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  Your tea party shower for Kiley was this weekend, right?

  <> Ugh. Yes. Don’t ask.

  <> You have to tell me about it. This is all about you proving you’ve got what it takes to throw my baby shower.

  <> I don’t want to think about showers right now. I might not even take showers anymore.

  <> What happened? Did you pour tea into someone’s lap?

  <> Uh. No. Somebody would have had to have given me the opportunity to actually pour tea for that to happen. Apparently, Tri-Delts don’t drink tea. They drink Diet Coke—Diet Pepsi in a pinch—but hot tea? Not so much.

  I had five varieties of tea, I had my grandmother’s china, I had sugar cubes and real cream. But it hadn’t occurred to me to buy Diet Coke when I was shopping for my tea party.

  I had to send Chris to Kwik Shop.

  <> Chris came to the shower?

  <> He didn’t really come. He just didn’t leave. Which was awesome because I hadn’t considered that tea sandwiches are about eight times more complicated than regular sandwiches. Chris sliced English cucumbers and blanched asparagus and spent probably an hour trimming crusts.

  Again, not that anyone noticed. You know what else Tri-Delts don’t really like, besides hot tea? Bread. One of Kiley’s bridesmaids actually said, “I never eat bread on the weekends. I save my carbs for partying.”

  <> What kind of parties does she go to—cupcake parties?

  <> I think she meant beer.

  <> Oh, right. So, what did you do?

  <> What could I do? Chris went to buy Diet Coke. They all loved him, by the way. They thought nothing of refusing my tea, spurning my sandwiches, and flirting with my boyfriend.

  <> Did he flirt back?

  <> Not exactly. He was very solicitous. He brought out ice, glasses, a bottle of rum, and all the extra vegetables from the kitchen. And every once in a while, he’d run his fingers through his hair as he was refilling their drinks, which made them just swoon. If he hadn’t slipped out while Kiley was opening presents, those girls never would have left.

  <> That was really nice of him to help you. I’m sorry the shower was such a disaster.

  <> It was nice of him. He was nice all day. He came back home about an hour after they cleared out, and I was still sitting on the couch, feeling sorry for myself and thinking about how every one of those idiotic girls is going to get married before me, and about how Diet Coke and rum is the most moronic drink of all time. They should call it a Moron, so that girls who order it would have to call themselves out at the bar.

  Chris walked in and sat next to me, and was all, “don’t worry about it” and “pearls to swine” and “you don’t even want to impress girls like that.” And I pointed out that they seemed to like him well enough.

  “What does that say about me?” he said. “That I’m attractive to women who drink rum and Diet Coke?”

  “Isn’t that the stupidest drink of all time?” I said. “Their faces lit up when you offered it to them.”

  “I can spot a Skinny Pirate–drinker a mile away.”

  And I was, like, “Huh. So there’s already a name for that.”

  Then he reminded me that there were dozens of sandwiches left in the kitchen, most of them containing cream cheese. So we drank tea and each ate enough finger sandwiches to feed an entire sorority.

  <> Sometimes, I really like him.

  <> Me, too. If he was always the person that he was on Saturday, I would be leading a charmed life.

  <> Who is he usually?

  <> It’s not like he’s somebody else. It’s like he’s usually nobody at all.

  That sounds terrible. I shouldn’t say that.

  <> Do you feel like he ignores you?

  <> No. I feel like he doesn’t see me. Or anything. I’d say it was like living with a ghost, but ghosts haunt you, right? Chris doesn’t usually do anything that engaging.

  <> Do you think he’s that way with everybody?

  <> No. I think he makes more of an effort with strangers. When he’s performing, he sort of pretends to interact with the crowd …I think that wears him out. I think he’s relieved to come home to someone who doesn’t expect him to fake it. Who doesn’t expect anything.

  Anyway. How are you? How was your weekend?

  <> I have some news: I broke Mitch the bad news about Cody.

  <> I thought you were going to ignore that and hope it went away.

  <> I was going to, but he started calling my stomach “Little Cody.” I couldn’t handle it, I had to tell him to stop. I had to tell him that no part of my body—or anything that came from my body—would ever be called Cody.

  “What about Dakota?” he asked.

  “Never. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be Cody … ,” he said. “What names do you like better?”

  I told him that I didn’t know, but that I liked names that are classic, distinguished, like Elizabeth for a girl. Or Sarah with an H. Or Anna. And for a boy, John or Andrew or even Mitchell. I told him that I love the name Mitchell.

  He wasn’t disappointed at all, that I could tell. He said he liked all those names. It was such a relief. I like this baby better already, knowing that it won’t be called Cody.

  Mitch is so happy that this is happening, I think he’ll let me pick whatever name I want. He was being so sweet that I almost told him that Dakota might work for a middle name …

  Then I decided I needed to start thinking like a mother with a child to protect.

  <> I knew your maternal instinct would kick in eventually.

  CHAPTER 51

  LINCOLN READ THIS exchange more than once. More than twice. More than he should have. And every time he read it, his stomach knotted a little tighter.

