Attachments(26)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

Also, I don’t want to let on that something might be wrong. So I try to keep it light. “I hope you’re comfortable. I hope I’m eating enough iron. Sorry I stopped taking the expensive vitamins, they made me throw up.” I usually end up crying and hoping that the baby isn’t actually paying attention.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I kind of like the idea of you talking to the baby. Even if it doesn’t understand you. There’s something living inside of you. It makes sense to be neighborly.

Maybe I’ll start talking to my eggs. Pep talks. Like William Wallace’s speech in Braveheart.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I think I’ll feel less ridiculous talking to it after it has ears.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> When does it get ears?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I don’t know. I’d ask Mitch, but I don’t want him to know any of this.

I feel like I’ve known all along that something was bound to go wrong at some point in this pregnancy. It’s all been too easy so far.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Nothing is bound to go wrong. Nothing is bound, period. And the chances are so much better that everything is going to be all right.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Easy for you to say. Easy for the midwife to say. It’s so easy for someone else to say, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.” Why not say it? It doesn’t cost anything.

It doesn’t mean anything. No one will hold you to it if you’re wrong.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Your midwife says it’s going to be okay because she spends her whole life working with pregnant women. She’s speaking from experience.

And I say it because I trust her, and because I believe that being miserable about some bad thing that might not ever happen won’t do you any good.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I disagree. I believe that worrying about a bad thing prepares you for it when it comes. If you worry, the bad thing doesn’t hit you as hard. You can roll with the punch if you see it coming.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Are you in pain? Maybe you should go home.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> No, it doesn’t hurt. It feels more like a muscle flexing. Besides, if I go home, I will obsess powerfully, with all my might. Even I don’t think that’s a good idea.

So distract me. Tell me more about your cute security guard. Complain about your sister’s wedding.

Pick a fight with me about ending a sentence with a preposition.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Okay, here’s something distracting: I’ve gone to a tanning salon twice this week. My brother’s wife said it would make my arms look thinner. I think it will probably just make them look tanner—but big tan arms do seem more appealing than big pale arms, so I’m doing it.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I hate to say this, because it’s advice I could never follow myself—in fact, this is probably the exact opposite of how I’d behave in your situation: But maybe the best thing for you to do is to let the arm thing go. Yes, somebody might notice that your upper arms are somewhat out of proportion with the rest of your body, but let’s be honest, almost nobody looks good in a strapless dress.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> So why has it become the dominant dress of our time? Do you know that they don’t even make wedding dresses with sleeves anymore? Everyone—regardless of weight, chest size, back acne, stretch marks, hunched shoulders, or over-prominent clavicle—is forced to wear one.

Why? The whole point of clothing is to hide your shame. (Genesis 3:7)

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Did you seriously just consult a Bible?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Derek has one on his desk, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Hey, I have to go now. I’m taking off early to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Call me this weekend if you still need distracting, okay?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> You’ll be caught up in wedding stuff.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> And grateful for the interruption, I’m sure.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’ll bet you’re going to have a really nice time at the wedding and feel bad for having dreaded it for months.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It could happen, I guess. There is an open bar.

CHAPTER 64

LINCOLN DIDN’T FEEL like going home that night after work. He kept thinking about Beth in a strapless dress. Creamy white shoulders. Freckles. Maybe he should go out with one of the girls Justin was always trying to hook him up with. Or with one of his sister’s Lutherans. Or with that girl who works at the gym, Becca. She’d been spotting for Lincoln lately on the bench press, and it seemed like she touched his arms a lot when she didn’t really have to. Maybe she was still impressed with his elbows.

Lincoln ended up at the Village Inn, alone. When the waitress came, he ordered two pieces of French silk pie. She brought them on separate plates, which was embarrassing for some reason.

He had a copy of the next day’s paper, one of the perks of working at The Courier, but he was so agitated, he couldn’t read it.

He was so agitated, so at loose ends, he didn’t notice until his second piece of pie that Chris was sitting at the next booth. Beth’s Chris. He was actually facing Lincoln, both of them sitting alone at their tables.

Lincoln remembered the last time he’d seen Chris, on New Year’s Eve, and considered leaping across the table to follow up on smashing his face. But he’d lost the urge.

Chris looked different. Cleaned up. He was wearing a dress shirt, rakishly unbuttoned of course, and a jacket, and his hair looked smooth and shiny. Like a f**king Breck commercial , Lincoln thought.

And then, Right, for the rehearsal dinner. And then Lincoln started to laugh. A little. Mostly on the inside.

Because he shouldn’t know that, but he did. And he should hate this guy, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to kill Chris. He wanted to trade places with him. No, he didn’t even want that. If Lincoln had been Beth’s date to the rehearsal dinner tonight, he’d be home with her now. If he were her date to the wedding tomorrow, he’d be counting down the hours until she put on that dress. Until she took it off again.

He laughed again. On the outside.

Chris looked up at Lincoln then, and seemed to recognize him.

“Hey,” Chris said.

Lincoln stopped laughing. Until this moment, he’d believed somehow that he was invisible to Chris.

The way he was invisible to Beth. (Except that he wasn’t.) “Hey,” Lincoln said.

“Hey, uh, you wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?” Chris asked.

Lincoln shook his head. “Sorry.”

Chris nodded and smiled. “I’m unprepared tonight. Nothing to smoke. Nothing to read.” He seemed agitated, too, but he wore it better than Lincoln.

“You can have a section of my paper,” Lincoln said.

“Thanks,” Chris said. He got up and walked over to Lincoln’s booth, leaned against it, and picked up the Entertainment section.

“I missed today’s movie review,” Chris said.

“Movie fan?” Lincoln said dumbly.

“Movie reviewer fan,” Chris said. “My girl, she’s the film critic …Hey, this is tomorrow’s paper.”

