“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “They turned off the heat already, and I’m freezing. The cabinet’s right over there.”
There was nothing left in the apartment but the Bubble-Wrapped cabinet. Lincoln looked around the living room, at the high tin ceiling and creamy plaster walls. The wood floors were dark and scratched, and the light fixture looked like something you’d see in an old opera house. “Have you lived here long?” he asked.
“Since I got married,” she said. “Do you want the thirty-second grand tour?”
“Sure.”
“Well, this is it. Back there’s the bedroom.” Lincoln walked through a doorway into the sun-filled bedroom. There was a tiny bathroom through another door, with a freestanding tub and an old-fashioned sink (small, with separate taps for hot and cold water).
“Over there’s the kitchen,” Doris said. “It’s all old as sin. Those countertops have been here since World War Two. You should see my new kitchen—wall-to-wall Corian.” Lincoln checked out the kitchen. The fridge was new, but the rest of the room did indeed know the difference between Red Skelton and Red Buttons. There was a rotary phone attached to the wall. Lincoln reached out to touch the Bakelite handle.
“Will you miss this place?” he asked.
“Oh, I suppose,” Doris said. “Like anything.” She was opening the kitchen drawers, making sure she hadn’t left anything behind. “I won’t miss the radiators. Or the draft. Or those goddamn stairs.”
He looked out the window over the sink and down into the courtyard. “Is it hard to get into this building?”
“Well, it’s secured access.”
“I mean, to rent.”
“Why, are you looking for a place?”
“I …well …” Was he?
No.
But if he was …This was exactly the sort of place he’d want.
“We can talk to Nate, the super, on the way out if you want. He’s a good guy. One of those alcoholics that doesn’t drink. If he forgets to fix the toilet, he’ll give you an amends.”
“Yeah,” Lincoln said, “sure, let’s talk to him.”
He picked up the curio cabinet, a few bubbles popped. “Lift with your knees,” Doris said.
NATE SAID A few people had asked about the apartment, but that it was available until someone wrote him a check for the deposit. Lincoln didn’t carry a checkbook, but Doris did. “I know you’re good for it,” she said.
Nate took Doris’s key and handed it to Lincoln. “That was a short day’s work,” Nate said.
Lincoln rode with Doris to the new retirement tower. He carried up the cabinet, met her sister, and admired their Corian kitchen. Then Doris offered him some Sara Lee pound cake, and they looked at old pictures of her and Paul with a series of basset hounds.
“Boy, this is exciting,” she said, when she dropped him off at his car. “I feel like we’re keeping this old place in the family. I’ll have to introduce you to all the neighbors.”
After she drove away, Lincoln walked back to the building, up to the third floor, and opened the door to the apartment. His apartment.
He walked through each room, trying to take everything in. Every cranny. There was a window seat in the bedroom—he’d missed that before—and lamps that reached out of the walls like calla lilies. There were tall oak-framed windows in the living room and a tiled area inside the entryway that said “welcome” in German.
He’d have to buy a couch. And a table. And towels.
He’d have to tell his mom.
CHAPTER 69
From: Beth Fremont
To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
Sent: Mon, 01/31/2000 11:26 AM
Subject: Have you seen Amanda?
Seriously, have you seen her today?
> Seen her? I feel like I have to buy her dinner.
> How can she walk around the newsroom, making eye contact with people, when she’s practically naked to the waist?
> I couldn’t conduct a telephone interview in a blouse like that.
> I’m used to her wearing low-cut shirts (or refusing to button decent ones), but seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much of another woman’s breasts. Maybe in junior high, in the locker room …
> If my mother were here, she’d offer to lend Amanda a sweater. And if she said no, my mom would tell her what happened to Queen Jezebel.
> What did happen to Queen Jezebel?
> Godly servants pushed her out a window. For being loose. (And pagan.) Amanda tried to talk to me a few weeks ago—she was wearing a cardigan sweater with nothing underneath. She started quibbling with me about a headline I’d written, and I deliberately took off my glasses. I can’t even see my own breasts without my glasses.
> I don’t know what she’s trying to say with all that cleavage.
> I think she’s saying, “Look at my chest.”
> Yes, but why?
> Because when people are looking at her chest, they’re not reading her boring leads?
> Heh.
> What’s “heh”?
> It’s like “ha,” but meaner. I’m going back to work now.
> One more thing: I kind of love you for not asking me how I’m feeling.
> Feeling about what?
> Thanks.
CHAPTER 70
HUH.
There they were.
Back.
INSTEAD OF GOING home that night, Lincoln went to his new apartment.
He figured his mom wouldn’t worry, that she wouldn’t think to wait up for him on a Monday night. He could always tell her tomorrow that he’d crashed at Justin’s house. If he had to tell her something.
