

  Thursday, August 27, 2015

  Dear Little JO,*

  I guess when you read this letter you’ll be sitting right here looking at what I’m looking at. The front of Ms. Khang’s English classroom with the old-fashioned blackboard and the posters of famous book covers and the Thought of the Day and this new thing, this big wooden box painted in bright colors. I mean you don’t know me because I just drew your name randomly. And if you’re in t
enth grade this will be your first course with Ms. Khang, which means you don’t know her as a teacher yet either. Pretty weird getting a letter from a total stranger I bet. Or how about getting a letter period, in this day and age.

  Khang stands up there taking as much time as possible telling us what this box is for. She’s turning it around and around to show off her paint job, tilting it forward to show the two slots in the top, pointing out the separate combination lock for each lid. All that buildup. After a while we’re all expecting doves to fly out of it or something. And then poor Khang looks all disappointed when we’re disappointed that it turns out to be only a mailbox. Which is the whole problem with buildup. Well you’ll see it for yourself pretty soon I guess.

  On the board it says Introduce Yourself. So my name is Adam Kurlansky and this is Twelfth Grade Applied English. One of the courses I flunked last year, which now I’m regretting because this assignment is not something I’m all that interested in. A letter every week for the entire semester. *JO stands for Jerkoff in case you were wondering. I’m sticking it here in the middle of the letter instead of at the top because Khang wants us to hold up the paper to show her before we put it in the envelope. To prove that we filled the minimum one page, since she’s not actually planning on reading our letters herself. If she asks me I guess I’ll just say JO is short for your name, Jonathan.

  Don’t take it the wrong way. I figure it’s fair game to call you a little jerkoff even though I don’t know you personally because I was one too, as a sophomore. Only most likely not as little. I was already pretty close to my full height by then: six foot three.

  I mean I see you all in the halls with your faces turning red whenever I catch you staring at me. You’re like these arcade gophers popping in and out of holes. People know who I am because of being a bunch of credits behind and not graduating and having to come crawling back for the so-called victory lap. Or not because of that. More likely because of football I guess. Because they decided to let me keep playing football.

  Sincerely,

  Adam Kurlansky

  Tuesday, September 1, 2015

  Dear Kurl,

  May I call you Kurl? From what I’ve overheard in the halls and absorbed from the general atmosphere of this school, the nickname “Kurl” is used nearly universally in addressing or referring to you, so I assume you’re content enough with it. You don’t know me, of course, but I do know a bit about you by reputation if nothing else. When my older sister, Shayna, started ninth grade, she tore the photos of the football and basketball teams out of the Lincoln Herald and put them up in her room. Then she set out to memorize all the players’ names, not because she was a particular fan of those sports but because she surmised—correctly, I believe—that members of the football and basketball teams would be the key tastemakers in the Abraham Lincoln High School social scene, and back then she was still interested in keeping abreast of that scene. This was prior to Shayna becoming best friends with Bronwyn Otulah-Tierney and entering her Age of Skepticism, as our father, Lyle, calls it.

  We haven’t discussed it in so many words at home, but I would say that my sister has moved further in the last year or so, to what I’d call an Age of Nihilism. Sleeping all day, staying out late, greasy hair, plummeting grades, glowering. I wonder if this state of existence rings a bell for you, Kurl, if you’re repeating courses this year? Did you have an Age of Nihilism? What comes after it?

  Anyhow. I have a very clear memory of these team pictures. I was twelve years old and would assist Shayna by quizzing her on the players’ names, so I would probably still be able to greet many of those boys by name if I met them in the hall—but of course most of them have graduated by now. You were one of the younger players at the time; I suppose you would have been a sophomore, one of the little jerkoffs you mention in your letter.

  I remember your picture in particular because you were one of only two boys who played on both the football and basketball teams. Adam Kurlansky, the photo’s caption read, but Shayna referred to you as Kurl. Hearing my sister say it—there was a kind of reverence in her voice, or at least a deep respect—I immediately sensed the power that a good nickname conferred upon its bearer. I’ve been “Jojo” to Shayna and Lyle on and off since I was a baby, but that was obviously not going to suffice in the context of high school.

  I began testing out possible new nicknames for myself. I asked my father to call me “Kirk” from that day forward. Lyle was really generous about it, but after attempting it for a day or two he said it was too strange for him because Hopkirk is his last name, too. When Shayna caught wind of my nickname quest, she informed me that it doesn’t work that way, that one never, ever gives oneself a nickname, that one has to simply be admired and beloved enough for a nickname to magically and spontaneously be granted by one’s peers. And even back then—even in seventh grade—I knew I would never be cool enough to warrant a nickname. So Jonathan it is, or JO, I suppose. (A confession: I saw your Dear Little JO and, for approximately five seconds before noticing your asterisk and dropping my eyes to the middle of the letter, I did imagine it might be a pet name for Jonathan. Nonsensical, of course. Why would you give a nickname to someone you have never even met?)

