Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  “You’re American. That’s a culture.” He smiles. “Playing devil’s advocate, by the way. I get what you mean.”

  “No, you’re right. I am American. But. American culture is immigrant culture. Everyone has these culturally identifiable last names. These stories about ancestors immigrating. Family recipes and language and all that. Everyone! Only Native Americans don’t have immigration stories, but they have their own stories. Migration stories, obviously. They have tribes. My dad’s family loves talking about the Mayflower and showing us graves in the old cemeteries here—we have Revolutionary War soldiers in the family, Civil War soldiers. There’s this line—of people and stories—that connects everyone in the Winters and Karalis families, and I don’t have any of that.”

  “But you do,” he says. “Having Puritan weirdo ancestors and Greek grandparents who came over after World War Two is your family’s story. And you’re part of your family. Ergo, I think all that stuff is yours. Those are your stories. Your culture. I really don’t think people have a right, at least in your situation, to say otherwise. I don’t know, I’m not Greek, so maybe some fully Greek person might not agree, but that’d be pretty harsh.”

  Our family—it’s done.

  “When I was little, I got a black marker, tried to make my hair like Hannah’s and Mom’s.”

  Ben reaches out and tugs on a strand of my chin-length blond bob. “For what it’s worth, I like your hair. And your blue eyes.” He rests his hand, the color of wet sand, next to mine. “Culture, heritage—you’re right, it’s about more than blood. It’s more than a DNA test. So is family. Nate’s my family, even though we don’t share a drop of blood. Know what I mean?”

  I nod.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he says. “You don’t have to label yourself. I don’t go around being all, I’m Japanese American. I’ve never been to Japan. I’m from Brooklyn. I’m just me. You’re you. Fuck labels and the people who insist on them. If a label society wants to give you is helpful to you, makes you feel connected to the world—gender, race, religion, nationality, whatever—cool. Use it. There can be awesome community there. But if it’s not, if the label makes you smaller inside: Fuck it. My lab partner refuses to share their gender with anyone. They told me that they’ve decided what they are, but it’s no one else’s business. They’re like, Fuck all your assumptions about what or who you think I am if I say I’m male, I’m female, or even nongendered. I’m just me, and that’s all you need to know. Hello, nice to meet you. You feel me?”

  I cannot wipe the smile off my face. No one, no one has ever made so much sense to me in my whole life, not even Dad explaining his dark matter quintessence theory.

  “Wow, Ben. WOW.”

  He laughs. “If there’s one thing meditation has taught me, it’s that there’s a place beyond all that. It’s big and wide, and has no borders or labels or systems. It just is. That’s where I live.”

  “I want to live there, too. But not everyone can. Even if they’d like to,” I say. “I mean, you said so yourself: People get weird around you when you say you meditate. About the Asian thing. You still have to deal with that.”

  “But not on their terms. That’s my point.” Ben takes my mug and refills it, sets it down in front of me. “Homo sapiens, man.” He sighs. “We complicate the hell out of everything, huh?”

  I laugh. “Yeah. But we figured out how to walk on the moon, so we’re not so bad.”

  “Facts.”

  I wrap my hands around the mug. Mom loved this kind—diner mugs. Thick. Indestructible. It was all we had at home.

  “My dad was a meditator.”

  I can picture him so clearly, sitting on his cushion in the corner of his office, eyes closed, that slight smile on his face. The sound of the bell when he was finished, pulsing through the whole house.

  My eyes prick, and I take a sip of the coffee. It’s good. Bitter. It burns. When I set my mug down, Ben rests his fingers, very lightly, against mine. He doesn’t say anything. Today his nail polish is dark metallic blue.

  I am in so much trouble.

  I have run his words through my head so many times. What did he mean, exactly? I haven’t seen him since that night Nah collapsed on the kitchen floor, three weeks ago. But we’ve texted, emailed. He likes me. I know he does. Nate certainly teases me enough about it.

