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Lincoln stood against the tree a moment longer. He refused to turn his head, see Lucy staring back at him, them staring back, discussing—Is it him? No. It can't be. But Joseph, it's him. I would know. No, I would know.
Lucy knew it was him. She saw. Lincoln could almost hear it, the conversation they'd be having. The conversation they must be having. Any minute now, Joseph's voice would boom. He'd stride over like he owned the street. Owned the world. Owned Lincoln. Any—
Lincoln opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—and turned from the tree. The salsa studio's steps were bare. The sidewalk was bare. They'd gone inside like he didn't matter. Like he was nothing. No one.
He should be happy.
Lincoln turned to his own steps. Romper's head was cocked to the side. His eyes curious. The red bandanna around his bushy black neck flapped in the breeze.
Swallowing, Lincoln took the steps two at a time. Stupid. Pathetic. He almost laughed. He should laugh. If she'd seen, known, she would have said something. She wouldn't walk by. Couldn't walk by. She'd always been a person to want the last word and he hadn't let her have it.
He should have said something. Anything. Not stood there like a frightened child, back pressed against a tree just to stay standing.
He unlocked the door to his building and trudged up the old wooden steps to his apartment one at a time. If he didn’t, Sandy from unit 1a, hating the noise, would bang her broomstick or golf club or whatever she used against the ceiling the second he stepped through his door.
Inside, Lincoln dropped the books on a crate and rammed his fist into the wall. Hard enough to hurt, but not to break anything—flesh or plaster. He could only be so stupid in one night. He punched again, near the door frame this time so he could punch harder. Tingles of pain radiated through his arm. The broomstick banged. Lincoln cursed under his breath. Enough.
He'd wasted enough hours today. He scooped up the books and took them to the couch. He flipped through the first one. Diagrams. Diagrams. Lucy.
Lucy laughing. Crying. Yelling.
He pulled over a crate and kicked his legs up. Was this normal? The way his stomach twisted? The ball that felt like an actual presence within his gut?
He clenched his eyes shut—trying to force away the words and images that flew at him.
“I won't do it,” she had screamed. “I won't.” A bottle of coconut scented lotion soared across the room, aimed at his head.
“Calm down.” He'd held his hands out. Supplicating. Wearing the half smile he saved for the office war room. The smile he'd seen on Joseph since they were children. “Be reasonable, Sweetie.”
“Reasonable?” A tube of toothpaste this time.
Yes, reasonable. Practical. Logical. Lincoln had just started to make a name in the company, to earn respect that didn't come from his family name: all the things Lucy wanted, all that she had pushed him toward. “We're not ready. Not yet. Our lives aren't—”
A laugh. He hadn't known what it meant. Hadn't even guessed.
“Our lives?” She'd looked at him with disgust, like he was the pathetic one in the situation, like he was the one not capable of seeing the larger picture, and left.
Lincoln's stomach growled, bringing him back to the present. His library-lawn nap had meant no dinner. But he couldn't cook, not tonight. Not when, nowadays, cooking meant Kraft Dinner or Ravioli or cereal and toast. A glance out the window told him the rain had come. No matter. He'd get dry again eventually.
Lincoln slipped into his make-shift galoshes. He chuckled. What would Lucy think of these?
Romper came to the door expectant, tail wagging. Lincoln shook his head and the dog sidled away—snout hung down—then looked back, reproachful.
Outside puddles were forming. Lincoln walked in the opposite direction of the salsa studio. He had a good thirty minutes until class was over. Plenty of time to make it to Kut Korners Pizza and back—with time to spare.
When Lincoln pushed through the door, the kid with the shifty eyes and puffed out chest stood at the counter. “Usual?”
Lincoln nodded. He perched on the stool and swivelled back and forth as the kid rambled on his cell phone, as the rain came down in torrents.
Lincoln paid in cash, double knotted the plastic bag holding his dinner, and stepped into the onslaught. He guessed he'd sat in the shop ten to twelve minutes. Five to seven to get home, depending on the lights. He was cutting it tight.
A whooshing sound rose up. Lincoln turned to see a typhoon of muddy water coming straight at him. It ran into his eyes. It soaked through his shirt and pants. He should get angry. Yell at the driver, scream expletives, give him the finger. Do what any normal person would do.
