Attach ments(51)

From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Thurs, 11/18/1999 10:16 AM

Subject: You.

Hey, how are you feeling?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Fine. Normal. The same.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Really?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Really? No.

Really, I feel a little bit like a suicide bomber. Like I’m walking around pretending to be normal, all the while knowing that I’m carrying something that is going to change—possibly destroy—the world as I know it.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> “Destroy” seems like kind of a strong word.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Everyone keeps telling me that everything is going to change when the baby gets here, that my whole life will be different. That, I think, implies that the life I have now will be gone. Destroyed.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> When you fell in love with Mitch, he changed your whole life, right? He didn’t destroy it.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Sure, he did, but that was okay. My life before Mitch sucked.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> So gloomy. If you had bunked next to the Little Orphan Annie, Annie wouldn’t have been a musical.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Would anyone really miss it?





OKAY, SO SHE hadn’t written more about him. But at least she hadn’t written, “I got a better look at that guy, and he’s not as cute as I thought. Not by half.” He played online Scrabble until his shift was up and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

“You’re up early,” his mother said, when he came downstairs the next morning at nine.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to go work out.”

“Really.”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going to do that?” she asked suspiciously, as if the answer might be “the casino” or “a massage parlor.”

“The gym,” he said.

“Which gym?”

“Superior Bodies.”

“Superior Bodies?” she asked.

“It’s right up the street.”

“I know. I’ve seen it. Do you want a bagel?”

“Sure.” He smiled. Because that was all he did lately. And because he’d given up on asking her not to feed him, especially after the confrontation with Eve. Food had always been something good between him and his mom. Something without strings. “Thanks.”

She started fixing him a bagel, thick with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and red onions. “Superior Bodies,” she said again. “Isn’t that one of those meat markets?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve only been there once, and there were mostly elderly people there.

Maybe the meat market starts when people get off work.”

“Hmmm,” his mother said, looking obviously thoughtful. Lincoln pretended not to notice.

“It’s just,” his mother said, “that name. It puts so much emphasis on the body. As if that’s why people should exercise, to have a good body. Not even a good body. A superior body. As if people should go around looking at each other and thinking, ‘My body is so far superior to yours.’”

“I love you, Mom,” he said. He meant it. “Thanks for breakfast. I’m going to the gym.”

“Do you shower there? Don’t use the shower. Imagine the fungus, Lincoln.”

“I will now.”

IT WASN’T HARD going to the gym, as long as he went as soon as he woke up, before he had time to think about not going. Those morning workouts made him feel like he was starting his day like a pinball, with a giant shot of momentum. The feeling sometimes didn’t wear off until six or seven at night (when it was usually overtaken by the feeling that he was just bouncing haplessly from one situation to the next without any real purpose or direction).

Lincoln liked all the machines at the gym. He liked weights and pulleys and instructional diagrams.

It was easy to spend an hour or two going from machine to machine. He thought about trying the free weights, just to live up to Beth’s impression of him. But he would have had to ask someone for help, and Lincoln didn’t want to talk to anyone at the gym. Especially not the personal trainers who were always gossiping at the front desk when he picked up a towel.

He liked how clean he felt when he left. How loose his legs and arms were. How cold the air felt when his hair was wet. He found himself moving even when he didn’t have to, running across the street even if there wasn’t a car coming, bounding up the steps just because.

THAT WEEKEND, AT Dungeons & Dragons, Lincoln made Rick laugh so hard that Mountain Dew came up his nose. It was an orc joke, hard to explain, but Christine giggled for the rest of the night, and even Larry laughed.