Attachments(25)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

“This song is just as good as ‘Stairway,’” Justin said emotionally. He and Dena were standing right in front of Lincoln, close enough that he felt like he was standing behind them in a class photo. Dena wasn’t watching Chris. She was watching Justin. Lincoln noticed Justin’s hand on Dena’s waist, his fingers just under her shirt, in the small of her back.

And then Lincoln stopped noticing anything at all.

THEY WERE HELPING him up stairs.

“We should have just left him in the car,” Justin said.

“It’s freezing outside,” Dena said.

“Would’ve woken him up. Jesus Christ, it’s like dragging a horse.”

“One more flight.”

“I can walk,” Lincoln said, finding his tongue. He tried to support himself and jerked forward.

“Let’s leave him here,” Justin said.

“Just a few more steps, Lincoln,” Dena said.

They helped him stagger through Justin’s doorway. He hit his head on the jamb.

“That’s for making me miss the encore,” Justin said, “you f**king giant.”

“I can walk,” Lincoln said. He couldn’t. They dropped him on the armchair. Over it. Dena was trying to make him drink water.

“Am I going to die?” he asked.

“I hope so,” Justin said.

LINCOLN WOKE UP again some time before dawn and staggered through a bedroom to find the bathroom.

He fell back on the recliner face-first and pushed it all the way back, almost flat. His feet still hung off the end. The back of the chair smelled like hair gel and cigarettes. Everything smelled like cigarettes.

He opened his eyes. The sun was up now. Justin was sitting on the arm of the chair, smoking a cigarette and using the chair’s built-in ashtray.

“He’s awake,” Justin called to the kitchen. Lincoln groaned. “Dena was worried about you,” Justin said, turning on the TV. “You sleep like a dead person.”

“What?”

“You don’t breathe,” Justin said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Not visibly,” Dena said, handing him something red to drink.

“What is this?”

“Vodka and V-8” she said. “With A1.”

“Not A1,” Justin said. “Worcestershire.”

“No, thank you,” Lincoln said.

“You should drink something,” Justin said. “You’re dehydrated.”

“Did I pass out last night?”

“Kind of,” Dena said. “One minute you were standing up. And the next minute, you were lying down on the bar. Like you were resting your head. I haven’t seen anybody drink that much since college.”

“I never drank that much in college.”

“Which explains why you’re so bush-league,” Justin said. “Honestly. A man of your size. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m really sorry,” Lincoln said to Dena.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Do you want some eggs or something?”

“Just some water.” He crawled out of the chair, and Justin immediately slid into his place. The world hadn’t ended. Not even just in the Central Time Zone. SportsCenter was on. Dena followed Lincoln into the kitchen. She was wearing a T-shirt and patterned scrubs. More teeth. She handed him a glass of tap water.

“Did you chase it away?” she asked.

“What?”

“Whatever was making you want to drink that much.”

He closed his eyes. Beth. “No,” he said, “but I might be done trying.”

LINCOLN DRANK NEARLY a gallon of water before he left Justin’s apartment. He stopped at the gym before he went home, thinking maybe it would make him feel better. Superior Bodies didn’t close on holidays—it was even open a half day on Christmas—and plenty of people were already there, kick- starting their New Year’s resolutions. Lincoln had to wait in line for a treadmill. He didn’t feel sick anymore, not exactly. Just haggard and morose. He couldn’t help but think about Beth, but thinking about her was like thinking himself into a corner. Like realizing toward the end of a logic puzzle that you’d made a mistake early on, and that there’s no way to reach the solution without starting over.

Without erasing everything. Without throwing out all of your assumptions.

Now that he knew what Beth looked like, he couldn’t remember what it was like to have not known.

He couldn’t remember picturing her any other way. She was nothing like Sam, physically. And Sam was his only frame of reference. What would it be like to be with a girl, a woman, who could just barely tuck her head under his chin? “Your own size”—was that what Doris had said? He’d loved how small Sam was. Little bird. Little slip. How he could cover her, swallow her. How it had felt to hold back so that he wouldn’t break her.

What would it be like to hold a different girl? A girl whose h*ps and shoulders nearly met his, who wouldn’t disappear beneath him. A girl whose kiss wasn’t always so far out of reach.

He ended up working out too long or too hard or too hungover. He felt weak and dizzy in the shower and ended up buying three of those horrible protein bars from the front desk. The girl working there talked him into drinking something with electrolytes that was supposed to taste like watermelon. It didn’t. It tasted like Kool-Aid made with corn syrup and salt.

Lincoln was embarrassed to have given in, even for a moment, to the frenzy of the new year. To have believed there were cosmic forces at work in his favor. His moment had come and gone last night in the newsroom. And Lincoln had dropped the ball.

CHAPTER 61

From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Tues, 01/04/2000 1:26 PM

Subject: Is it just me, or is the new millennium a lot less cute than the old one?

Serendipity is not my friend. It’s been five days since my last Cute Guy sighting. I saw Doris in the hall yesterday, and my stomach jumped. I don’t want to start getting excited about Doris sightings.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> My world is plenty cute. Mitch and I went crib shopping last night. We didn’t plan to go crib shopping—we were supposed to be looking at dishwashers—but we walked by the cribs, and there it was. Cream-colored with a rocking horse carved into the headboard. Now we can’t afford a dishwasher.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> A crib? Already? I wanted to help pick out the crib. Can I help pick out the bedding? You can’t do all this baby stuff without me. I’m trying to have a vicarious pregnancy here.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m sorry. It was unplanned. I’m probably picking out paint for the nursery this weekend, do you want to come?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> You know that I do. And that I can’t. This weekend is the big wedding.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Oh, right. Are you looking forward to it?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Looking forward to it being over.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Does Kiley know how cranky her maid of honor is?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> She’s too deliriously happy to notice.

