Page 12 of Are You Happy Now?

Afterward, Amy lies with her head on his chest. Lincoln feels too drained to breathe. Can you be so limp and exhausted that you just stop respiring, smothered by contentment?

Amy turns, arches her back to look up at him. Lincoln kisses her on the forehead.

“Are you happy now?” she asks.

SUMMER/FALL:

The Evinrude Doctrine

7

IT’S AFTER THREE in the morning when Lincoln pecks Amy softly on her shoulder while she sleeps, then slips out of her apartment. The sidewalks are empty, and under the pressing light of the streetlamps, the storefronts take on a muted, Hopperish aspect—but without the melancholy, Lincoln thinks. In fact, Lincoln feels so buoyant that he briefly considers hiking over to his concrete rock on the lakefront to watch the sun come up. But he’s expecting a busy day at work, and he should try to get a few hours of sleep. So he walks slowly home, his exuberance gradually giving way to...well, not to guilt itself, more like the anticipation of guilt. Actually, he doesn’t know quite how to feel or how he will feel.

Later that morning at Pistakee, Lincoln applies himself diligently to rereading Bill Lemke’s Wrigley Field manuscript, erasing or scratching out edits that aren’t absolutely necessary, marking with a gentle little star suggestions that he hopes the author will continue to honor. But Lincoln really only has one object in mind today: talk to Amy. Tell her that last night was delightful, but it must not happen again, and it must remain their secret. There are so many reasons why. He still loves Mary. At least, he presumes he still loves her. He presumes that the brew of affection, regret, sympathy, memories, concern, interest, and, yes, lust he feels for his wife still combusts into love, even if their marriage is dormant for the moment.

But there are other, more practical, reasons why he and Amy must maintain a professional distance. Duddleston would fire him if he found out. In the sober daylight, Lincoln has no doubt. Duddleston is a Presbyterian family man, a Democrat, who nonetheless still grumbles about Clinton canoodling with Monica Lewinsky. In an era fraught with sexual harassment issues, you don’t jeopardize the country’s business (or a thrifty little publishing company) for a quick spot of animal pleasure. Besides, Lincoln reasons, he and Amy are onto a promising project. If they hope to haul the sex book through the writing and revision process, they must be clinical, objective. They can’t get muddled by an emotional entanglement.

Amy will agree, Lincoln is certain. But she has disappeared. She’s nowhere around the office, and he doesn’t have her cell phone number. Several times Lincoln diverts past her cubicle on the way to the bathroom. The third time catches the attention of Duddleston’s secretary, Mrs. Macintosh. “Something wrong, John?” she asks.

“No.” She’s noticed him frowning at Amy’s empty desk.

“You look troubled,” says the old lady.

“Just wandering the halls to exercise my imagination,” Lincoln tells her. He doesn’t want to risk asking where Amy is.

Mrs. Macintosh considers him suspiciously from beneath a tower of intricately curled white hair. Lincoln hurries away.

What if Amy’s been so traumatized by their encounter that she’s had a breakdown and even now is at home—unwashed, undressed, sobbing uncontrollably? Or what if she’s one of those desperate, clinging women like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and she’s skipped work to plot her assault on his family, such as it is? What has he got himself into?

At around eleven, Lincoln gets a call from the office receptionist, Kim, a chunky blonde recently arrived from Iowa. “John, there’s a policeman on the line who wants to talk to you.”

“A policeman?” Lincoln’s weary body immediately comes to attention. “What’s he want?”

“I don’t know.” Kim sounds annoyed. “He says he wants to talk to you.”

“Put him through.” Lincoln’s mind rushes through the terrible possibilities. Amy’s dead. She flung herself out her window in humiliation at her lost honor. Or she’s been murdered. Her boyfriend beat a confession out of her and then finished her off.

“John Lincoln?” says a deep voice with inflections of the South Side.

“Yes.”

“This is Sergeant Evinrude of the Twenty-Third District. I wonder if you’d mind stopping by in the next few days?”

“What’s this about?” Lincoln asks abruptly.

“Someone has filed a battery claim against you.”

“What?” Lincoln is not prepared for this—he’s still recovering from last night.

“A battery. They say you hit someone.”

“That’s impossible. There must be some mistake.”

“Were you riding the Brown Line at about six fifteen last Tuesday evening?”

Lincoln’s body rebels. Head, heart, stomach, arm. “There was a riot on the train that night,” he squeaks through his tightened throat. “The Tribune had a story about it.”

“Look, anyone can file a complaint. It’s my job to investigate it. Can you stop by? We’re on Addison, just east of Wrigley Field.”

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