Attach ments(10)
“I don’t care,” he said to Eve.
“You must. You called me to whine about it.”
“I’m not whining,” Lincoln said, a little too forcefully.
“This was supposed to be your nothing job. You told me you wanted a job that wouldn’t take too much brainpower, so that you could devote all your energy to deciding what to do next.”
“That’s true.”
“So, what do you care if they’re paying you to do nothing? That sounds ideal. Use that time to read What Color Is Your Parachute? Start working on your five-year plan.” She was practically shouting to be heard over some mechanical noise.
“Are you vacuuming?”
“I’m DustBust-ing,” she said.
“Stop. It makes you sound strident.”
“I am strident.”
“Well, it makes you sound excessively strident,” he said. “Now I don’t remember what I was saying.”
“You were whining about getting paid to do nothing.” Eve turned off the DustBuster.
“It’s just that getting paid to do nothing is a constant reminder that I’m doing nothing,” Lincoln said. “And doing nothing takes more energy than you’d think. I’m tired all the time.”
“How could you possibly be tired all the time? Every time I call, you’re asleep.”
“Eve, I don’t get off work until one in the morning.”
“You should still be awake by noon.”
“I get home at one thirty. I’m wired. I mess around on the computer for another hour or two. I fall asleep at, like, four. I get up at one, one thirty. And then I spend the next three hours thinking about how there’s not enough time to do anything before I go to work. I watch Quantum Leap reruns and mess around on the computer some more. I go to work. Rinse. Repeat. ‘Second verse same as the first.’”
“That sounds awful, Lincoln.”
“It is awful.”
“You should quit that job.”
“I should quit this job … ,” he said, “but if I keep it, I can move out of Mom’s house.”
“How soon?”
“As soon as I want. The money’s good.”
“Don’t quit,” Eve said firmly. “Move out. Find a new job. Then quit.”
He knew she would say that. In Eve’s mind, all of Lincoln’s problems would go away if he moved out of their mother’s house. “You’ll never have your own life as long as you live there,” Eve told him whenever she had the chance. She’d tell him to keep a job at a meatpacking plant if it meant getting his own apartment.
But Lincoln wasn’t sure he even wanted to move out. He liked his mom’s house. He liked the way everything about it was already broken in. Lincoln had the whole upstairs to himself; he even had his own bathroom. And he usually didn’t mind being around his mom. He wished she would give him a little more space sometimes. Head space.
“Don’t you hate telling people that you still live at home?” Eve would ask.
“Who asks me where I live?”
“New people.”
“I don’t meet any new people.”
“You won’t ever meet any new people as long as you’re living at home.”
“Who am I going to meet if I get my own apartment? Do you see me hanging out at the pool?
Starting conversations in the community weight room?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Why not? You know how to swim.”
“I don’t like apartment complexes. I don’t like the carpet and the little concrete balconies and the cabinets.”
“What’s wrong with the cabinets?”
“They’re made of fiberboard, and they smell like mice.”
“Gross, Lincoln. Whose apartments have you even been in?”
“I have friends who live in apartments.”
“Gross apartments, apparently.”
“Single-guy apartments. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Eve had moved out when she was nineteen. She’d married Jake, a guy she’d met at community college. He was ten years older and in the air force. He bought her a ranch-style house in the suburbs, and Eve painted every room a different shade of cream.
Lincoln used to sleep over at their house on weekends. He was eleven, and Eve let him have his own bedroom. “You’re always welcome here,” she told him. “Always. For as long as you want. This is your home, too.”
He liked staying at Eve and Jake’s house, but he never felt like he needed to escape to it. He’d never felt like he needed to escape from their mother, not like Eve had. He didn’t understand the anger between them. He didn’t even recognize his mother in the stories Eve told.