He ate three cartons of vending machine yogurt for dinner and spent four hours playing Tetris on his computer. Maybe he could sneak in his PlayStation, too. He could still see the Tetris blocks falling on the inside of his eyelids when he finally checked the WebFence folder.

  CHAPTER 11

  From: Beth Fremont

  To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  Sent: Fri, 09/03/1999 2:08 PM

  Subject: This weekend.

  Hey, all this week’s movies came out on Wednesday, so I have tonight off, and Chris has a show. Do you still need a break from your funky husband? Do you want to get together? See a movie or something?

  <> Why would you want to see a movie when you have the night off from seeing movies? I don’t write headlines on my days off. (Though I do correct grammar. It gets on Mitch’s nerves.)

  I would love to see a movie, but tonight is North’s first home game. Mitch will have already set out the blue-and-gold sweatshirt he bought me for my birthday. My evening will be spent sitting on a cold, hard bleacher, watching my husband conduct “Tequila” and “All Hail the Golden Vikings.” (And weirdly enjoying it.)

  Hey, why don’t you join us? Come to the game. I’ll even let you borrow some Vikingwear—how do you feel about stocking hats with horns?

  <> Hey, why don’t I? Maybe because I’m still too cool to sit with the band kids?

  I don’t know …I guess that could be fun. I could make scandalous eye contact with hot high school guys.

  <> High school guys only appear hot to high school girls. It’s something to do with the fluorescent lighting in the classrooms, I think. They’re actually really skinny and spotty, and they have giant feet. Why don’t you go to Chris’s show?

  <> I don’t go to his shows anymore. And I know you’re going to ask me why not, so I’ll just tell you:

  In college, I never missed a show. I would spend an hour putting on eyeliner and another hour putting on Chris’s eyeliner. I’d get to the club early, help them set up, sit through the first two bands, then make sure I was sitting front and left, so that when he looked up from his guitar, I would be at the center of his field of vision. Like Courteney Cox in the “Dancing in the Dark” video. It was nirvana. (Pre-Nirvana nirvana.)

  And then I started working for the Entertainment section. And all of Chris’s friends found out about my job and started coming up to me during shows to give me tapes and pretend that they liked me.

  And then Stef and Chris got in that fight about me working for the newspaper …

  And I work most weekend nights anyway, so …

  It’s just easier to stay home on show nights and wait up for him.

  <> What fight? And doesn’t Chris miss you at the shows? (You never talk about college. I can just see you swooning, in full groupie mode.)

  <> I do so talk about college. Don’t I? I loved college. I wish I could go back.

  The fight was stupid: Stef was convinced that the band would get better coverage if I didn’t work for The Courier.

  <> Ooo, I hate Stef. He has Yoko Ono issues.

  And actually, you don’t talk about college. I don’t even know how you and Chris met.

  <> Amen on the Yoko issues. It’s because he likes to think he’s Paul McCartney. But Paul McCartney is a gentle soul. And a monogamist.

  <> And a knight.

  <> And an animal rights activist! The closest Stef gets to Sir Paul McCartney is by being a pothead.

  You know how I met Chris. At the Student Union.

  <> “At the Student Union.” That’s not how you met, that’s where you met. I want to know whether it was love at first sight. Who noticed whom first. The whole deal.

  And you didn’t answer my question: Doesn’t he miss you at the shows?

  <> Honestly, I think it’s easier for him if I don’t come to watch him play. The rest of the guys in the band are wild-and-crazy single guys. I don’t drink much, and I don’t smoke at all, and I can’t resist commenting on their totally immature and sexist behavior. I cramp their style.

  <> You would think that a band called Sacajawea would be more supportive of free-thinking women.

  <> You always say that.

  <> I do not, I’ve said it only once before, but it’s so pithy, I couldn’t resist repeating myself. (“Pithy,” that’s what I would call my band.)

  <> I would call your band “Pithetic.”

  Anyway. Thanks for the invite to the game, but I think I’m going to see a movie tonight. (More high school guys for you.) The Matrix is at the dollar theater. And I actually like going to movies on my night off. It’s relaxing. I don’t feel like I have to think critically, or even pay attention.

  Maybe I’ll even stop in to see Sacajawea after the movie. You’re making me feel like a bad girlfriend.

  <> You should put on lots of eyeliner and stand up front.

  <> I don’t know, maybe.

  CHAPTER 12

  LINCOLN FELT LIKE going out that weekend. Really out.

  Usually, on Saturday nights, he played Dungeons & Dragons. He’d been playing with the same five or six people since college. This was another thing Eve thought was holding him back.

  “It’s almost like you’re trying not to meet girls,” she’d said.

  “There are girls there,” he’d argued. One, anyway. Christine had always been the only girl in their group. Right after college, she’d married Dave, a burly guy who liked to be Dungeon Master, and the game had permanently moved to their living room.

  “Couldn’t you and your Dungeons & Dragons friends do something else together,” Eve had suggested. “Like, go somewhere where you could all meet girls?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lincoln said. “All the other guys are married.”