  I just asked Ms. Khang if I could finish this letter at home and deposit it in her mailbox first thing tomorrow morning. She said that although I’m always welcome to write additional and/or supplementary letters in my spare time, I have to turn this one in now to avoid the “perils of lost or reconsidered correspondence,” as she put it. She smiled in a secretive way when she said it, so I suspect she was quoting from one of her favorite eighteenth-century novels. My apologies for the abrupt ending, Kurl.

  From Ms. Khang’s list of Acceptable Sign-offs on the blackboard I will choose the one that resonates most closely with my personal philosophy—something I will have to explain in a future letter.

  Yours truly,

  Jonathan “Kirk” Hopkirk (I know, I just can’t quite pull it off, can I?)

  Wednesday, September 2

  Dear Little JO,

  I had to laugh when I read your letter. Is this the way you actually talk? Or is it a special style you use for writing? A style of long sentences and lots of commas.

  I guess I didn’t really answer any of the About Me questions on the board last time. I should warn you up front about myself. I mean I wrote enough last time but not really any of the right things. And then just now after I read your letter, for about ten minutes I was just sitting here. The rain coming down the window reminded me of this one week last month in summer training. I’m going to guess that you do not play football. I mean judging from your letter, all that stuff about nicknames and personal philosophy, whatever that is. I probably would have heard of your name at least if you did play football. I know most of the junior team by name.

  So they do this summer training for the senior team, like a boot camp. And this one week it wouldn’t quit raining. I remember my shoulder pads got this sad basement smell to them, and my cleats croaked. I mean they literally croaked like frogs every step I took. And no matter what we tried, every play Coach Samuels called ended up in a pile of mud-coated slippery bodies.

  Last year in this class the assignment was that we were supposed to keep a journal. Except Khang called it a Book of Days, like medieval virgins kept under their pillows or something. And I knew how much of our grade it was worth et cetera. But whenever she gave us time to write I would sit here remembering stuff like this rainy football week. I’d end up staring out the window the whole class and somehow the entire school year passed like that. I am not planning on letting that happen again but I guess I’m saying don’t get your hopes up.

  Sincerely,

  Adam Kurlansky

  Tuesday, September 8

  Dear Kurl,

  Ms. Khang suggested that we write on the theme of heroism today, and specifically “whether you would identify someone in your life as a hero, and why.”

  I understand the large
hearts of heroes, Walt Whitman writes, The courage of present times and all times. Do you know the poet Walt Whitman, Kurl? Perhaps not: I don’t think Whitman is anywhere on the curriculum at Lincoln High.

  Anyhow, when I think of heroism as large-heartedness, I can’t help but think of Lyle Hopkirk. It’s not that any father wouldn’t have stepped up to the role of single parent after the sudden death of his spouse. My mother, Raphael, was riding her bicycle and got hit by a taxi when I was only five. Lyle turned down a possible record deal in LA and took a full-time teaching position at the music school so that Shayna and I wouldn’t have to face any more upheaval.

  But the truly heroic part, in my opinion, is that he never became moody or resentful about it, or took on any tortured-artist airs. He underwent a period of grief, of course, but I only know this because there are no photographs of Raphael in our house, and when I once asked him why, he confessed that “back when they were too hard to look at,” he had gotten rid of them—a rash action which he now regrets. My father has an upbeat personality by nature, and he simply made sure to let that natural buoyancy be the reigning principle for our family life. I think Lyle gets everything he needs from music, the way I get it from poetry. You should see him the day after his bluegrass band, the Decent Fellows, plays its regular gig at Rosa’s Room. He practically floats through the house, loose and relaxed and dreamy.

  My father’s personal motto is Be real and be true. Since Lyle is my hero, I’ve been trying to make his motto my own. And this involves being forthright about myself, in particular. So prepare yourself for full disclosure on the subject of Jonathan Hopkirk. You’d never pick me out of a crowd, Kurl. I am short for my age and fine-boned. I have sandy brown hair that sticks out from my head in whichever direction is least fashionable no matter how much Hard Hold Paste I may attempt to work through it in the morning.

  My passions are live music, especially folk and bluegrass, and poetry, as I’ve already mentioned—especially the work of Walt Whitman. Have you ever come across Walt’s seminal poem “Song of Myself”? I would be tempted to claim that poem as my personal manifesto, but it is altogether too complicated, too magnificent, for such a claim. Like Walt, I am an ardent believer in

  … going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,