Attach ments(101)

An old art house called the Dundee, just about a mile away. It was the only place Lincoln knew of that served RC Cola on tap. He ended up there almost every weekend. Most of the time he didn’t even care what was showing.

Tonight, Lincoln put on a thick turtleneck sweater and his jean jacket over a pair of olive green pants. He checkedhis hair in the mirror he’d hung inside his entryway. He’d kept the Morrissey hair— even though Eve said it made him look like Luke Perry. Or like he was trying to look like Luke Perry.

“You need that?” she’d asked. “You’re not tall enough already?”

“I don’t need it,” he said. “I like it.”

Eve had invited him over tonight, but he’d passed. He was supposed to meet up with the copy deskers later, at some bar in Iowa that served tomato beer. Maybe he’d go …Maybe.

It was already dark outside at six thirty. That felt right. The cold felt right.

Lincoln could see people eating dinner inside the big houses on his way to the theater. It was the kind of neighborhood where people never closed the curtains on their picture windows. “You know why those old houses have big windows up front?” his mother had asked him once. “Because it used to be, when somebody in your family died, you had the wake right in your house. You needed a window big enough for the casket.” Lincoln had decided to go on believing that the windows were there so that people could show off their Christmas trees.

When he got to the Dundee, an employee was changing the marquee from Dancer in the Dark to Billy Elliott.

Lincoln ducked into the small lobby to buy his ticket, an RC, and a box of buttered popcorn. The theater was nearly empty, and he took a seat near the front. A red velvet seat. This must be the only place left, now that the Indian Hills was gone, that didn’t have plastic recliners or “love seats” with adjustable armrests. There were still curtains hanging in front of the movie screen that would draw back just as the previews started. Lincoln used to think that was pointless. Now it was the thing he waited for.

Just then, while he was waiting, someone at the back of the theater spilled a box of candy, something hard and loud, M&M’S or Everlasting Gobstoppers, that clattered down the sloped concrete floor. Lincoln turned around without thinking. That’s when he saw her, sitting a few rows behind him and a few seats over.

Dark hair. Heart face. Freckles.

So pretty.

Beth.

Lincoln looked away as soon as he realized it was her—but she’d already recognized him. She’d looked right at him. She’d looked …How had she looked?

Surprised. Just surprised.

You’d think that he would have thought about this moment, as much as he’d thought about her over the last few months. It’s not like they lived in Tokyo or Mumbai or a place where people could ever really lose each other. This was a small city. A small city with relatively few places you’d want to go, especially if you were a movie reviewer. Lincoln had thought of the Dundee as his theater, but, really, it was like he’d shown up at Beth’s office.

And now he had to leave. She’d want him to, right? Especially if she’d put it all together by now.

That’s another thing he’d gone out of his way not to think about. Did Beth still think about him as her Cute Guy? Or had she figured out that he was the creep who read her e-mail?

He had to leave. Immediately. No. As soon as the lights went down. He couldn’t bear to think of her eyes on him again.

Lincoln leaned forward in his seat, covered his face with one hand, and willed the lights to dim.

After a few painful minutes, they did. The lights fell, the projector squeaked to life, the ancient curtains parted, and Lincoln started putting on his jacket.

Just as Beth sat down beside him.

He froze, one arm still in his jacket. He didn’t speak. Or move. Only his autonomic nervous system chugged on.

He couldn’t leave, not with her sitting next to him—why was she sitting next to him?—and he couldn’t look at her. So he sat back slowly in his seat, careful not to touch her. He sat back and he waited.

But Beth didn’t say anything.

And didn’t say anything. And didn’t move. And didn’t say anything.

Through the coming attractions, through the opening credits.

Finally, Lincoln couldn’t keep from looking at her. He glanced over. Beth was staring at the screen like she was awaiting instructions from the Holy Spirit, eyes too wide, holding on to her ballpoint pen with both hands. Some T. Rex song was playing on the soundtrack. “Cosmic Dancer.”

Lincoln looked away. He told himself to be patient, to wait for her to do something or to say something. But the wait was suffocating. Or maybe it was the sitting so close to her that was suffocating. The wanting to look at her again. More. And again.