Lincoln hauled in an old sleeping bag that he kept in his trunk (it smelled like gym clothes and exhaust) and tried to fall asleep on his new living room floor. Even though it was late, he could hear people moving around the apartment upstairs. Somewhere else, there was a radio. In the apartment below him, maybe, or across the hall. The more Lincoln listened for the music, the closer it seemed, until he could make out every song—all sleepy oldies from the fifties and sixties, slow dances and prom themes.
“Come Go With Me.”
“Some Kind of Wonderful.”
“In the Still of the Night.”
Lincoln tried not to listen. He tried not to think.
What did it mean that Beth and Jennifer were e-mailing again?
Probably nothing, he decided. Probably the last few weeks of silence from them were just a fluke. Not God’s way of helping Lincoln get on with his life. That had been a dumb thing for him to think. Dumb and grandiose.
Lincoln listened to the phantom radio long after the people upstairs went to bed. “Only You,” “Sincerely.” Maybe he’d try to find this station himself tomorrow night. He wondered when he’d learned all the words to “You Send Me” and whether it was supposed to be a sad song. And then he fell asleep.
CHAPTER 71
From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Tues, 02/08/2000 12:16 PM
Subject: You wish …
That you worked on the copy desk.
> Uh …No, I don’t.
> Today, you do. Derek wrote a story about how the zoo is artificially inseminating tigers, and Danielle decided he couldn’t use the word p*nis. She says it fails the breakfast test. She’s making him say “male reproductive part” instead.
> What’s the breakfast test?
> Are you sure you went to journalism school? The idea is that you don’t want to write something so gross that people reading the paper over breakfast would be put off their cornflakes.
/> > I think I’m more likely to be put off my cornflakes by the double homicide on the front page than I am by infertile tigers.
> That’s just what Derek said. He also said that only someone as se>
> You make it sound like they’re inseminating artificial tigers. That is pretty kinky.
> He just asked Danielle if she blacks out all the dirty words in her Harlequin romances.
> He’s going to get fired.
CHAPTER 72
THEY WERE ALL like this lately, all of Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages.
They were writing each other again, but something had changed between them. They cracked jokes and complained about work, they checked in—but they didn’t write about anything that mattered.
Why did that frustrate him? Why did that make him feel restless?
It was nasty outside, cold and gray, with rain that was trying hard to be snow. But Lincoln couldn’t sit in the airless IT office for another six hours. He decided to drive to McDonald’s for dinner. He felt like something greasy and hot.
The streets were worse than Lincoln expected. He almost got hit by an SUV that couldn’t brake in time for a red light. The whole trip took most of his dinner break, and when he got back to the office, his parking space was gone. He had to park in the overflow lot a few blocks away.
When he first heard the crying, he thought that it was a cat. It was a terrible sound. Mournful. He looked around for it and saw a woman standing next to one of the last cars left in the lot. She was slumped over her car and standing in a giant mud puddle.
When Lincoln got closer, he saw the flat tire and the jack lying in the mud next her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” She sounded more scared than convinced. She was a small woman, solid, with blondish hair. He’d seen her a few times before, on the day shift. She was soaked through and crying hard. She wouldn’t look at him. Lincoln stood there dumbly, not wanting to make her feel more uncomfortable, but not wanting to leave her alone.
She tried to steady herself. “Do you have a cell phone I could use?”
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I can help you change your tire.”
She wiped her nose, which seemed fruitless, considering how wet she was. “Okay,” she said.
He looked for a place to set down his dinner, but there wasn’t one, so he handed the woman his McDonald’s bag and picked up the lug wrench. She’d already gotten a few of the nuts off the tire; this wouldn’t take long.
“Do you work at The Courier?” she asked. She was still so upset, he wished she wouldn’t try to talk.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Me, too, on the copy desk. My name is Jennifer. What do you do?”
Jennifer. Jennifer?
“Security,” he said, surprising himself. “Systems security.”
He jacked up her car and looked around for the spare. “It’s still in the trunk,” she said. Of course it was. Lincoln couldn’t look at her anymore; what if she recognized him? Maybe it wasn’t her. How many Jennifers worked on the copy desk? He let down the car, opened the trunk, grabbed the tire, jacked the car back up. He was pretty sure she was crying again, but he didn’t know how to comfort her. “I have some French fries in there if you want them,” he said, realizing as soon as he said it that it made him sound like a weirdo. At least she didn’t seem scared of him anymore. When he glanced back at her, she was eating his French fries.
It took about fifteen minutes to change the tire. Jennifer (Jennifer?) didn’t have a true spare, just one of those temporary tires that new cars come with. She thanked him and gave him back what was left of his dinner.
“That’s just a doughnut,” he said. “You should have your tire fixed as soon as you can.”
“Right,” she said. “I will.” She didn’t seem to be paying attention. He felt like she just wanted him to leave. And he wanted to leave. He waited for her to get into her car and turn on the engine before he walked away. But when he looked back, her car hadn’t moved. He stopped walking.
