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> I always do.

  CHAPTER 31

  “I HAVEN’T HEARD you complain about work for a while,” Eve said. “Are you liking it better?”

  She’d brought her boys over for Sunday brunch after church. Lincoln’s mother had made potato casserole with eggs, turkey, tomatoes, mushrooms, dandelion greens, and three kinds of cheese.

  “Work is fine,” Lincoln said, taking a bite.

  “You’re not bored?” Eve asked.

  “I guess I’m getting used to it,” he said, covering his mouth.

  “Are you still looking for something with better hours?”

  He shrugged. “These hours will be great if I decide to go back to school.”

  Eve frowned. She was especially edgy this afternoon. When she’d walked into the house, their mother had asked the boys if they’d had a good conversation with their higher power.

  “Jesus,” Eve had said. “We call him Jesus.”

  “That’s one of the names he answers to,” her mother had said.

  “So,” Eve said to Lincoln now, stabbing a mushroom, “you must have enough money saved to get a place closer to campus.”

  “It’s not a bad drive from here,” he said evenly.

  Their mother started giving everyone a second helping of casserole. He could see she was torn. On the one hand, she still didn’t like him going back to school, on the other, she hated when Eve bullied him.

  “Why are they doing that?” his mother said, frowning at her grandsons. The boys were sorting the casserole into piles on their plates.

  “Doing what?” Eve asked.

  “Why aren’t they eating their food?”

  “They don’t like it when things touch,” Eve said.

  “What things?” his mother asked.

  “Their food. They don’t like it when different foods touch or mix together.”

  “How do you serve dinner, in ice cube trays?”

  “We only eat two things, Grandma,” said Eve’s older son, six-year-old Jake Jr.

  “What two things?” she asked.

  “Like hot dogs and macaroni,” Jake said. “Or hamburgers and corn.”

  “I don’t like ketchup on my hamburger,” said Ben, the four-year-old.

  “I like ketchup on the side,” Jake said.

  “Fine,” Lincoln’s mom said, taking their plates and scraping them onto her own. “Are you boys still hungry? I’ve got fruit, I’ve got bananas, do you like bananas?”

  “So you’re staying here?” Eve turned on Lincoln with new ferocity. “You’re just going to keep living here?”

  “For now,” he said.

  “Lincoln is always welcome here,” their mother said.

  “I’m sure he is,” Eve said. “He’s welcome to rot here for the rest of his life.”

  Lincoln set down his fork.

  “Grandma,” Ben said, “this banana is dirty.”

  “That’s not dirt,” she said.

  “It’s brown,” he said.

  “It’s banana-colored.”

  “Bananas are yellow,” Jake said.

  “Lincoln is not rotting,” their grandmother said.

  “He isn’t living,” Eve said.

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my son.”

  “He’s twenty-eight years old,” Eve said. “Your job is done. He’s risen.”

  “Like Jesus,” Jake said.

  “Not like Jesus,” Eve said.

  Lincoln stood up from the table. “Would anyone else like juice? Ben? Jake?” His nephews ignored him.

  “You’re never done raising your children,” his mother said. “You’ll see. You’re not done until you’re dead.”

  “Jesus died when he was thirty-three,” Jake said.

  “Stop talking about Jesus,” Eve said.

  “Jesus!” Ben said.

  “I’m still Lincoln’s mother. I’m still your mother. Whether you like it or not, I’m not done raising either of you.”

  “You never started raising me,” Eve said.

  “Eve …” Lincoln winced.

  “You’re excused, boys,” Eve said.

  “I’m still hungry,” Ben said.

  “Can we go to Wendy’s?” Jake asked.

  “Tell me more about how to be a good mother,” Eve’s mother said.

  “I’ll tell you this,” Eve said. “My boys are going to have lives of their own. They’re going to go on dates and get married and move out. I’m not going to make them feel like they aren’t allowed to say good-bye to me.”

  “I never made you feel that way.”

  “You came to kindergarten with me for the first month.”

  “You asked me to.”

  “I was five,” Eve said. “You should have told me no.”

  “You were scared.”

  “I was five.”

  “I didn’t send Lincoln until he was seven, and I’m so glad. He was so much more prepared.”

  Lincoln had been prepared for kindergarten. He could already read and do some addition and subtraction. He’d ended up skipping the first grade.

  “Oh my God”—Eve slammed her fork on the table—“can’t you even hear yourself?”

  “Don’t talk about Jesus, Mommy,” Ben whispered.

  “Come on, boys,” Lincoln said, “let’s go outside. Let’s play soccer.”

  “You’re a very bad soccer player,” Jake said.

  “I know,” Lincoln said. “You can teach me.”

  The kitchen windows were open. Even after Lincoln took his nephews outside, they could still hear his sister and mother shouting.

  “Food touches!” Lincoln heard his mother say. “The world touches!”

  After about twenty minutes, Eve leaned out the back door and told the boys to come say good-bye to Grandma. Eve looked frustrated and angry, and she’d been crying.

  “We’re going to Wendy’s,” she said to Lincoln. “Do you want to come?”

