Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

Three hours of weakness, and now I’m going to spend the rest of my life wrestling with the special needs of a fetal alcoholic.

Its little eyes will be too far apart, and everyone will look at me in the grocery store and whisper, “Look at that horrible lush. She couldn’t part with her Zima for nine months. It’s tragic.”

“If I got to know people”—he stirred—“I might not feel so impartial when I’m enforcing the rules.”

It? Do you mean your period? Your monthly? Did your aunt Ruby arrive for a five- to seven-day visit? Is it . . . that time? Why are you talking like you’re in a feminine napkin commercial?

And also . . . Also, he kind of liked Beth and Jennifer, as much as you can like people from reading their e-mail, only some of their e-mail.

She was too pretty to look at. They were all too pretty to look at. He couldn’t remember the last time he had looked a woman in the eyes. A woman who wasn’t his mother. Or his sister, Eve.

He wasn’t scared, exactly, to start dating again. He just couldn’t visualize it. He could imagine himself a year in, at the comfortable place, the hand-at-the-small-of-the-back place. But the meeting, the making a girl like him . . . He was useless at all that.

He hadn’t made Sam fall in love with him. She just did. And he’d loved her back.

“Don’t you hate telling people that you still live at home?” Eve would ask. “Who asks me where I live?” “New people.” “I don’t meet any new people.”

“Honey, do you find Tom Cruise attractive?” “Mom. No. Why would you ask that? Jesus.” “Why would you ask that?” “I asked if you found Tom Cruise attractive. I didn’t ask if you thought I was gay. Do you think I’m gay?” “I didn’t say that,” she said. “I have thought, occasionally, that maybe, you might, but I wasn’t saying that. I was just trying to help you.”

“Where are the speakers?” Lincoln shouted. “Are they in the seats?” “Hell, yes. Fucking awesome, right? It’s like having Axl Rose in your asshole.”

A few girls had climbed onto raised black platforms at the back of the dance floor, beneath a row of green flashing lights. They were dancing with their hips together, mechanically riding each other’s thighs and arching their backs. It was unpleasantly arousing to watch. Like masturbating in a portable toilet.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I know what you’re thinking now. You can’t believe I would knowingly get involved with a drug user. <<Jennifer to Beth>> I knowingly got involved with a guy who plays the tuba. Finish the story.

Beth to Jennifer>> I’ve seen you eat fish sticks before. And popcorn shrimp. <<Jennifer to Beth>> Both of those have protective fried coatings. I’ll eat fish that’s processed beyond recognition, but I would never eat it at work. I don’t even pop popcorn here. I don’t like to inflict my food odors on others.

Jennifer to Beth>> If we ever need any of his DNA for a paternity test or a voodoo spell, we’ll know where to look. <<Beth to Jennifer>> If we ever need any of Tony’s DNA for a paternity test, one of us deserves to be pushed off a cliff.

Do you think it’s scandalous that someone in a committed relationship like mine is checking out guys at the drinking fountain? <<Jennifer to Beth>> No. How could you not notice a cute guy around here? That’s like spotting a passenger pigeon. <<Beth to Jennifer>> A passenger pigeon with a sweet ass.

And I get totally sucked in by this ridiculous, tiny fur coat. The kind of coat a baby might need to go to the ballet. In Moscow. In 1918. To match her tiny pearls.

“I think I missed my window,” he said. “What window?” “My get-a-life window. I think I was supposed to figure all this stuff out somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-six, and now it’s too late.”

What did he have to mope about, really? What more did he want? Love, he could hear Eve saying. Purpose. Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can’t plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don’t happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?

“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 loving her and loving you.”

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.”

Beth. Lincoln couldn’t explain, even to himself, why she mattered to him. She and Jennifer were both funny, both caring, both smart as whips. But Beth’s whip always caught him by the ankle.

“That’s an easy fix,” he said, leaning over to take her mouse. Her hand was still there. Both of their hands jumped, and he felt himself blushing. If this was how he acted around a girl he wasn’t at all attracted to, how would he act if he ever had to fix Beth’s computer? He might throw up on her.

I’m not talking about Chris. Chris isn’t interested in anyone, including me. I’m talking about My Cute Guy. <<Jennifer to Beth>> The Brawny Man? He’s cheating on you with Mary Lou Retton?

What did it really mean in the big scheme of things that Beth had seen him, that she’d been jealous . . . It meant that the girl he thought about most and liked the best thought about him, too.