Lincoln sighed. That lump, knot, whatever it was in his stomach, grew heavier. He walked on, skin sticky, clothes thick. Yet his feet were dry. He looked down at his favourite pair of loafers, the left one opening at the toes, flapping like a mouth, revealing the 'b' in the Sobeys grocery bag he'd stuffed inside it. What would Lucy say? He couldn't come up with an answer for that one. Lucy's Lincoln wouldn't have thought of such a thing. Grocery bags in his shoes. Ridiculous. But Lucy's Lincoln, new loafers or no, would have wet feet right now. A smile crept across his face. Life had its positives.
Lincoln continued down the busy street. In this city, if rain kept you inside you'd be a hermit. Some walked as casually as him, but these had umbrellas and rain boots to shield them. Others dashed past, holding a purse to block the rain or a jacket, raised up like a tent. Pointless. This rain flew in from the side as much as the sky. And wet was wet.
Wet was wet. Lucy had said that the first night they'd met—when she smiled across the room, when they left the party only to get caught in the rain.
“Just like a movie,” she'd said when he tried to shield her with his coat, when he suggested they hide under an awning. “And wet was wet.” She'd spun. Acting out her little movie, he later realized. Playing the role of carefree and excited. He'd kissed her, falling for the scene, the romance she created, and thought—Life would begin again. That's what the moment meant. His heart had been broken just weeks earlier, but with one laugh, one spin in the rain, one kiss, Lucy had put it back together. Life had begun.
No. No. No.
Lincoln clenched his teeth. Stupid. Pathetic. Broken. Think of something else. Something. Anything. Her. Not Lucy. The afro-haired woman. The Nubian goddess. Not Lucy with her silky blonde hair and bright blue eyes: bluer than the sky, bluer than the deepest lake. Those eyes—not now. Not tonight. Not when he'd come so far.
But the woman he'd started seeing everywhere. Graceful. Determined. Fast. He could think of her, of the first time he saw her. It had been a night like this, one block from here. The rain poured down. And she'd come running—thighs flexing, arms pumping. He'd heard her before he'd seen her: The thump of her black boots on the pavement. The steady puff of her breath. He'd turned as she'd flown past him. She didn't yell for the bus. Didn't wave her arms. She just ran. And the bus, which started to pull away from the stop, slowed. He imagined the smile on her face, the sigh of relief, and wished he'd seen it.
A moment later he'd seen her face, barely. Foxy Brown—the 'whole lot of woman' 70s action queen—had been his thought while he watched her retreating figure, but as he glimpsed her face through the flash of wipers against wet glass, the comparison didn't do her justice. Not even close.
Steps away from his apartment, Lincoln walked past Joseph's car. He hesitated, looked in the back. A gym bag and protein bar wrappers. So that hadn't changed.
Upstairs, he stood in the entry and peeled off his wet clothes. One by one he let the items fall. Positives. He could leave them there as long as he wanted. He wouldn't, but he could, and no one would say a word. His boxers were the last to go: now dingy Calvin Klein's Lucy once thought were so spiffy.
Better.
Untying the bag that held his dinner, Lincoln stepped to the window. The city shone. Each light representing how far society had come: a view disorganized yet perfectly planned. Stop lights, crosswalks, buildings made to withstand the wind—when winter came, the snow.
Lincoln took a bite of his calzone, luxuriating in the freedom to stand naked in a window with no one to tell him not to. The city twinkled. It didn't look real. More like a set, like the idea of what a city would be. Full of its systems, its rules lived by, that worked so well, until they didn't. That kept most people safe, most of the time. That prevented utter chaos.
Lincoln took another bite, the hot cheese and sweet pineapple a burst of goodness.
All anyone had to do was obey the rules. Stop at a red. Pay your taxes. Slow at a yellow. Register to vote. Yield when directed. Don't sleep with your brother's girlfriend. Green means go.
Follow the rules and you got to live thinking everything was okay, got to believe that those years in between could be filled, could mean something. Break them, and—
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Lincoln dropped his takeout dish. Pizza sauce and bits of bacon and pineapple splattered the wall. The ball in his gut plopped right back in place from wherever it had drifted away to. He stood frozen.