  “No, I’m full.”

  “I’m not sorry about anything I said,” she said. “It was all true. You are rotting here.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I’m ripening.”

  Eve slammed the back door closed.

  CHAPTER 32

  WHEN LINCOLN GOT to work on Monday, Greg took him aside to talk about the millennium project.

  “It seems like they’re working, right?” Greg asked, looking over at the Y2K kids’ corner. “I mean, they’re putting in a shit-ton of hours.”

  Lincoln decided not to tell Greg that his International Strike Force stayed pretty late some nights, playing Doom. (Right in front of Lincoln. You’d think they’d at least ask him to play.)

  “They’re so quiet,” Greg said. Lincoln nodded. “Sometimes, I look over at them, and their screens are full of code, and I think about the time I had my appendix out and woke up on the operating table …I mean, they could be doing anything in there.”

  “I think they’re just writing code,” Lincoln said.

  “Fucking millennium,” Greg said.

  CHAPTER 33

  From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  To: Beth Fremont

  Sent: Wed, 11/10/1999 10:13 AM

  Subject: Positive.

  Well, I took the test last night, and I’ve felt like I was going to throw up ever since …Not because I have morning sickness, I think it’s too early for that.

  <> Oh my God. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

  Congratulations, congratulations! OH MY GOD!!!

  <> I don’t feel like being congratulated right now. I told you, I feel like throwing up. I think I might have made a huge mistake. As soon as I saw that blue line, I remembered how much I don’t want to have kids, the baby shaking, etc….

  <> Are we talking about actual baby shaking or figurative baby shaking?

  <> Potential. Don’t I seem like the type?

  <> Don’t be stupid. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be wonderful. Does Mitch know?

/>   <> I told him last night. He was ecstatic. Seriously, he was so happy that he almost started crying. He couldn’t stop hugging me. It was creepy.

  <> That doesn’t sound creepy. That sounds nice.

  <> Says the woman who isn’t incubating a parasitic organism.

  <> You make it sound like you have a tapeworm.

  <> Wait until it starts kicking.

  <> Have you told your parents?

  <> Mitch called his parents. They were also creepy-excited. I’m not telling my mother, ever.

  <> She might notice when you start to show.

  <> She’ll just tell me that I look fat.

  <> I’m so happy for you. I’m creepy-happy. I’m totally throwing you a baby shower.

  <> That sounds terrible.

  <> Terribly awesome. I’ll be like a shower expert by the time you have a baby. I have to go to three bridal showers for my sister in the next six weeks, and I’m hosting one.

  <> Three showers? Isn’t that excessive?

  <> One of them is a personal shower.

  <> Oh, I hate those. If it’s personal, it shouldn’t be a shower. Who wants to open lingerie in front of their friends and relatives?

  <> Lingerie is mild. My cousin got sex toys at her personal shower. And her bridesmaids made her try on her skimpy new underwear so she could give us a fashion show. My aunt kept saying, “Sexy, sexy!”

  <> Why did you tell me that? Now I’m going to be making the “ew” face for the rest of the day.

  <> I’m going for a more refined vibe at the shower I’m hosting for her. We’re having a tea party. I’m making tea sandwiches.

  <> I love tea sandwiches.

  <> Who doesn’t? You know …I could throw you a tea party baby shower.

  <> With no games?

  <> Oh, there’ll be games. That’s nonnegotiable. But no sexy underwear, I promise.

  <> I’ll consider it.

  Enough about me and my tapeworm. How are you?

  <> You can’t tell me you’re pregnant and then change the subject.

  <> This is all anyone is going to talk to me about for the next nine months. It’s all anyone is going to talk to me about for the rest of my life. Please, can we change the subject? How are you? How is Chris?

  <> Chris is …Chris. I guess. He’s in one of his distant phases. He’s gone a lot, and when he is home, he turns up the stereo too loud to talk. Or he sits in the bedroom with his guitar. I ask him if he wants to go out, and he says he doesn’t feel like it. But when I get home, he’s gone.

  <> Are you worried?

  <> Not really.

  <> You don’t think he’s seeing someone else?

  <> No. Maybe I should think that.

  I think he just gets like this sometimes. Like he needs to pull away. I think of it like winter. During winter, it isn’t that the sun is gone (or cheating on you with some other planet). You can still see it in the sky. It’s just farther away.

  <> That would drive me crazy. I’d lose my temper—or get pregnant—just to shake things up.

  <> Losing my temper wouldn’t help. I can’t imagine what would happen if I got pregnant. Then he probably would leave.

  <> Don’t say that. He wouldn’t leave.

  <> Actually, I think he would. Or he wouldn’t expect me to keep it.

  <> That’s terrible.

  <> Do you really think so? You know what it’s like to not want children, to want your relationship to stay a certain way. I don’t think Chris would feel responsible for me getting pregnant. He would see it as my deal, my choice. And it would be, wouldn’t it?

  <> Let’s change the subject again.

  <> Gladly. Congratulations!!