I picked up my dress on Sunday. It’s deliriously ugly, especially with me in it, and I still haven’t come up with a Kiley-approved way to hide my upper arms.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Your arms are fine.

Wasn’t this wedding supposed to have a millennium theme? Is that still happening?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It was indeed. Kiley was going to make 2,000 paper cranes to strew about the reception, but she fizzled out at 380. Now the theme is Winter Wonderland. (Hence the strapless dresses, I guess.)

And, by the way, you only think my arms are fine because I keep them covered up. Because I’ve mastered the art of misdirection. All of my clothes are engineered to draw the eye away from my arm- shoulder area.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Now that I think about it, we’ve known each other six years, and I’ve never seen you in a bathing suit. Or a tank top.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Not a coincidence, my friend. I’ve got the arms of a Sicilian grandmother.

Arms for picking olives and stirring hearty tomato sauces. Shoulders for carrying buckets of water from the stream to the farmhouse.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Has Chris seen your shoulders?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> He’s seen them. But he hasn’t seen them.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I get it, but I don’t get it.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> No sleeveless negligees. No direct sunlight. Sometimes when I’m getting out of the shower, I shout, “Hey, look, a bobcat!”

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’ll bet he falls for that every time.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It’s Chris. So recreational drugs are a factor.

Anyway, I bought a dressy cardigan that I thought I could wear with my bridesmaid dress, but Kiley said it was too “frumpy” and that it was the wrong shade of sage. And then she said, “God, Beth, no one is going to be looking at your arms.”

And my mom said, “She’s right, Beth, all eyes will be on the bride.”

Which just infuriated me. Why did that infuriate me? It’s true. But all I could think was, if no one is going to be looking at me, then why can’t I wear my f**king sweater? We were at Victoria’s Secret.

Did I mention that we were at Victoria’s Secret? My sister wasn’t happy with her strapless bra, so we all had to go to Victoria’s Secret. I’m not happy with my strapless bra either. Because I’m not happy with my strapless dress.

While Kiley was trying on bras, my mom patted me on the arm and said, “Honey, this is Kiley’s day. Just roll with it.” Have I also mentioned that neither of these women have large arms? I got them from my father’s mother, my own Italian grandmother, a woman who is now dead, but who, while alive, had the sense to never wear a strapless dress.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I can wait until next week to go nursery shopping.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Would you do that for me?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Of course I would. I’ll even let you wear your ugly green sweater.

Is Chris going to the wedding with you?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> And to the rehearsal dinner. And to Sunday brunch. He told me that he didn’t think I should do anything wedding-related by myself. He said, “Every time you talk about it, you go all blurry around the edges.” Which of course made me cry. He’s pretty good when I cry. He doesn’t get flustered.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Well done, Chris.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I know. Five stars. He’s even letting me buy him a new jacket and real pants.

Slacks. But I’m not allowed to call them slacks. That word gives him the heebie-jeebies. Normally, I’m not allowed to buy him clothes of any sort.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m relieved to hear you’re not the one who picks out all those tight jeans he wears. What will he do with his hair? Put it in a ponytail?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> There’s nothing you can do with that hair. You just have to let go and let God.

Hey, you know what? All this talk about my cute boyfriend is diminishing my cute cravings.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> As well it should.

CHAPTER 62

BETH MISSED HIM.

Lincoln thought he’d hit bottom on New Year’s, and it had been a relief. Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing you had to do to knock some sense into yourself? Wasn’t hitting bottom the thing that showed you which way was up?

CHAPTER 63

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

To: Beth Fremont

Sent: Fri, 01/07/2000 2:44 PM

Subject: Are you here?

Distract me.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Distract you? Gladly. Productivity-schmoductivity.

What are you supposed to be working on?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I don’t know. Writing headlines, I guess. Reading the same stories over and over to make sure some idiot reporter didn’t use “they’re” when he should have used “their.”

Changing “which”es to “that”s. Arguing with someone about sequence of tenses.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> What on earth is sequence of tenses?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> It’s top-secret copy editor stuff.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I didn’t know there was such a thing.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Are you kidding? Everything about being a copy editor is top secret—by default, really—because no one else cares.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Can I ask why you need distracting? Are they making you edit the sports section again?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> No, it’s not work.

I’ve been having these strange cramps for the last few days. Not even cramps—they’re more like assertive twinges. I called our midwife and described them to her, and she seemed pretty confident that nothing is wrong. She said that it’s natural to feel your uterus readjusting at the end of the first trimester. “This is your first pregnancy,” she said. “It’s going to feel strange.” She also told me that I might feel better if I talked to the baby.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> What are you supposed to say? Are you supposed to talk out loud? Or are you supposed to reach out for it on the astral plane?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m supposed to talk out loud. “Relax,” she said. “Put on some quiet music.

Light a few candles. Tune in to the life within you.” I’m supposed to tell the baby that it’s welcome and wanted and that it doesn’t have to worry about anything right now except getting big and strong.

I’ve tried it a few times, when I’m alone in the car. But I never get past small talk. I feel sort of like I’m invading the baby’s space or like it’s going to wonder, after two months of respectful silence, why I’ve suddenly decided we need to get all personal with each other.