“It’s today’s technically … ,” Lincoln said. “I work at The Courier.”

“Maybe you know her, then.”

“I don’t know many people,” Lincoln said. He felt so stiff, he couldn’t believe his mouth was moving. He felt like, if he said the wrong word, he might actually turn to stone. Like he might anyway.

“I work nights.”

“You’d know,” Chris said, nodding and looking out the window, agitated again, “you’d know if you knew her. She’s a force. A force to be reckoned with. An act of God, you know?”

“Like a tornado?” Lincoln asked.

Chris laughed. “Sort of,” he said. “I was thinking more … I don’t know what I was thinking, but yeah. She’s …” He patted his chest pocket nervously, then ran his hand through his hair. “You’re single, right? I mean, I never see you at our shows with anyone.”

“Right,” Lincoln said. Not only am I not invisible, I’m visibly alone.

Chris laughed again. It was sharp. Sarcastic. It undid some of the charm of his smile.

“I can’t even remember what that’s like …” He shook his head ruefully, touched his hair again.

“It’s this jacket,” Chris said. “I had to take my cigarettes out because you could see them poking out of the pocket. Classy, right? I can’t remember when I’ve gone this long without …You ever smoked?”

“No,” Lincoln said. “Never picked it up.”

“No cigarettes, no girl, you’re living an unencumbered life, my friend.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Lincoln said, looking hard at the man across from him and wishing for some sort of Freaky Friday miracle right there, right then.

“Oh,” Chris said, abashed. He was pretty enough for that word. “Right,” he said. “I didn’t mean …”

He looked down and held out the Entertainment section. “Thanks. For this. I’ll let you go back …

Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered …It’s the jacket, you know? I’m not myself.”

Lincoln mustered a smile. Chris stood up.

“I’ll see you,” Chris said, walking back to his booth and dropping a few dollars on the table. “We’re playing Sokol next week, you should say hey if you’re there.”

Lincoln watched Chris walk away and felt himself hoping—really and truly hoping, with the best parts of his heart—that the other man was going home to her.

CHAPTER 65

THERE WAS LESS work than ever in the IT office. The International Strike Force was long gone. Nothing left of them but a stack of blank CDs and a few cigarette burns on the table. “When the f**k did that happen?” Greg asked. Lincoln shrugged. Greg wanted Lincoln to change all the system passwords and shore up the firewalls; he was even issuing new security badges to the whole department.

“Those guys always creeped me out,” Greg said. “Especially the Millard South kid …There’s such a thing as knowing too much about computers.”

Lincoln’s shifts felt decades long.

There was nothing from Beth in the WebFence folder Monday night. Nothing about the wedding.

Nothing at all. It was empty Tuesday night, too. And Wednesday.

Lincoln watched for her in the hallways and took long dinner breaks. He saw her byline in the paper, so he knew she was coming to work. He checked the WebFence folder every night, every few hours.

Thursday, empty. Friday, empty. Monday, nothing.

On Monday night, Lincoln walked by Beth’s desk at six o’clock and then again at eight. He brought chicken-leek pie to share with Doris and sat in the break room with her for two hours, talking.

Waiting. Doris told him she was going to teach him how to play pinochle. She said she and Paul used to play, and it was a real kick. “I’ve always wanted to learn,” Lincoln said.

On Tuesday, when Beth and Jennifer still hadn’t turned up, he checked the e-discipline file to see if somebody else in IT had sent them a warning. He wondered for a moment if one of the Y2K kids might be responsible. But there wasn’t any sign of it. There were fresh coffee cups on Beth’s desk— she hadn’t disappeared completely.

On Wednesday, when the WebFence folder was empty again, Lincoln felt strangely light. Maybe this was how it was going to end. Not with a humiliating, painful confrontation. Not with self-control and discipline. Maybe he wouldn’t have to make himself stop reading her e-mail. Maybe it would just stop itself.

CHAPTER 66

COULD YOUR BRAIN actually reject information? Like a foreign organ? Doris was trying to teach Lincoln to play pinochle, and the rules were bouncing off his brain. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, that didn’t discourage her. He’d thought about eating at his desk. If he wasn’t trying to run into Beth, he may as well. But that didn’t seem fair to Doris, especially now that his mother sent treats specifically for the other woman. Now that Doris was the one sharing her cake with him.

“Some people just have trouble with games,” she said. “I’ll deal this time.” She did tricks when she shuffled. “Say, do you have big plans this weekend?”

“No,” Lincoln said. He might play D&D. He might play golf with Chuck. One of the other copy editors was having a “Happy New-ish Year” party that Lincoln was invited to. (“We always celebrate holidays a few weeks late,” Chuck had explained. “Those dayside bastards won’t cover for us on holidays.”)

“’Cause I’ve still got that curio cabinet at my old apartment … ,” Doris said. “I told the super I’d have everything out by the thirty-first.”

“Oh, right,” Lincoln said, “sorry. I can come by Saturday afternoon if you want.”

“How about Sunday? I’ve got a date on Saturday.”

Of course she did. Why wouldn’t she?

“Sure,” he said. “Sunday.”

WHILE THEY PLAYED golf, Chuck tried to talk Lincoln into coming to the copy desk party.

“I don’t really like parties,” Lincoln said.

“It won’t be much of a party anyway. Copy editors throw terrible parties.”

“You’re really selling it.”

“Emilie will be there …”

“I thought I heard she was dating somebody.”

“They broke up. Why you don’t like Emilie? She’s adorable.”

“Yeah,” Lincoln said, “she’s cute.”

“She’s adorable,” Chuck said, “and she can recite the complete list of prepositions. And she’s bringing pumpkin bread and Electronic Catch Phrase.”