  CHAPTER 34

  LINCOLN HAD SEEN Beth’s boyfriend half a dozen times now. Justin had really taken to Sacajawea after that first show. Now he called Lincoln whenever the band was playing. Dena, Justin’s girlfriend, would come, too. They usually ended up at the Village Inn afterward. They’d all order pie and listen to Justin dissect the night’s show.

  “How are these guys not fucking rock stars?” Justin always asked. “Why aren’t they on MTV instead of all that Backstreet bullshit?”

  Lincoln shrugged.

  “Look,” Dena said, nodding toward the smoking section, “there’s the guitarist again.”

  Chris was sitting in a booth, eating a breakfast skillet and reading.

  “How does a guy like that not have a girlfriend?” Dena asked.

  “Maybe he does,” Lincoln said.

  “No way,” Dena said. “Guys with girlfriends don’t spend Friday nights eating alone at the Village Inn.”

  “He should be out nailing groupies,” Justin said.

  “He’s always by himself,” Dena said.

  “If I looked like that,” Justin said through a mouthful of meringue, “I’d be banging a different girl every night.”

  “You were doing that anyway,” Dena said, rolling her eyes, “looking like you do.”

  “You’re right,” Justin said. “If I looked like that, I’d be banging two different girls every night.”

  “Maybe he has a girlfriend,” Lincoln said.

  “Then I feel sorry for his girlfriend,” Dena said.

  “Maybe he has a boyfriend,” Justin said.

  “Then I feel sorry for his boyfriend,” Dena said.

  “They have another show tomorrow,” Justin said. “We should go.”

  “I’m playing D & D tomorrow night,” Lincoln said.

  “Talk about things you do when you don’t have a girlfriend,” Justin said.

  Justin was always needling Lincoln to go out more. To be around women. To try. Maybe because Justin had known Sam in high school. Because he remembered the days when Lincoln was the one who always had a beautiful girl on his arm. “A little mouthy for my taste,” Justin had said once during golf practice. “But hotter than a jalapeño milkshake.”

  After California, when Lincoln showed up at the state university a year behind everybody else, Justin never asked what happened with Sam. Lincoln had even tried to tell him about it one night, over Papa John’s pizza and a six-pack of Dr. Diablo, but Justin had cut him off.

  “Dude. Let it go. Good riddance to bad rubbers.”

  CHAPTER 35

  IN THE END, Lincoln hadn’t told anyone what happened with Sam in California. (Even though his mother had asked and asked and eventually confronted Sam’s mother at the grocery store.)

  He didn’t talk about it because talking about would have been conceding it. Giving in to it. And because if he told someone, he knew it wouldn’t sound that bad. That it was really a fairly standard teenage heartbreak. That the saddest part of the whole story was that he missed a semester of school and lost all his scholarships. That would be the saddest part to someone else, to an outside observer.

  He didn’t talk to his mom about it, not once, not ever, because he knew how happy it would make her to be right.

  When he first left for college, she called him twice a week.

  “I’ve never even been to California,” she said.

  “Mom, it’s fine. It’s a nice campus. It’s safe.”

  “I don’t know what it looks like,” she said. “I can’t picture you there. I try to think about you and to send you positive energy, but I don’t know which way to send it.”

  “West,” he said.

  “That
’s not what I mean, Lincoln. How am I supposed to visualize good things happening for you if I can’t visualize you?”

  He missed her, too. He missed the Midwest. All the scenery Sam had wanted was making his head hurt. Northern California was impractically beautiful. Everywhere you looked there were trees and streams, waterfalls, mountains, the ocean…. There was nowhere to look just to look, just to think. He’d been spending a lot of time in the campus library, a place without windows.

  Sam had been spending a lot of time at the school theater. She wasn’t taking classes in the drama department yet, but she’d gone out for a few plays and landed small roles. Back in high school, when Sam went to rehearsals, Lincoln would go with her. He’d bring his homework and sit in the back row of the auditorium. He could study just fine that way. He could block out the talking and the noise. He liked to hear Sam’s voice occasionally pealing through his chemistry problems.

  Lincoln would have happily studied at the college theater while Sam rehearsed, but she felt like he was drawing too much attention to her there. “You’re reminding them that I’m other,” she said. “That I’m a freshman, that I’m not from around here. I need them to look at me and see my role. To see my talent and nothing else. You’re reminding them that I have this cloying Heartland backstory.”

  “What’s cloying?” he asked.

  “The adoring-Germanic-farm-boy thing.”

  “I’m not a farm boy.”

  “To them, you are,” she said. “To them, we both just fell off the tomato truck. They think it’s funny that we’re from Nebraska. They think the word Nebraska is funny. They say it like, ‘Timbuktu’ or ‘Hoboken.’”

  “Like ‘Punxsutawney’?” he asked.

  “Exactly. And they think it’s hilarious that we came to college together.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “It’s too sweet,” she said. “It’s exactly what two kids who just fell off the tomato truck would do. If you keep coming to rehearsals, I’m never going to get good parts.”

  “Maybe they’ll do Pollyanna.”

  “Lincoln, please.”

  “I want to be with you. If I don’t come to the theater, I won’t ever see you.”