  Well, except for Troy. And even Lincoln could tell that Troy wasn’t the kind of guy you took to meet girls. Troy thought that everyone—really, everyone—wanted to talk about Babylon 5. He had a bushy yellow beard and metal-framed, math-teacher eyeglasses, and he liked to wear leather vests.

  Maybe Eve was right. Maybe Lincoln needed to branch out.

  He called Troy on Friday to tell him that he’d have to find another ride to this week’s D&D game. (Troy didn’t believe in owning a car.) And then Lincoln called Justin.

  Justin was exactly the kind of guy you took to meet girls.

  Lincoln and Justin had gone to high school together. They’d both played varsity golf and were chemistry lab partners, and when Lincoln transferred to Nebraska his sophomore year of college—or for what would have been his sophomore year—they’d ended up in the same dormitory.

  Justin immediately welcomed Lincoln into his pack of college friends. They used to hang out in each other’s rooms, playing Sega Genesis and ordering terrible pizza. Sometimes, they’d go to women’s gymnastics meets. Sometimes, somebody would score a case of beer.

  Justin’s friends probably weren’t the kind of guys Lincoln would have sought out on his own. But they accepted him without question, and he was grateful. He started wearing a baseball cap every day and got really good at “Sonic the Hedgehog.”

  The next year, the rest of the guys got an apartment together off campus. Lincoln stayed in the dorm because his scholarship covered it. He didn’t see them as much after that …He hadn’t talked to Justin for at least two years, which was also how long it had been since he’d been in a bar.

  “Legend of Linc! Dude. What is up, you evil-fucking-genius?”

  “You know, the usual.” Lincoln had called Justin at the hospital where he worked in marketing. Lincoln didn’t get why a hospital needed a marketing department; who did it market to, sick people?

  “Are you still in school?” Justin asked.

  “No, I graduated …again. I’m back in town, living with my mom, you know, for now.”

  “Hey, man, welcome home. Let’s get together. Let’s catch up. I’ll be honest with you, I could use the company. Are you married?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Good. I swear to God, every other fucker has flat-out deserted me. What am I supposed to do, go to the bars alone? Like some pervert? I’ve been partying with my little brother, and it’s no fucking good. He borrows money, and he always gets the girl. He still has hair, the little shit.”

  “That’s why I was calling, actually,” Lincoln said, relieved that Justin was already taking charge. “I work a lot of nights now, so it’s hard to get out, but I thought we could try to get together, maybe …”

  “Let’s do it, homeslice. Do you work tomorrow night?”

  “No. Tomorrow night’s great.”

  “I’ll pick you up at nine, is that cool? Is your mom still in the same place?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lincoln said, smiling into the phone. “Same place, same house. I’ll see you at nine.”

  JUSTIN PULLED UP in the biggest sport-utility vehicle Lincoln had ever seen. Bright yellow. Tinted windows. Justin leaned out the driver’s side and shouted, “Dude, come on, you’re riding shotgun.”

  There were three or four guys already sitting in the back. Lincoln thought he recognized Justin’s little brother. He looked like Justin, but a little taller, a little fresher. Justin himself hadn’t changed much since high school. A short guy with crinkly eyes and dirty-blond hair. Clean Polo shirt. No-nonsense jeans. An immaculate baseball cap. He used to have a contraption in his dorm room that would perfectly curve the bill of your cap.

  “Look at you,” Justin said, smiling. He could smile and talk without ever taking the cigarette out of his mouth. “Just fucking look at you.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Lincoln said, not quite loud enough to be heard over the car stereo. It was Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle.” Lincoln couldn’t see the speakers, but it felt like they were under him.

  “What?” Justin yelled, leaning out the window to exhale some smoke. He was always really nice about that. If you were sitting across from Justin at a table, he would always blow the smoke behind him.

  “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.”

  “You wish,” someone shouted from the backseat. There were three backseats. Justin held up his middle finger and kept talking.

  “Don’t mind these shitheads. I had to bring them, it’s my turn to be designated driver. They won’t kill our game, though, they hang in the kiddie section.”

  “No worries,” Lincoln said.

  “What?”

  “No worries!” Lincoln wasn’t worried. He didn’t have any game to kill.

  They drove into the suburbs and stopped at a strip mall, in front of a place called The Steel Guitar.

  “Isn’t this a country bar?” Lincoln asked.

  “It used to be, back when everybody was into line dancing. Now they only do that shit once a week. Thursdays, I think.”

  “What do they do the rest of the week?”

  “The usual. This is where the girls go, so this is where we go.”

  The place was already packed. There were people on the dance floor, and loud hip-hop music was playing—the ugliest kind of hip-hop, all thumping and shouting about luxury cars. Justin found a tall table near the dance floor and motioned to one of the waitresses, a woman wearing a bandolier full of shot glasses. There were bottles of alcohol clipped to her belt. It all looked really heavy. “Two Jägermeisters, miss,” Justin said. “Thank you.”

  He pushed a shot toward Lincoln and held his own in the air.

