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  Lincoln tried to tell Greg, again, that he really didn’t think anything bad was going to happen on New Year’s Eve. Even if the coding failed, Lincoln said, which it probably wouldn’t, the computers wouldn’t get confused and self-destruct. “Logan’s Run isn’t real,” he said.

  “Then why do I feel too old for this shit?” Greg asked.

  That made Lincoln laugh. If he worked days, with Greg, he might not spend so much time thinking about quitting.

  CHAPTER 23

  From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  To: Beth Fremont

  Sent: Tues, 10/12/1999 9:27 AM

  Subject: Another nice story.

  The way you were complaining last week, I had lowered my expectations. But look at you—front page, above the fold. Giant picture, nice lead, nice ending. I especially like the quote from that protester: “If the Taj Mahal had been built on 84th and Dodge, they’d tear it down for parking.”

  <>

  1. Stop, you’re too nice. You’re like my mother or something.

  2. That protester was very cute. Lovely red hair. A pharmacy student, no less. (Now I sound like my mother.) We had a very nice conversation about the way this city worships good parking. I said that eventually, we’ll tear down every building of interest and just run shuttles to Des Moines and Denver. We’ll have a parking-based economy. He thought that was very funny, I could tell. And then, when I asked for a follow-up number, in case I had further questions, he asked for my number. (!!!!)

  <> What? That happened yesterday? Why are you holding out on me? If cute, redheaded pharmacy students ever gave me the time of day, you’d be the first to know. Not like that would ever happen. Even construction workers don’t whistle at me.

  <> That’s because you ooze preemptive leave-me-alone death rays. Besides, anyone who gets within 10 feet of you spots the giant rock on your finger.

  <> And also, I’m dumpy. What did you tell the cute anti-parking guy?

  <>

  1. If you keep insisting that you’re dumpy, I’ll stop sharing my romantic misadventures with you. You’ll have to read about them in Penthouse Forum like everybody else.

  2. I did something weird. I lied to him.

  <> You didn’t tell him you had a boyfriend?

  <> Nope. I told him I had a fiancé.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t. I’m engaged.” And then he looked at my hand and blushed. (It was an adorable, redheaded blush.) And I was like, “I left it on the sink.”

  I felt like you at the Baby Gap, buying munchkin overalls. Just making up my life. (Actually, it was more pathetic than that—because you don’t even want a baby. I want to be engaged. Somewhat desperately, let’s face it.)

  Last night, when Chris came home and climbed into bed, I couldn’t look him in the eye.

  One, because part of me really wanted to give that guy my number.

  And two, because I’d lied.

  <> Don’t overthink wanting to give out your number. You were flattered. Attracted. That’s natural. I know this from reading Glamour and watching The View, of course, not from personal experience.

  Did Chris notice that you couldn’t face him?

  <> No, there was no face time. He fell asleep before I could ask him how practice went. A long night grinding the ax takes it out of you.

  <> Ew. Is that a euphemism for masturb@tion?

  <> No. I think it’s @ euphemism for pl@ying the electric guit@r. Or @n idiom. I don’t know. Do you really think “masturbation” is one of Tron’s red-flag words?

  <> Well, it doesn’t matter now. If we get fired because you insist on poking the dragon, you’re going to have to support me and my pricey Baby Gap habit.

  <>

  1. Poking the dragon. Is that another masturbation reference?

  2. Baby Gap. Still?

  <>

  1. Ha.

  2. Still. Last weekend, I scored a celery green snowsuit with matching mittens for $3.99!

  <> Green is a smart choice—good for an imaginary girl or an imaginary boy. And the season isn’t at all relevant with imaginary children.

  <> Exactly. I don’t even go to the adult Gap anymore. Once you’re an imaginary mother, it’s hard to take time for yourself.

  <> I imagine.

  <> So, what’s tomorrow’s Indian Hills story about?

  <> There isn’t one.

  <> There better be. You’re on the morning budget for 15 inches.

  <> Fck.

  CHAPTER 24

  SO, THIS WAS what Lincoln’s romantic life had come to. Reading what women wrote about other men, other attractive men. Guitar gods and action heroes and redheads.

  That night, after he trashed Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, after he’d left The Courier, Lincoln got onto the freeway. It was laid out in a rough square around the city. Once you were on the freeway, you could drive as long as you wanted to without getting off, without ever really going anywhere.

  It’s what he and Sam used to do on nights when they didn’t feel like being around their parents or sitting in some diner. Lincoln would drive, and Sam would roll down her window and lean her head against the door, singing along with the radio.

  She liked to listen to a show called “Pillow Talk” on the light-rock station. It was a request show. People would call in and dedicate songs on the air. They always requested sappy songs that were ten or fifteen years old even back then, songs by Air Supply, Elton John, and Bread. Sam liked to mock their on-air dedications, but she rarely changed the station.

