Attachments(17)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

“Only.”

She kissed him.

“Only,” he said again.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Sam… ,” he said.

“I can’t.”

He sat up. Stepped jaggedly off the merry-go-round.

“Lincoln,” she said. “Wait.”

He shook his head. He wanted to cry again, but not in front of her. Not in front of her again. He started walking to his car.

“I don’t want you to go,” Sam said. She was upset. “I don’t want it to end like this.”

“You don’t get to choose,” Lincoln said. “It’s just happening.”

CHAPTER 37

SHE’D DUMPED HIM. That’s all. It wasn’t that bad. It shouldn’t have been. It’s not like they were married. It’s not like she abandoned him at the altar, or made off with his best friend and their retirement savings.

People get dumped all the time. Especially in college. They don’t drop out of school. They don’t drop out of life. They don’t spend the next decade thinking about it every time they get a chance.

If Lincoln’s freshman year had been an episode of Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula would have gotten back on the Greyhound bus after Christmas, finished the school year like a man, and started making calls to the financial aid office at the University of Nebraska. Or maybe he wouldn’t have transferred at all. Maybe Scott Bakula would have stayed in California and asked that pretty girl in Lincoln’s Latin class if she wanted to see a Susan Sarandon movie.

“DO YOU LIKE basset hounds?”

Lincoln was sitting in The Courier break room eating homemade potato soup and still thinking about Scott Bakula and Sam when Doris interrupted him. She was loading Diet Pepsi into the machine behind him.

Lincoln wasn’t exactly sure what Doris’s job was. Whenever he saw her, she was stocking the vending machines, but that didn’t seem like it should be a full-time job. Doris was in her sixties with short, curly gray hair, and she wore a red vest, sort of a uniform, and large eyeglasses.

“Excuse me?” he asked, hoping he sounded polite, not confused.

“Basset hounds,” she said, pointing to the open newspaper in front of him. There was a photo of a basset hound sitting on a woman’s lap.

“I’d never have a basset hound if I lived so close to the ocean,” she said. Lincoln looked at the photo. He didn’t see any ocean. Doris must think he’d already read the story.

“They can’t swim, you know,” she said. “They’re the only dogs who can’t swim. They’re too fat, and their legs are too short.”

“Like penguins,” Lincoln said thickly.

“I’m pretty sure penguins can swim,” Doris said. “But a basset hound will drown in the bathtub. We had one named Jolene. Oh, she was a pretty little girl. I cried all night when we lost her.”

“Did she drown?” Lincoln asked.

“No,” Doris said. “Leukemia.”

“Oh,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

“We had her cremated. Put her in a nice copper urn. It’s only this big,” Doris said, holding up a can of Wild Cherry Pepsi. “Can you believe it? A full-grown dog like Jolene in a tiny, tiny urn? There’s not much to any of us once you take out all the water. How much is left in a person, do you think?”

She waited for an answer.

“Probably less than a two-liter,” Lincoln said, still feeling like it would be rude to act as if this was anything other than normal conversation.

“I’ll bet you’re right,” Doris said sadly.

“When did she pass?” he asked.

“Well, it was when Paul was alive, let’s see, sixteen years ago. We got two more basset hounds after that one, but they weren’t as sweet …Honey, do you need any change while I’ve got this thing open?”

“No,” Lincoln said. “Thank you.”

Doris locked up the Pepsi machine. They talked a bit more about Jolene and about Doris’s late husband, Paul, whom Doris missed but didn’t get all choked up about the way she did Jolene. Paul had smoked and drank and refused to eat vegetables. Not even corn.

By the time she got to Dolly, her first basset, and Al, her first husband, Lincoln had forgotten that he was talking to Doris just to be polite.

HE STAYED HOME from work the next day. He went to his sister’s house instead and helped her bring Christmas decorations down from the attic. “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked, untangling a chain of plastic cranberries. “Did you just feel like taking a break?”

He shrugged and reached for another box. “Yeah. A break from taking a break.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He’d come to Eve’s house because he knew she’d ask him that. And he’d hoped that when she did ask, he’d have an answer. Things tended to come into focus when she was around.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just feel like I have to do something.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know. That’s what’s wrong. Or part of what’s wrong. I feel like I’m sleepwalking.”

“You look like you’re sleepwalking,” she said.

“And I don’t know how to wake up.”

“Do something,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Change something.”

“I have,” Lincoln said. “I moved back. I got a job.”

“You must not have changed the right thing yet.”

“If I were in a movie,” he said, “I’d fix this by volunteering with special-needs kids or the elderly.

Or maybe I’d get a job in a greenhouse …or move to Japan to teach English.”

“Yeah? So are you going to try any of those things?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Eve looked at him coolly.

“Maybe you should join a gym,” she said.

CHAPTER 38

From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Tues, 11/16/1999 2:16 PM

Subject: My Cute Guy.

We’re not calling him My Cute Guy anymore.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I don’t think I ever called him that.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> We’re calling him My Very Cute Guy. Or maybe My Very Cute, Kind, and Compassionate—and Also Sort of Funny—Guy.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Not very catchy. Does this mean you have new cute-guy information to share?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Duh. Yes. I worked kind of late last night, and when I went to the break room around 9 for a delicious packet of Cheez-Its, guess who was sitting right there for all the world to see?

My Cute Guy. He was eating his dinner and talking to Doris.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Doris, the vending machine lady?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> None other. She was talking to him about her dog. Her dead dog, I think.