  I thought I didn’t have time for Zen masters who make me feel like I’m in zero gravity. I need my feet on the ground. But if I stay in Boston, then maybe, when Hannah’s okay and I know for sure I’m staying … maybe I do have time. Later. Not now.

  I pull my fingers away. “So … you just, what, sit in your dorm room? Close your eyes?”

  “Most days, but a bunch of us got a group going—the Dharma Bums. Students, most of us. We sit, talk. It’s pretty cool.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  He grabs the biggest brownie in the case and slides it onto a plate, then pushes it toward me. “Oh, you know, the usual: the nature of reality, impermanence, death, and nirvana.”

  “Casual conversation.” I take a bite of the brownie. It is a four-by-four-inch portion of heaven.

  “Totally.” He leans on the counter. “So. We’ve warmed up with race, gender, and culture. Before we get to politics and the sciences, you gonna tell me why you’re having a bad day?”

  I frown. “Is it that obvious?”

  “You’re less sparkly.”

  “I sparkle?” This, I did not know.

  “Like Christmas, but not tacky.” He smiles a half smile that is so cute I have to smile back. “Aha! I knew I could make you smile—I used the sly one on you.”

  “You categorize your smiles?”

  “Of course. I have a whole periodic table.” He gives me a wild grin. “Helium.”

  I shake my head. “Geophysicists have way too much time on their hands.”

  And then I get a flash—just a second, and it’s gone: me, Mom, Dad, Hannah, Micah, and Ben eating avgolemono, laughing.

  “Hey…” Ben squeezes my shoulder. “You okay?”

  Compartmentalizing is a key skill for astronauts. Neil Armstrong could simultaneously go to the moon and be the father of a dead child. Maybe Mom’s right and astronauts need to wear their hearts on their sleeves, too, but only after they know they’re not going to become blubbery messes.

  I nod. “There’s a lot going on at home.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I shake my head. “I tried to do that the other day with someone, and it didn’t go well. I think I should stick to my general policy, which is to talk about a problem after I’ve solved it.”

  I’ve been refusing to take Micah’s calls. I bet he’s terrified I’m going to tell Nah. I prefer to make him sweat a little. He deserves it. And I need to figure out what to do.

  “Well, I’ll go through the whole table, if you need me to. All one hundred eighteen smiles. I might need an espresso shot or two to do it, but I’m ready.”

  I really like him. But I don’t want that to influence my decision. If I stay in Boston, it will be for Nah.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I say. “Though I bet you could charge for that performance. Besides, as soon as Nate’s here, I’ll have to get to work.”

  “Fair enough. Offer still stands, though. If you need it.”

  A customer comes in from the main room and Ben gives him a refill, then turns back to me. “So. Annapolis interview prep? Nate said it’s coming up—after Halloween, right? First week of November?”

  “Yes. About two weeks from now. Keeping tabs on me?”

  “I’m a curious fellow, is all.” There is a wink in his voice.

  I run my finger around the rim of the coffee mug. “Do you remember when Nick Hague’s mission got aborted? It was all over the news.”

  Ben nods. “They crash-landed, right?”

  “Yes. The cosmonaut he was with had to bail on their rocket just after launch. It was supposed to be Nick’s first mission in space. He waited fiv
e years after completing NASA’s astronaut candidate program to go up there. That’s how long he trained.”

  “Sucks.”

  I nod. “He got lucky and hitched a ride a few months later and took all these great photos from the ISS, but there are astronauts who have to abort the only mission they’ll ever have a chance to go on. Funding, timing, problems with your crew, getting sick—anything can keep you on the ground.”

  Before the wave, I thought that was my worst nightmare. My worst-case scenario in all of life. It’s not. I know that now.

  Ben crosses his arms, tilts his head. He’s observing me like I’m a faceted geode he’s checking out in the field. Or whatever geophysicists spend a long time studying.

  “Mae. Can I say something?”