  She’d sing along, and they’d talk. The talking came easily to him when he was driving, maybe because he didn’t have to make eye contact, maybe because it gave him something to do with his hands. Because it was dark and the freeway was empty. Because of the love songs. And the wind.

  “Lincoln,” Sam had asked him on one of those nights, the summer before their senior year, “do you think we’ll get married some day?”

  “I hope so,” he’d whispered. He didn’t usually think about it like that, like “married.” He thought about how he never wanted to be without her. About how happy she made him and how he wanted to go on being that happy for the rest of his life. If a wedding could promise him that, he definitely wanted to get married.

  “Wouldn’t it be romantic,” she said, “to marry your high school sweetheart? When people ask us how we met I’ll say, ‘We met in high school. I saw him, and I just knew.’ And they’ll say, ‘Didn’t you ever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else?’ And you’ll say …Lincoln, what will you say?”

  “I’ll say, ‘No.’”

  “That’s not very romantic.”

  “It’s none of their business.”

  “Tell me, then,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and putting her arm around his waist. “Tell me now, won’t you ever wonder what it would have been like to be with someone else?”

  “First, buckle up,” he said. She did. “I won’t wonder that because I already know what it would be like to be with someone else.”

  “How do you know?” she said.

  “I just do.”

  “Then, what would it be like?”

  “It would be less,” he said.

  “Less?”

  He looked over at her, just for a second, sitting sideways in her bucket seat, and squeezed the steering wheel. “It would have to be. I already love you so much. I already feel like something in my chest is going to pop when I see you. I couldn’t love anyone more than I do you, it would kill me. And I couldn’t love anyone less because it would always feel like less. Even if I loved some other girl, that’s all I would ever think about, the difference between lo
ving her and loving you.”

  Sam squirmed out of the top half of her seat belt and laid her head on his shoulder. “That is such a good answer.”

  “It’s a true answer.”

  “What if”—her voice was soft and girlish now—“someday, someone asks whether you ever wonder what it would be like to …be with somebody else.”

  “Who would ask that?”

  “This entire scenario is hypothetical.”

  “I don’t even know what it’s like to be with you.” Lincoln said this quietly and without resentment.

  “Yet.”

  “Yet,” he said, focusing on the road and the gas pedal and breathing.

  “So …won’t you look at other girls and wonder what you’re missing?”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “I know you want more than a one-word answer. Let me think about this for a minute, I don’t want it to sound stupid or desperate.”

  “Do you feel desperate?” She was kissing his neck now and leaning hard against him.

  “I’m feeling …yes. Desperate. And like I might kill us both. I can’t …I can’t keep my eyes open when you’re doing that, it’s like sneezing. We’re almost to the next exit. Let me drive, just for a few more minutes. Please.”

  She sat back in her seat. “No, don’t get off at this exit. Keep driving.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to keep talking. I want you to answer my question.”

  “No,” he said. “No, I’ll never wonder what it would be like to have sex with someone else for the same reason I don’t want to kiss anyone else. You’re the only girl I’ve ever touched. And I feel like it was supposed to be that way. I touch you and my whole body …rings. Like a bell or something. And I could touch other girls, and maybe there would be something, you know, like maybe there would be noise. But not like with you. And what would happen if I kept touching and touching them, and then …and then, I tried to touch you again? I might not be able to hear us anymore. I might not ring true.”

  “I love you, Lincoln,” Sam said.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “And I love you.”

  “I love you,” he said, “I love you.”

  “Stop driving now, okay?”

  It didn’t happen that night, the being with each other. But it happened that summer. And it happened in the car. It was awkward and uncomfortable and wonderful.

  “Only you,” he’d promised. “Only you ever.”

  “PILLOW TALK” WASN’T on the air anymore. There was another show in its place, a syndicated show, where people called in with their love stories, and the host, a woman named Alexis, chose the song for them. No matter what the situation was, Alexis always prescribed a current adult contemporary hit. Something by Mariah Carey or Céline Dion.

  After a few minutes of Alexis, Lincoln turned off the radio and rolled down the window. He leaned his hand into the wind and his head against the door, and drove around the city until his fingers were cold and numb.

  CHAPTER 25

  From: Beth Fremont

  To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  Sent: Thurs, 10/14/1999 11:09 AM

  Subject: October, at last!

  Callooh! Callay!

  <> At last? October is half over. And what’s in October anyway?

  <> Not “what’s in,” what is. October. My favorite month. Which, by the way, has only half begun.

  Some find it melancholy. “October,” Bono sings, “and the trees are stripped bare …”

  Not I. There’s a chill in the air that lifts my heart and makes my hair stand on end. Every moment feels meant for me. In October, I’m the star of my own movie—I hear the soundtrack in my head (right now, it’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”)—and I have faith in my own rising action.

  I was born in February, but I come alive in October.

  <> You’re a nut.

  <> A hazelnut. A filbert.

