When My Heart Joins the Thousand(73)

“I can help you with them, if you want.”

I hesitate. “I can’t ask you for that.”

“I don’t mind. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you know. Job hunting is stressful for lots of people.”

“I don’t think many people have panic attacks while filling out personality questionnaires,” I mutter.

“You might be surprised.” His voice softens. “Let me help you.”

He sounds so gentle that, for a moment, I wonder. Maybe . . .

No. I can’t let myself start to hope again. He probably just wants me out of the house, even if he’s too kind to say so.

“All right,” I say.

Shortly after, the kitchen table is covered with a sprawl of papers that I printed out from the latest batch of online applications. Stanley picks up one for a burger restaurant. “So which parts are you having trouble with?”

“Everything.” My face burns. “The questions don’t make sense to me. I left a lot blank, and I don’t know if the answers I gave are any good. But I don’t know what else to say.”

“Let’s see. Um—there’s this . . . under ‘Describe your greatest flaw,’ you wrote bad at talking to people.” He shuffles through the applications. “And under ‘Are you a team player?’ you wrote no.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I think that’s the sort of question you should just answer yes.”

I start to rock back and forth, pulling sharply on one braid. “In what sense can I be described as ‘a team player.’”

“They’re just asking if you’re willing to work with others.”

“Well, then that’s what they should say.” I rock faster.

He sets down the paper. “Alvie, it’s okay.”

I shut my eyes tight. My whole head feels hot. My hand drifts up to my braid and starts tugging again. I stop and sit on both my hands, because I don’t know how else to still them.

“You don’t have to hide that, you know. Not from me.”

I look up, surprised.

“Do that if it helps,” he says. “But listen to me. This”—he gestures toward the pile of applications—“is just a mind game invented by corporate bigwigs. These questions don’t mean anything. Your ability to fill them out has nothing to do with your worth as a worker or a person. This is just something you have to get through. I guess what I’m saying is, you don’t have to be completely honest. They don’t expect you to be. It’s not lying, per se. It’s finding the right words to present yourself in a good light. Everyone does it.”

I squint. It still sounds like lying to me. “These people are insane.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Everyone. All these so-called normal people.”

“What about me?” He smiles. “I’m so-called normal, right?”

I consider. “You’re an atypical neurotypical. I’ve never liked that word, though. Neurotypical. It implies that there’s such a thing as a normal human brain, and I don’t think there really is.”

“Oh?”

I take a slow sip of my coffee. “The corpus callosum—the stalk of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres—is thicker in musicians, particularly those who’ve studied music from an early age. Certain areas of the hippocampus are smaller in men, and also in people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some people have a dominant left hemisphere; others have a dominant right hemisphere. Some people have language centers all throughout their brains, and some have them all clustered on one side. There are even neurological differences associated with different political and religious beliefs. Everyone’s brain is measurably different from everyone else’s. What does a ‘normal’ brain even look like. How do you recognize one. How do you create an objective standard by which to judge how normal someone’s brain is.”

“Well, in that case, you’re no more or less normal than anyone else, right?”

“Maybe.” The world doesn’t see it that way, though.

“Let’s keep going,” Stanley says. He picks up the sheet of paper in front of him and reads: “‘If you were a type of beverage, what would you be and why?’”

I wince. “You see what I mean. These questions are ridiculous. How am I supposed to answer something like that.”

“Absinthe,” he says.

I turn my head toward him. “What.”

“I tried absinthe once,” he says. “I was about fifteen. My mom and I were at a dinner party with a bunch of people, and I snuck some. One of my few acts of rebellion.” He smiles with one corner of his mouth. “It’s very strong alcohol. Cloudy green, like jade. It tastes sharp, almost bitter, so some people like to dilute it with water and sugar before they drink it, but I had it plain. It burned all the way down, but it made me feel giddy. Strong and completely weightless at the same time. Like I could fly.”

“Wait. So you’re saying you’d be absinthe.”

“No, I mean—” He clears his throat, ears reddening. “Never mind.”

Oh. I’m absinthe?

I’m still trying to puzzle out the meaning of this when he continues, distracting me: “Let’s see. ‘List your five best attributes.’ Well, that one’s easy. You’re smart, dependable, kind . . .”