Sam took a deep kissing breath. Lincoln could see her tongue.
“Marlon?” he said out loud.
Sam turned abruptly. Her face fell as the doors closed a second time.
Lincoln started pressing the button angrily. The elevator opened again, but he ignored it. He wanted the other elevator now. He wanted, suddenly and desperately, to leave.
“Lincoln,” he heard Sam say.
He ignored her. Kept punching the button.
“Let me explain,” she said.
Punch, punch, punch. Down, down, down.
“It won’t come as long as we’re here,” Sam said. She was standing in the elevator still. Marlon was holding the door open.
“Then go,” Lincoln said.
“You can have this elevator,” Marlon said in his sexy south-of-Ricky-Ricardo voice.
Punch, punch, punch.
“Lincoln, stop, you’ll hurt your hand,” Sam said.
“Oh, of course,” Marlon said, “this is Lincolon.” He held his hands up in recognition. Like he’s going to hug me, Lincoln thought. No, like he’s going to toast me . Ladies and gentleman, Lincolon!
The elevator doors started to close again. Sam stepped into the doorway.
“Get out of the elevator,” Lincoln said. “Let me go.”
“No,” she said, “no one’s going anywhere. Lincoln, you’re scaring me.”
He hit the lit down button hard. The light went out.
“Let’s calm down,” Marlon said, “we are all adults here.”
No, Lincoln thought, you’re an adult. I’m only nineteen. And you’re ruining the rest of my life.
You’re kissing it. You’re spoiling it with your tiny, expressive hands.
“It’s not what you think,” Sam said sternly.
“It’s not?” Lincoln asked.
“Well … ,” Marlon said diplomatically.
“It’s not,” Sam said. “Let me explain.”
Lincoln might have let her explain, then, but he was crying. And he didn’t want Marlon to watch.
“Just let me go,” Lincoln said.
“You could use the stairs,” Marlon suggested.
“Oh,” Lincoln said. “Right.”
He tried not to run to the stairs. The crying was embarrassing enough. Crying down eight flights through the girls’ dormitory. Crying alone at the bus station. Crying through Nevada and Utah and Wyoming. Crying into the sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt like the world’s saddest lumberjack.
Trying to think of all the times he’d promised Sam that he could never love anyone else. Did that change now? Did she get to turn them both into liars? If he believed in true love, didn’t that trump everything? Didn’t that trump Marlon? Lincoln was going to let her explain. When he got home. No, he wouldn’t even ask her to explain.
Somewhere in Colorado, Lincoln started writing Sam a letter. “I don’t believe you cheated on me,”
the letter said. “And even if you did, it doesn’t matter. I love you more than anything else matters.”
Eve picked him up at the bus station.
“You look terrible,” she said. “Did you get rolled by hobos?”
“Can we drive by Sam’s house on the way home?”
“Sure.”
When they got there, Lincoln asked Eve not to pull into the driveway. Sam’s room was the one over the garage. Her light was on. Lincoln thought about going to the door, but dropped the letter in the mailbox instead. He hoped Eve wouldn’t ask him about it on the way home.
LINCOLN CALLED SAM the next morning and the next. Her mother kept saying that Sam wasn’t home.
She didn’t call him back until New Year’s Eve.
“I got your letter,” she said. “Can you meet me at the park?”
“Now?” he asked.
“Now.”
Lincoln borrowed his sister’s car and drove to a little playground near Sam’s house. It was where they went when they didn’t have any money or gas. It was empty when he got there, so he sat on the merry-go-round to wait. It hadn’t been a white Christmas—the ground was bare and brown—but it was still cold. Lincoln kicked the merry-go-round into motion and let it spin slowly until he saw Sam walking toward him, still a block away. She was wearing bright pink lipstick and a flowery minidress over thermal underwear. No coat.
He hoped she’d sit next to him.
She did. She smelled like gardenias. He wanted to touch her, jump on her. Cover her like a hand grenade.
Sam exhaled matter-of-factly. “I thought we should probably talk,” she said, “I thought that I should explain …”
“You don’t have to,” Lincoln said, already shaking his head.
She tucked her skirt under her legs.