  He still couldn’t see this girl. This woman. But he could picture Chris clearly, and for the first time since—well, since all this had started—Lincoln was angry.

  He hated to think of Chris being so tender with Beth. Making her tea, soothing her nerves. Preferring her. And he hated, too, to think of Chris neglecting her, being nobody with her. He hated to think of their eight years together. Lincoln hated to think that even if he could talk to Beth, even if it was possible, even if he hadn’t backed himself into this corner, she would still be in love with somebody else.

  He was so agitated at dinner that he let Doris eat his share of pumpkin cake.

  “This lemon icing is wonderful,” she said, “so sour. Who would have thought to put lemon icing on pumpkin cake? Your mother should open a restaurant. What does she do for a living?”

  “She doesn’t work,” he said. His mother had never worked, as long as he could remember. She still got a little money from Eve’s dad, who she’d divorced years before Lincoln was born. And she was a licensed massage therapist. That had been a somewhat serious gig for a while. Sometimes in the summertime, she did chair massages at flea markets. His mom never seemed to be short of money. But Lincoln should probably be paying rent, he thought, or at least helping with the groceries …especially now that his mom was feeding Doris, too.

  “What about your dad? What does he do?”

  “I don’t know,” Lincoln said. “I’ve never met him.”

  Doris clucked and choked on her cake. She put her hand on his shoulder. Lincoln hoped that Beth wasn’t about to walk in. “You poor kid,” Doris said.

  “It’s really not so bad,” he said.

  “Not so bad? It’s a terrible thing to grow up without a father.”

  “It wasn’t,” Lincoln said, but maybe it was. How would he kno
w? “It was fine.”

  Doris patted him a few times before she pulled her hand away.

  “No wonder your mother cooks for you.”

  Lincoln went back to his desk after dinner and tried to think about his dad. (Who he really had never met. Who might not even know that Lincoln existed.) He ended up thinking about Sam instead. She used to tell Lincoln that he should “work the fatherless boy thing.”

  “It’s very romantic,” she’d said. They were at the park. Sitting on top of the monkey bars. “Very James Dean in East of Eden.”

  “James Dean is a motherless boy in East of Eden.” Lincoln hadn’t seen the movie, but he’d read the book. He’d read everything by Steinbeck.

  “What about Rebel Without a Cause?”

  “I think he had both parents in that one.”

  “Details,” Sam said. “James Dean reeked of fatherless boy.”

  “How is that romantic?” Lincoln had asked.

  “It makes you seem unpredictable,” she said, “like a sad chasm could emerge in your personality at any moment.”

  He’d laughed then, but now it didn’t seem so funny. Maybe that’s where he was stuck. In the sad chasm.

  “MOM SAYS YOU’VE been acting weird,” Eve said when he met her for lunch the next day at Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Eve’s choice.)

  “What kind of weird?”

  “She says you’re up and down all the time and that you’re losing weight. She thinks you might be taking diet pills. She compared you to Patty Duke.”

  “I’m losing weight because I joined a gym,” he said, setting down his spork. “I told you about it already. I go before work.”

  “Actually,” she said, “I can tell. You look nice. You’re standing straighter. And your beer gut is receding.”

  “I don’t drink that much beer.”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” she said. “You look nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, why are you acting so weird?”

  He almost argued that he wasn’t, but that seemed pointless and like a lie.

  “I don’t know,” he said instead. “Sometimes, I think I’m really happy. I feel better, physically, than I have in a long time. And, socially, I feel better. Like I’m connecting with people. Like I’m talking to new people, and it isn’t as hard as it used to be.”

  That was true, even though the new people probably weren’t the sort of people Eve was hoping he’d connect with …

  Doris.

  And Justin and Dena, who weren’t exactly new.

  And the copy editors, who were an awful lot like D&D players who didn’t play D&D. They still counted as new. A bunch of them were even girls—not girls Lincoln was interested in, but girls.

  Beth and Jennifer seemed to count. Even though they obviously didn’t.

  “I feel like I’m finally getting over things,” Lincoln said. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  His sister was watching his face closely. “No,” she said, “that all sounds really good.”

  He nodded. “But I still feel really hopeless sometimes. I don’t like my job. And I’ve stopped thinking about finding another one. And, even though I hardly ever think about Sam anymore, it still seems impossible that I might have something like that again. A relationship, I guess.”

  If he had made that confession to his mother, she would have burst into tears. But Eve looked at Lincoln the way he looked at people when they were explaining their computer problems. He felt partly responsible for that line between her eyebrows.

  “Okay,” she said. “I think this is good.”

  “How is it good?”

  “Well, you’ve just told me about all these good things in your life,” she said. “Big improvements from just six months ago.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.”

  “This is investment advice, isn’t it? You’re personal-bank-ing me.”

  “It’s good advice,” she said.

  He was quiet for a moment. “Eve, do you think it was damaging to grow up without a father?”

  “Probably,” she said, stealing his biscuit. “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.”

  “Well, stop,” she said. “I told you, figure out what’s right with you.”