  I think I will not like what he has to say. “Of course.”

  “I didn’t know your parents—obviously. But I think they’d be really happy for you, if you got Annapolis. It’s your dream, right?”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  His eyes skim mine for a moment before he turns to the espresso machine, throws a mug on the metal grate, and pulls a shot. “What are your thoughts on Mars? To colonize or not to colonize?”

  I am in so much trouble.

  A laugh falls out of me and, just like that, the world hurts less.

  “Because, I don’t know, Mae, I gotta say that as exciting as it sounds, I kinda like our little rock here.” He takes his finished shot and leans his elbows on the counter, his eyes on mine. “So many things on Earth to recommend it, wouldn’t you say?”

  I take a breath, eat my brownie, and studiously ignore his eyes. “Well, there aren’t brownies on Mars. Yet.”

  He leans forward a little bit more, and I look up at his bleached hair sliding by those warm brown eyes, and I am instantly invaded by an army, an entire cavalcade, of lusty chemicals.

  “Was the brownie worth the train ride?” he murmurs.

  “It … the … what?”

  WHAT IS HAPPENING? How have I lost capacity for speech, and why is my oxygen supply running low? WHAT IS HE DOING TO ME?

  He leans closer. Oh, that smile. Ben Tamura is a threat to the mission—and he knows it. “The brownie, Mae.”

  I push back from the counter. “You—just. Stay there. Dopamine.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “Serotonin and norepinephrine.”

  That’s all this is. Chemicals, hormones. My body just being a body. A stupid, human body.

  He grins. “When do I get to be oxytocin and vasopressin?”

  The attachment chemicals. I don’t smile back.

  “I … I can’t, Ben.”

  I don’t like how he overwhelms me. How I can’t think straight. His presence makes me waver. Doubt my choices. And besides, oxytocin is the kind of stuff Nah used to buy from the boardwalk—everyone’s favorite opiate, apparently. But people can become drugs, too. I don’t want to ever need something that much.

  The playful glint in his eyes gutters. “Mae—”

  “Listen. My sister is sick. My parents are dead. Everything in my life is up in the air. I can’t take on anything else.”

  “I’m not something to take on. I can help.”

  “I don’t need help. My sister does. I’m sorry. It’s not a good time.”

  He hoists himself over the counter in one astonishingly fast move, one worthy of Ichigo, and takes my hands in both of his. They are so warm, and that’s nice, but then an electrical charge goes through my whole body and I feel myself lean toward him and I don’t stop. I need to stop. Why can’t I stop?

  “Everyone needs help,” he says.

  I’m saved by the couple who pushes through the door, bringing in a gust of frigid air. I pull my hands away, grab my bag and my coat. I’m halfway to the warm inner room of the coffeehouse when he calls my name.

  “Mae.”

  I turn. I shouldn’t, because I know those chemicals will rush through me even harder when I look into his eyes, but it’d be rude to ignore him, and I am a polite person.

  “One of the benefits of meditation is that it helps you develop patience. A lot of it.” He smiles. “Just so you know.”

  “Astronauts have a lot of patience, too.”

  His eyebrows go up, and the light comes back in his eyes. “May the best nerd win.”

  I don’t have to come up with a clever response to that because he has to help his customers and because Nate walks through the door. As soon as I see my cousin, I nearly collapse with relief. I don’t think I could have held out against Ben Tamura much longer. He’s a formidable opponent.

  My cousin gives me a quick once-over and shakes his head. “Fill me in on whatever has produced that look on your face.”

  I drag him into a corner booth. Ben’s right. I do need help. Just not his.

  Nate leans back, watching me.

  “So … you and Ben.”

  “At this precise moment, I don’t care about Ben. Table that topic.”

  He leans forward. “Listen, he’s not quite as good at math as we are, but he’s pretty good, Mae. And his physics—spot-on. In fact—”

  “Put your serious face on, Nate.”

  He sighs. “Okay. What did he do?”