  “To you, Lincoln. The graduate!”

  Lincoln clinked his glass and managed to down the shot.

  “I thought you were the designated driver,” Lincoln said.

  “I am.” Justin lit a new cigarette.

  “I thought that meant you didn’t drink.”

  “No, that means you don’t get drunk. Or you get drunk early, so it can wear off …” Justin was already ordering two more shots and scoping out the bar.

  It was big, practically cavernous, and everything was painted black. There was a haze machine somewhere and black lights everywhere. An expensive-looking metal guitar sculpture hung in the dark above the dance floor.

  That’s where all the girls were. Mostly dancing by themselves or with friends. There was a bachelorette party in the middle, dancing in a circle. It was terrible music to dance to; all you could really do was nod and hunch to the music. The girls all looked like they were listening to the same sad story. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s awful. Yes, yes, yes.”

  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.

  Justin was watching them, too. “Nasty things,” he said, shaking his head. “When we were coming up, girls wouldn’t even dance with boys like that …

  “Look over there,” Justin said, pointing to a table by the door. “Those are our girls. Too much self-esteem to dry hump their best friends, but not so much that they’ll turn down a drink from us.”

  Justin was already walking, so Lincoln followed him. They stopped at a table where two women were sitting and nodding with the music. Lincoln couldn’t tell how old they were in this light. He could hardly tell them apart. They were both youngish, mostly blond, wearing the same Saturday-night costume—tank tops, candy-colored bra straps, shaggy shoulder-length hair and pale beige lips.

  “Hey there,” Justin was saying, “do you mind if we join you? My friend Lincoln here is buying.”

  The girls smiled and moved their black backpack purses out of the way. Lincoln sat in the seat Justin didn’t take and smiled at the nearest girl. Strangely, he wasn’t nervous. This place and this girl were so far outside his everyday life, they didn’t seem quite real. Definitely less real than the women he felt avoiding him on sidewalks and in hallways. Plus, he had Justin there taking the lead, breaking the ice and ordering the drinks. What was Justin’s thing with Jägermeister? And how many shots had Lincoln had so far? Two? Three? At least three.

  “I’m Lisa,” the girl said, holding out a small manicured hand.

  “Lincoln,” he said, smiling. “Can I get you something?”

  “Your friend just ordered for us.”

  “Oh, right, sorry, yeah …”

  “I’ll take a cigarette if you have one.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t smoke.”

  “That’s okay. Me neither. I mean, I do, but only when I’m at a bar or a party or whatever. I hate the smell. But if I’m going to smell like smoke anyway, I figure I might as well have one.”

  “My friend has cigarettes …” Lincoln turned to Justin, who was already leading his girl to the dance floor. Damn. Lincoln really didn’t want to dance.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lisa said.

  “Do you want to dance?” Lincoln asked.

  “Sort of. Do you?”

  “I really don’t. Is that okay?”

  “Totally,” she said. “You can’t talk out there anyway.”

  Now Lincoln was nervous. Justin had taken all the night’s momentum with him to the dance floor. “So,” he asked the girl, “what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a dental hygienist. What about you?”

  “Computers.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Computers,” she said, “that’s great.” Her eyes started to drift away from him. They finished their drinks, and Lincoln ordered another round, just to have something to do. He should have eaten dinner. It’s too bad this wasn’t still a country bar, didn’t country bars always have peanuts? Or was that only in the movies, to give the actors something to do with their hands …

  Lisa was tearing her coaster into tiny pieces and whisper-rapping along with the music. He thought about getting up, so that she’d have a chance to meet somebody else. She could definitely meet somebody else. She was pretty …probably. In this green and black light, she looked like a week-old bruise. Everyone did.

  “This is a terrible place to meet people,” Lincoln said.

  “What?” Lisa leaned forward.

  “This is a terrible place to meet people,” he said, louder.

  Lisa was sipping her drink through a tiny straw. She stopped, the straw still in her mouth, and looked at him like she was trying to decide whether to leave the table right then or to wait for her friend. It might be a long wait. Justin and the girl had moved off the dance floor into a corner. When the spotlight whipped around, Lincoln could see them kissing. Justin was still holding a lit cigarette and a bottle of beer.

  “Sorry,” Lincoln said. “I didn’t mean that you’re a terrible person to meet. I meant that this is a terrible place to meet anyone.” Lisa’s eyes were still narrow. “Do you like this place?” he asked her.

  “It’s okay.” She shrugged. “It’s like every other bar.”

  “Exactly. They’re all terrible.”

  “How much have you had to drink?” she asked. “Are you one of those sad drunks?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t get drunk that often. How can you help but be sad in here?”

  “I’m not sad,” she said.

  “Then you’re not paying attention.” He was shouting to be heard over the noise, but the shouting made his words come out angry. “I mean, look at this place. Listen to this music.”

  “Don’t you like rap? They do country on Thursdays.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head broadly. “It’s not the music,” he said. “It’s that, well, you came here to meet somebody, right? To meet a guy?”