“Hmmm,” she said, studying him, kneading the dough, “that’s something. But that’s not it . . . Your eyes are clearer. You’re standing taller. You look like you’re in flower.” “Isn’t that something you’d say to a sixteen-year-old girl?”

“It’s still romantic,” Christine said, “falling in love with someone for who she is and what she says and what she believes in. It’s actually much more romantic than her crush on you, which would have to be almost completely physical. You might be nothing like she thinks you are.”

“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.”

Miniature Emilie came along. Lincoln could tell she was watching him, but he tried not to encourage her. He didn’t want to betray Beth. They wouldn’t let you ride Splash Mountain, he thought.

“You always were too generous,” she said, resting her hand on his head. “Remember when you dropped your action figures in the Salvation Army kettle?” He remembered. Snaggletooth and Luke Skywalker, X-Wing pilot. It had been an impulse. He’d ended up crying himself to sleep that night when he understood the repercussions.

If things get Mad Max around here later, I want you on my team. Don’t ask me what’s in it for you. I haven’t worked that out yet.”

Look at him, Lincoln thought. She’s his. That beautiful girl. That girl I think about when I’m not thinking about anything else. When I can’t think about anything else. Look at him. That magical girl. That light.

<Jennifer to Beth>> Now that I think about it, we’ve known each other six years, and I’ve never seen you in a bathing suit. Or a tank top. <<Beth to Jennifer>> Not a coincidence, my friend. I’ve got the arms of a Sicilian grandmother. Arms for picking olives and stirring hearty tomato sauces. Shoulders for carrying buckets of water from the stream to the farmhouse.

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.

And really, really cute. You weren’t exaggerating. Not Sears-model cute. More of an old-fashioned cute. And he got cuter, the more I looked at him. He’s built like a tank. I half expected him to lift my car with his hands.

LINCOLN HAD AN apartment-warming party that weekend. Eve had suggested it. “It’ll be like your coming-out party,” she said, “you know, your cotillion.” “Jesus,” Lincoln said, “don’t put either of those on the invitations.”

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.

It was held at a giant Catholic church in the suburbs. (Who knew that Justin was Catholic? And devout enough that he made Dena convert. “My kids aren’t growing up Unitarian,” he told Lincoln at the rehearsal dinner. “Those cocksuckers just barely believe in Jesus.”)

Lincoln started putting on his jacket. Just as Beth sat down beside him. He froze, one arm still in his jacket. He didn’t speak. Or move. Only his autonomic nervous system chugged on.

“Stupid girl,” she said near the corner of his mouth, sounding incredulous, “what could you possibly be thinking?” Lincoln found his mouth. “Perfect girl,” he said so quietly that only someone with her hands in his hair and her lips all but touching his could possibly hear. “Pretty girl.” He found her mouth. “Perfect.” Kiss. “Magic.” Kiss. “Only girl.”

He knew why he wanted to kiss her. Because she was beautiful. And before that, because she was kind. And before that, because she was smart and funny. Because she was exactly the right kind of smart and funny. Because he could imagine taking a long road trip with her without ever getting bored. Because whenever he saw something new and interesting, or new and ridiculous, he always wondered what she’d have to say about it—how many stars she’d give it and why.

But every time I saw you, I felt like I did the first time I heard that song.” She was throwing stars at him. It was hard to listen. It was hard to look at her. He still felt like he was stealing something.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?”

“I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. “I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. “And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.”

“Beth,” he barely said, pressing his face against hers until their lashes brushed, pressing his hand into the small of her back. “I don’t think I can explain it. I don’t think I can make it make any more sense. But I’ll keep trying. If you want me to.”

Don’t be surprised if he tries to dance with you at our wedding . . .” Beth stopped talking abruptly. When Lincoln looked over, she’d turned her face to the window. “I’ll dance with your dad,” he said, setting his hand on the back of her neck and brushing her cheek with his thumb. “As long as he leads . . . I’m not much of a dancer.”

“I didn’t know love could leave the lights on all the time.

“I thought it took more naps,” she said, struggling to find the right words. “Or blinked. I didn’t know it could just go on and on and like this without falling off an edge. Like pi.”

“I didn’t know someone could love me like this,” she said. “Could love me and love me and love me without . . . needing space.” Lincoln wasn’t asleep. He rolled on top of her. “There’s no air in space,” he said.