  “He didn’t do anything. He’s perfect. It’s Micah.”

  “Micah?”

  “You can’t tell her, okay, because it will be so bad and I don’t—Micah’s cheating on Nah. If I tell her, she will … I don’t know, but I’m scared what she’ll do. And also she has some drug dealer or something and—”

  “Wait, what?”

  I am betraying my sister, but I don’t have a choice. I really don’t think I do. If I’m going to do something as extreme as possibly give up Annapolis, there will be questions. Dad always said, “Let’s put more brains on this business,” when there was a problem he couldn’t solve. I need more brains on this business.

  “I know this is Nah’s story to tell,” I say, “but it’s an emergency and I can’t—I can’t do this on my own anymore, Nate, and—”

  “Hey, hey.” My cousin rests a hand on my arm. “Buzz. It’s okay. Whatever it is—I got you. Just give me the data, yeah?”

  “I found Percocet in her bag. Your parents didn’t have any, did they?”

  “Not that I know of. Is this the only time she’s messed with this stuff?”

  “No. She was … she was in an outpatient rehab earlier this year. It was bad. She was doing better, sober for five months, but then the wave happened.”

  “Fuck.” Nate’s frown deepens. “And Micah—how do you know he’s cheating on her?”

  I tell him.

  When I’m done, Nate takes a breath. Undoes the little pearl buttons on his blouse. Rolls up his sleeves.

  “Okay. I need coffee. And some graph paper.”

  “Graph paper?”

  Nate shrugs. “We have a problem. Problems require graph paper.”

  He stands, takes a step toward the counter, then turns to me.

  “I’d like the record to note that you said he was perfect.”

  “What?”

  “Ben. You said he was perfect.” He leans forward and chucks me under the chin. “You know, Buzz, for someone willing to strap herself to a bomb and blow her body into outer space, you’re kind of a wimp.”

  Maybe he’s right. But I’m looking at the math on this one. If a girl is left by everyone she loves, what is the probability that the next person she loves will leave her? You don’t need to be a statistician to figure that one out.

  i wish angels were real.

  Bench

  Public Garden

  Boston

  19

  Hannah

  I reach into my purse for a pill, but the Altoids box I keep them in is empty. Panic slices into me, the same flavor as that time I thought I’d left my wallet on the D Line. I didn’t realize I’d gone through them so quickly. How could I have—

  No, that’s imposs
ible. There were six in here yesterday. I know it. I counted.

  Mae.

  The four corners of my bedroom—my new bedroom with its bare walls and unpacked boxes—slide in, closer and closer.

  I’m off my bed and in the hallway, down the hallway, throwing open the door of her room before I even think to do any of it.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I say. Snarl. Growl. Spit.

  She is not surprised to see me. My sister sets the huge book on her lap aside and clasps her hands together over her knees. Just like Dad.

  “I’m sorry,” Mae says. “I had to.”

  I let it go that first time. Tried to be sneakier. Didn’t want to get into it with her. But now: We’re fucking getting into it.

  “No, you didn’t. You have no right to go through my things—”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “It’s none of your goddamn business,” I say. “Give them back.”

  She looks at me, the smooth surface of a dark lake.

  “I flushed them down the toilet.”

  Someone—not me—reaches for the nearest thing and throws it at her. As it flies toward her, I see what it is and I stop breathing.

  Mae reaches out to catch it, not to block herself but to catch it, but the model falls on the hardwood floor and shatters.

  Mae stares.

  Hundreds of shards—wood and plastic and bits of metal—are scattered at our feet. I see them now as they were all those years ago, when Mae and Dad took over the dining room table to build the International Space Station and a shuttle docked against it. It took several weekends. Their fingers, painting and fitting and gluing. Dad, building her dream right alongside her. His hands, shaping her world.

  “Mae.”

  My sister doesn’t make a sound as she slides off the bed and onto her hands and knees. Crawls.

  “Mae, I’m—”