Attach ments(78)

“I’ve got an idea,” she said, holding on to his jacket with both hands and standing on tiptoe, leaning into him. He mentally leaned back. “What are you doing right now?”

“Right now?” he asked.

“We’ll go to Fenwick’s and eat banana ice cream. And you’ll tell me just everything.”

“Everything,” he said, trying to imagine what part of everything he’d ever want to tell Sam.

“Everything!” she said, tipping toward him. She smelled like gardenias. Plus something muskier, gardenias with carnal knowledge.

“Fenwick’s closed a few years ago,” he said.

“Then we’ll just have to get in the car and keep driving until we find banana ice cream. Which way should we go,” she asked, laughing, “toward Austin? Or Fargo?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t. Not tonight. I have a …a thing.”

“A thing?” she asked, resting back on her heels.

“A party,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. Then she was digging in her black velvet purse. It had a bone-colored handle that looked like ivory. “Here,” she said, pressing something into his palm. “Here’s my card. Call me. Call me yesterday, Lincoln, I’m serious.”

She made a serious face. He nodded and held on to the card.

“Lincoln,” she said, all knowing smile and heavy eyelashes. She held on to his shoulders and kissed him quickly on both cheeks. “Kismet!”

And then she was walking away. The soles of her high heels were pink. She didn’t even rent a movie.

And Lincoln …Lincoln was still standing.





HE DIDN’T RENT Hairspray or Harold and Maude.

A few minutes after Sam left, after standing dumbly for a while in the H s, Lincoln decided he didn’t feel like going home anymore. He didn’t feel like sitting still or being quiet. He left the Blockbuster empty-handed and stopped just outside to toss Sam’s business card into the trash. It wasn’t a terribly meaningful gesture; he knew where Sam worked, and he still her knew her parents’ phone number by heart. And then Lincoln took out his wallet and found Beth’s e-mail about him, the one with the phrase “trying not to bite his shoulder.” He read it again. And again. One more time. Then he crumpled it into a tight ball and threw it away.

And then …he went to a party. The Newish Year’s party. Chuck had given him a flyer, and Lincoln was pretty sure it was still in his car. When he dug around for it in the backseat, he noticed that his hands were trembling. That’s OK, he thought. Still standing. When he was parallel parking in front of Chuck’s house, he caught himself grinning in the rearview mirror.

The party was already in full roar when he walked in.

Lilliputian Emilie was there with her pumpkin bread, and Lincoln didn’t steer clear. He didn’t want to. Emilie was perfectly nice, and she thought all of his jokes were funny—which actually made him tell funnier jokes, because he didn’t have to worry about no one laughing. And also, she made him feel eight feet tall. Which is a very good feeling, there’s no getting around it.

He kicked ass at Electronic Catch Phrase.

He drank Shirley Temples.

He brought the house down during 1999 charades with a two-minute, completely silent reenactment o f The Sixth Sense. “When you mimed the ring falling on the ground,” Chuck said, applauding, “I forgot that I already knew you were dead.”

And when the clock struck midnight—it was a VCR clock, and it didn’t strike so much as blink— Lincoln kissed Emilie on the cheek. That immediately seemed like a mistake, so he grabbed the crazy- eyed paste-up artist and kissed her, too. Which seemed like a bigger mistake. He quickly kissed every other girl standing in his reach, including Danielle the copy desk chief, two women he’d never met before, Chuck’s estranged wife, and finally Chuck himself.

Then everyone sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Lincoln was the only one who knew any lyrics beyond “should auld acquaintance be forgot” and the chorus. He belted them out in a clear tenor: We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine; But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne …





WHEN LINCOLN WOKE up, it was snowing. He was supposed to meet Doris at her apartment at ten, but he didn’t get there until ten fifteen. He had to park a few blocks away, in front of a bakery. He wished he had time to go in.

There weren’t many neighborhoods like this in town. A nice mix of old, expensive houses, big brick apartment buildings, and trendy shops and restaurants. Doris’s building was yellow brick—four stories, with a courtyard and a small fountain.