He wondered why Jennifer—if this was Jennifer, the Jennifer—was crying, what had happened. Maybe she’d gotten into a fight with Mitch. Maybe she’d started a fight with Mitch. But there was no sign of it in her e-mail. Maybe …
Oh.
Oh.
When was the last time she’d mentioned …Why hadn’t he noticed …He should have guessed when the e-mails stopped, by the way they were talking, by what they weren’t saying.
The baby. He should have realized.
He was so selfish. All he’d cared about was finding himself in their conversations. Not that it would have mattered if he had noticed. Not that he could have said he was sorry or sent her a card.
Lincoln walked back and knocked on her window. It was fogged over. She wiped a circle clear, saw him, and rolled it down.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“I really feel like I should call your husband.”
“He’s not home,” she said.
“A friend, then, or your mom or something.”
“I promise, I’ll be fine.”
He couldn’t leave her alone. Especially now that he knew or thought he knew what was wrong. “If somebody that I cared about was crying alone in a parking lot,” he said, wishing he could tell her that she was somebody he cared about, “at this time of night, I’d want somebody to call me.”
“Look, you’re right. I’m not fine, but I will be. I’m leaving now. I promise.”
He wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t be driving at all. The streets were a mess, she was a mess …But he couldn’t tell her what to do. He couldn’t say anything to comfort her. He handed her his McDonald’s bag. “Okay. Just. Please go home.”
She drove away then. Lincoln watched her leave the parking lot and get on the freeway. When she was out of sight, he ran into The Courier building. He was so wet and cold, he took off his muddy shoes at his desk, and tried to figure out which of the ceiling vents was putting out the most heat so he could huddle below it. He ended up eating dinner out of the vending machines. (He’d have to tell Doris that the sandwiches seemed to be going bad a few days before their expiration dates.) He wondered if Jennifer had gotten home okay and whether he was right about what happened. It might not be anything so terrible. It might not even be the same Jennifer.
LINCOLN SPENT THE night at his apartment again. It was still icy out, and it was closer to drive there than it was to drive home. He thought about calling his mom to tell her he was okay, that he hadn’t been in an accident. She hadn’t mentioned it yet, the fact that he wasn’t coming home every night. Maybe she was trying to give him space. What if he didn’t have to move out? What if he could just ease out…?
CHAPTER 73
From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Wed, 02/09/2000 10:08 AM
Subject: I think I met Your Cute Guy.
Unless there are two dark-haired, practically Herculean, cute guys wandering around this place.
> Met? You met him?
> Yes. Last night. When I was leaving work.
> Are you stringing this story out for your own amusement?
> I’m not sure I want to tell you at all. It’s the kind of story that might make you worry about me, and I really don’t want that.
> Too late. I’m already worried about you. Tell me—in detail.
> Well …
I worked a swing shift last night, which meant I had to park in the gravel lot under the freeway, and I didn’t get out of here until 9, and it was cold out, and sleety and nasty, and when I finally got to my car, I had a flat tire. (Already, this
sounds like the opening scene of a Law & Order episode, right?)
So …I immediately took out my phone to call Mitch, but it was dead. Right then, I should have just walked back to the building and called a tow truck or something. But instead I decided to change the tire myself. I mean, I’ve changed a tire before, I’m not completely helpless. As I was getting out the jack, I had this flash of “Maybe I shouldn’t do this in my condition.”
And then I remembered that I’m not in any kind of condition anymore.
It took me 20 minutes to get the first two lug nuts off. The third wouldn’t budge. I even tried standing on the wrench. It went spinning off and slammed into my shin. I was muddy by this time and soaked through and crying. Somewhat hysterically.
Then I see this huge shadow of a person walking toward me, and all I can think is, “I hope he doesn’t rape me because I’m supposed to wait six weeks before having intercourse.”
The huge shadow says, “Are you okay?”
I say, “Yes,” hoping he’ll just keep moving. Then he gets close enough for me to see that he’s cute—cute in kind of a specific, unexpected way; rough-hewn, one might say—and also wearing an unfashionable denim jacket. I immediately think, “This is Beth’s Cute Guy,” and I stop being scared of him, which is pretty funny when you think about it because, for all of your crushing, neither of us knows anything about this guy. And it might not have even been him.
Anyway, he changed my tire for me.
It took him eight minutes, tops. I just stood there, holding his dinner (McDonald’s) and watched. And cried. I must have looked wildly pathetic because he said, “I have some French fries in there if you want them.” I thought that was such a weird thing to offer, but frankly, I’m exactly the sort of person to be comforted by French fries, so I ate them.
And then—seriously, minutes later—he was done (and also covered in mud, the whole lot was one gray puddle). He told me that I should still get my tire fixed and walked away.
So I got into my car, turned on the heat …and started crying even harder than I was crying before. Harder than I’d cried since it happened. I don’t know if I’ve ever cried like that before. (Maybe when my dad left.) I was shaking and making these horrible, hollow elephant noises. I kept thinking about the word “despair” and how I’d only ever understood it before from reading it in context.