Actually, there’s a chance she was talking about a dead child, but I don’t think so. Anyway. Doris was talking about her dog, and My Cute Guy was listening attentively and asking follow-up questions, nodding his head. (It was very involved. I don’t think they even noticed me ogling.) He could not have been nicer.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Maybe he just likes to talk about dead dogs.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Or cuter. He could not have been cuter.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> And funny? How was he funny?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It’s hard to explain. Doris was asking him if a dead body would fit into a can of Pepsi, and he said it would probably fit better into a two-liter.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> That sounds gruesome. Has anyone seen Doris today?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> In context, it wasn’t gruesome. I think she was talking about cremating her dog. I was eavesdropping, not taking notes. The important thing is, he was nice—really, really nice.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> And really, really cute.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Oh my God, yes. You have got to see this guy. You know how I said he looked like Harrison Ford? I’ve had a better look now. He’s Harrison Ford plus the Brawny paper towel guy. He’s just massive.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Like Mr. Universe massive?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> No …he’s more like the guy they would have cast as the Hulk if they’d made a live-action Hulk movie in the forties or fifties, back when powerful didn’t mean chiseled. Like if you saw John Wayne with his shirt off, he wouldn’t have had a six-pack, he’d just look like the kind of guy you’d want on your side during a fight. Like maybe this guy, My Cute Guy, lifts weights.

Dumbbells in his garage or something. But he’d never touch a protein shake.

You know what? We might have to start calling him My Handsome Guy. He’s a little deeper than cute.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Okay, I can see him now. Harrison Ford plus John Wayne plus the Hulk plus the Brawny guy.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Plus Jason Bateman.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Who’s Jason Bateman?

Also, why were you still here last night at nine o’clock?

<<Beth to Jennifer>>

1. Jason Bateman was the best friend on Silver Spoons.

2. You know I like to work late.

<<Jennifer to Beth>>

1. The guy from Fresh Prince?

2. I just can’t understand why you wouldn’t rather be home.

<<Beth to Jennifer>>

1. The other best friend. The white guy. With the crinkly eyes and the interesting nose. His sister was on Family Ties.

2. I like to work late because I don’t like to work early—and I have to work sometime.

If I get here first thing in the morning, I feel like I have to iron my clothes. But by 2 o’clock, nobody cares. And by 7, nobody’s here. (Well, except copy editors, and they only half count.) Besides, it’s kind of cool, being here at night. It’s like being in the mall after it closes. Or at school on a Saturday. Plus, sometimes I legitimately have to work late. Like, if I have to write a review on opening night or something.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I guess I just don’t like being here that late. The year I worked on the nightside desk was the loneliest year of my life.

And I guess I know who Jason Bateman is. I’ve just never thought of him as cute.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Well, think again. And My Cute Guy is even cuter.

CHAPTER 39

NO, NO, NO, Lincoln thought.

CHAPTER 40

NO.

It couldn’t be …

She couldn’t mean …

He stood up from his desk, walked around the empty information technology office. Sat back down.

Reread the e-mail. Cute, she’d said. Massive, she’d said. Oh my God, she’d said.

Handsome.

No. It must be a mistake, she couldn’t have meant …No.

He stood up again. Sat down. Stood up. Started walking toward the men’s bathroom. Was there a mirror in there? What did he need to look at, anyway? To see if he still looked like himself? There was a mirror. Full-length. He looked at his reflection. Massive, he asked himself. Really? Massive?

Definitely big. In high school, the football coach was always trying to recruit him, but Lincoln’s mother had forbidden it. “No, you’re not joining the head-injury team,” she’d say. He laid his hand on his stomach. You’d call it a beer gut if Lincoln drank beer more often than once a month. Massive.

But cute, she’d said. Handsome, she’d said. Crinkly eyes.

He leaned his forehead against the mirror and closed his eyes. It was embarrassing to see himself smile like that.

CHAPTER 41

THE NEXT MORNING, Lincoln joined a gym. The person on the treadmill next to him was already watching Quantum Leap on one of the big televisions. It felt like a sign.

On his way home he stopped by the bank where Eve worked. She had one of those offices in the lobby with the glass cubicle walls.

“Hey,” she said, “do you need to open a savings account? Yuck. Why are you all sweaty?”

“I joined a gym.”

“You did? Well, good for you. Does that mean you’re listening to my advice now? I wish I would have told you to get your own apartment. Get your own apartment!”

“Can I ask you a weird question?”

“If you make it quick,” she said. “All those people sitting over there on the couches actually do want to open savings accounts.”

“Do I look like Jason Bateman?”

“Who’s Jason Bateman?”

“The actor. He was on Silver Spoons and The Hogan Family.”

“The guy who played Teen Wolf?”

“That’s Michael J. Fox,” Lincoln said. “Never mind. This wasn’t supposed to be a whole conversation.”

“The guy who played Teen Wolf in Teen Wolf Too?”

“Yes,” Lincoln said. “Him.”

Eve squinted.

“Yeah,” she said. “Actually, you do kind of look like him. Now that you mention it, yeah.”

Lincoln smiled. He hadn’t stopped smiling.

“Is that a good thing?” Eve said. “Do you want to look like Jason Bateman?”

“It isn’t good or bad. It just confirms something.”

“You’re a lot bigger than he is.”

“I’m leaving,” Lincoln said, walking away.

“Thanks for choosing Second National,” she called after him.

IT TOOK FOREVER for the IT office to clear that night. Everyone was getting pretty intense about the millennium bug. Kristi, Lincoln’s desk-mate, wanted to stage a practice New Year’s Eve, to see if their code patch would work. But Greg said that if they were going to shut down the newspaper and maybe cause a six-block blackout, they might as well wait until the real New Year’s Eve when it would be less embarrassing. The members of the International Strike Force stayed out of the argument. They just sat in the corner, coding, or maybe hacking into NORAD.