  Before they left, she talked him into taking her older son to see the Pokemon movie that weekend. “I can’t take him,” Eve said, “I’m allergic to Pikachu.” Then she said, “Get it? Pikachu? Pikachu. It sounds like I’m sneezing.” When they walked out of the KFC, Lincoln stopped Eve on the sidewalk to hug her. She let him hold on to her for just a moment. Then she patted him stiffly on the back. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said. “Save it for Mom.”

  LINCOLN MET JUSTIN and Dena at the Ranch Bowl Saturday night. Lincoln wore his new denim jacket. He’d had to buy new jeans that week, smaller jeans, and the jacket had been an impulse buy. He’d worn one like it in junior high, and that had been the last time he’d ever come close to feeling like a badass. He forgot to take the price tag off, so Justin called him “Minnie-fucking-Pearl” and “XXLT” all night. They stayed out so late, Lincoln slept in and didn’t have time to shower before he picked up his nephew the next afternoon.

  “You smell like cigarette smoke,” Jake Jr. said, climbing into Lincoln’s car. “Do you smoke?”

  “No. I went to a concert last night.”

  “With smoking?” the six-year-old asked. “And drinking?”

  “Some people were smoking and drinking,” Lincoln said, “but not me.”

  Jake shook his head sadly. “That stuff’ll kill you.”

  “That’s true,” Lincoln said.

  “I hope I don’t get any of this smoke on me. I have to go to school tomorrow.”

  The Pokemon movie was even worse than Lincoln had expected. It was almost a relief every time Jake Jr. had to go to the bathroom. “My mom says I can’t go alone,” Jake whispered. “She says I’m so cute, someone might try to take me.”

  “My mom used to tell me the same thing,” Lincoln said.

  CHAPTER 52

  From: Beth Fremont

  To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  Sent: Mon, 12/20/1999 1:45 PM

  Subject: My Cute Guy has a kid.

  Can you believe it? A kid! And probably a wife, too. How could he do this to me?

  <> ???

  <> My thoughts exactly.

  <> What I meant by that was: give me the information that you have and I don’t—that is making you talk like a crazy person.

  <> I saw him (them) yesterday at Cinema Center. I was going to see Fight Club again, and as I was buying my ticket, I saw My Cute Guy getting in line for popcorn. So—don’t judge—I got in line behind him (them), right behind him, and just sucked in his presence for three and a half minutes.

  <> I’m still confused. You saw him with his wife and kid? And then you sucked in his presence? What does that even entail?

  <>

  1. Just the kid. Like a 5-to-10-year-old kid.

  2. And “sucking in his presence” entails:

  Standing. Exalting. Inhaling. Trying not to bite his shoulder.

  Realizing that my mouth is the exact height as his shoulder.

  Memorizing what he was wearing—camouflage pants, hiking boots, a Levi’s jean jacket. (Like a very 1985 Levi’s jean jacket. Hard to explain, but very, very cute.)

  Noticing that his shoulders might be the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen on someone who isn’t a lumberjack. Marveling that I’m the kind of girl who finds a thick neck ridiculously attractive. (Is it thick necks in general? Or just his? I don’t know.)

  Imagining that if I were standing this close to him somewhere else, like at a
grocery store or a restaurant, people might think we were together.

  Deciding that his hair is about three shades lighter than mine. Cadbury colored.

  Thinking I could probably bump into him and make it seem like an accident.

  Wondering what his name is. And whether he’s as nice as he seems. And whether he likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain …

  <> Hmmm. I’m judging. I can’t help it.

  <> But I didn’t really do anything. He was there. And I was there. And we both like popcorn …

  <> You didn’t have to exalt.

  <> Au contraire, mon frere. It would have been impossible to do anything but.

  <> How do you know it was his kid? Maybe it was his little brother. Or his Little Brother.

  <> No, they were acting like father and son. I had 75 minutes to evaluate the situation. I ended up—remember, don’t judge—following them into their theater, Pokemon: The First Movie, and sitting about six rows behind them. McG sat with his arm around the kid’s chair the whole time. He even got up three times to take him to the bathroom. And when the movie was over, he really carefully put the boy’s scarf on.

  <> So, you stayed in there for the entire movie? You didn’t go to Fight Club? (So judging right now.)

  <> Do you think I was going to miss a chance to sit in the dark with My Cute Guy for an hour and a half? I already know who Tyler Durden is. (And I went back to catch the last showing of Fight Club after I followed My Cute Guy home.)

  <> Take it back. You didn’t follow him home.

  <> I tried. I lost him on the freeway.

  <> That’s something a scary person would do.

  <> Really? It felt more nosy than scary.

  <> How did you lose him? Was he driving evasively?

  <> No. Have you ever followed somebody in a car before? It’s really hard, even though he drives a pretty distinctive car, a Toyota Corolla. (An ancient Toyota Corolla, the kind people drove back when it was still embarrassing to drive a Japanese car.) I’m hoping that means he’s divorced and can’t afford a decent car. But that might be an evil thing to hope; there is a child involved. I wish I knew whether he wore a wedding ring …