  October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins.

  O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

  <> I do love tiny candy bars.

  <> Merry October!

  <> All right, Merry October! Why not?

  Are there other factors in your unreasonably good mood? Non-autumnal reasons?

  <> Nope, I don’t think so. I had a really crappy night last night—I went to a Sacajawea party with Chris—but I think that’s actually enhancing my good mood today. I woke up thinking about how, no matter how bad everything else is, there’s still October.

  <> Who has a party on a Wednesday night?

  <> Musicians.

  <> Don’t most of them have day jobs?

  <> Their day jobs are night jobs. (Sometimes late-afternoon jobs.) Only the girlfriends have to get up in the morning, and mentioning that you have to get up—that you really shouldn’t be partying on a school night, so to speak—is band-girlfriend blasphemy.

  <> What happens to blasphemers?

  <> As soon as you leave, dragging your man with you or not, every other lord reaches for his lady and thanks her for not being such a killjoy. She, in turn, feels special and loved and goes to work the next morning haggard, headachy, and wearing a guitar pick around her neck like an albatross.

  <> Are you a killjoy?

  <> Oh, the worst. A killjoy of mythic proportions. For starters, I won’t let them party at my apartment. And I leave all their parties early, by midnight. I’ve stopped pretending that staying up all night, smoking, and drinking have no effect on my body.

  It wouldn’t be any better if I stayed. You’re not allowed to politely not partake in their debauchery. That’s as good as passing judgment.

  Last night was especially bad. Stef got all up in my face. He was high, and I think he was trying to impress some girl he picked up at a show.

  “Beth … ,” he said, “why don’t you have fun anymore?”

  I ignored him, which he couldn’t let stand. “I’m serious, Beth, you’ve changed. You used to be cool.”

  “I haven’t changed. I was never cool.”

  “You were. When Chris started bringing you around, the rest of us were jealous. You had that hair down to your waist and your tight Hüsker Dü T-shirts, and you’d get wasted and stay up all night rewriting our choruses.”

  He’s vile in so many ways:

  1. Implying that he ever liked me.

  2. Reminding me how he used to stare at my breasts.

  3. Making me scramble to insult him in a way that won’t insult Chris. I mean, I can’t say, “I’m an adult now” or, “There’s nothing to rewrite, you’ve been playing the same songs for six years …”

  So I said, “Give it a rest, Stef, I’m tired.”

  Then he got all fake-sympathetic and suggested that I go home so I would be all rested up for work in the morning. I told him that movie reviewers never go to work before noon. Union rules.

  “I think that’s what changed you, Beth. Your job. The film critic. Critics are parasites. They live off other people’s creativity. They bring nothing into this world. They’re like barren women who steal other people’s babies in grocery store parking lots. Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, criticize.”

  Just when he’d settled into a fine rant, one of the other guys decided to cut him off—“Hey, Chris, aren’t you going to defend your girlfriend?”

  And Chris said, “Beth doesn’t need my help defending herself. Trust me. She’s a Valkyrie.”

  Which sort of made me feel good. That he loves me strong and independent. But also, I would like some defending. And also, don’t Valkyries steal the souls of fallen warriors?
Or maybe just escort them to heaven or Valhalla or wherever? Either way, it doesn’t make me a warrior. Maybe a Valkyrie is just another parasite, reflecting the glory of the souls she claims. I don’t know, it’s not what I wanted him to say.

  I wanted him to say …“Fuck off, Stef.”

  Or, “Beth is not a barnacle on my boat. She’s the wind beneath my wings. And, without her, films like Armageddon and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer would claim scores of innocent victims, our friends and neighbors. Hers is important work, creative work.”

  Or, “That’s it, I quit this stupid band. I’m going back to school. I’ve always wanted to be a dentist.”

  <> A dentist? Really, a dentist?

  If Chris went back to school to become a dentist, I think you would dump him.

  <> I would not!

  <> I just can’t picture you married to a dentist, somebody who wears sensible shoes and always smells like fluoride treatment.

  <> I can …He’d have a comfy little neighborhood dental practice with back issues of Guitar World in the waiting room. I would stop in to see him some afternoons, and he’d pull down his white mask to kiss me hello. The kids would fight over a set of giant teeth, and his nice, grandmotherly dental assistant would give them each a sugar-free lollipop …

  <> Wait a minute, the kids?

  <> You bet. A boy and a girl. Twins maybe. With his curly hair and my grade point average.

  <> What about your job?

  <> Are you kidding? I’m married to a dentist.

  <> Does this dental fantasy of yours take place in, like, 1973?

  <> I’ve always thought I would stay home when my kids were young. If I have kids. If I can afford it. My mom stayed home with us, and we turned out all right. I think I could handle being a stay-at-home mom for a few years.

  <> Hmmm …I think I’d like to be a stay-at-home mom with no kids.

  <> You mean, you just want to stay home?