Attach ments(96)

Doris was the first unrelated guest to arrive. She brought a date, a retired pressman, and a pan of brownies, and she greeted Lincoln’s mother like they were old school chums. “Maureen! Look at you!”

Chuck came. With his practically-not-estranged-anymore wife. Justin and Dena couldn’t come, they were going to Vegas for the weekend. But most of the D&D players came, and Dave and Christine brought their kids. (As well as their dice, you know, just in case.)

Everyone said nice things about Lincoln’s apartment and even nicer things about his mom’s lasagna. After Doris and Chuck left, the party did in fact turn into a D&D session. Jake Jr. was mesmerized. He wanted to stay and learn how to play. Eve was horrified. “You’re too young,” she said, “and too socially adept.”

“I’m buying him dice for his eleventh birthday,” Lincoln said.

His mother stayed until almost midnight. She and Christine did the dishes together and had a two- hour conversation about natural childbirth and raw milk. They exchanged telephone numbers.

“Your mother is so wise,” Christine said later. “There’s so much I can learn from her.”

When the last guest left, Lincoln imagined what it would be like to have someone standing next to him at the door. He imagined Beth gathering up glasses in the living room, falling into the bed next to him.

Hi, my name is Lincoln, we’ve almost met a few times in the break room. Look, I know this is kind of out of the blue, but would you like to go somewhere, sometime? And talk?





LINCOLN GOT A haircut before work Monday night. The girl at Great Cuts asked him what style he wanted, and he told her that he wanted hair like Morrissey. He’d always wanted hair like Morrissey.

She didn’t know who that was. “James Dean?” he asked.

“Let me talk to my supervisor,” she said.

Her supervisor was in her forties. She carried a hot pink comb with a handle as sharp as a dagger.

“James Dean … ,” she said, tapping her chin with the comb. “Are you sure you don’t want George Clooney?” He didn’t.

“We’ll give it our best shot,” she said.

Lincoln was embarrassingly pleased with the results. He bought something called styling wax and left a 75-percent tip. (Nine dollars.)

He decided to go home and change before he went to work. He put on a short-sleeved white T-shirt and tried not to flex when he checked his reflection in the mirror. Is this what women felt like when they put on miniskirts?

When he got to The Courier, he walked straight to the newsroom, straight to Beth’s desk. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do when he got there. He wasn’t thinking about that, because if he thought about it—if he thought any of this through—he wouldn’t do it. And he needed to do it. More than he needed to do anything, at this moment, on this day, in this lifetime, in this incarnation, on this Monday afternoon, Lincoln needed to talk to Beth.

And he needed to be the one who started the conversation. He needed to stand at her desk, in daylight, with his shoulders back and his head up, and his hands—God, what would he do with his hands? Don’t think about it. Don’t think. For once in your godforsaken life, don’t think.

Lincoln walked to Beth’s cubicle, not trying to pretend he was doing something else. Not sneaking.

Not furtive. (Not that anyone was probably paying attention.)

He walked right up to her cubicle.

She wasn’t there.

Lincoln hadn’t thought about what he would do if Beth wasn’t there. So he just stood at her cubicle.

With his shoulders back and his head up and everything. He looked at her desk. He looked around. He thought about the last time he’d tried to talk to her, on New Year’s Eve, and how he’d run away. I’m not running away this time, he thought.

The man in the next cubicle—“Derek Hastings,” his nameplate said—was on the phone, but watching Lincoln. After a few minutes, a conversation about the local zoo and panda bears, Derek hung up the phone.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Uh, no,” Lincoln said. “I need to talk to Beth, Beth Fremont.”

“She’s not here,” Derek said.

Lincoln nodded.

“Can I give her a message?” Derek asked. “Is there something wrong with her computer?”

So, he knows what I do, who I am, Lincoln thought. It’s not a secret.

“No,” Lincoln said, standing his ground. Standing Beth’s ground.

Derek eyed him suspiciously, and slowly unwrapped a Dum Dum sucker, the kind they give to kids in bank drive-throughs. Lincoln could handle the suspicion and the staring, but he couldn’t handle the Dum Dum.