Attachments(11)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

“I think,” Lincoln said, “if we started an Axis and Allies game right now, I’d fall asleep before Russia was done buying tanks.”

“Is that a yes?” Dave asked.

“That’s a no,” Christine said. “You should sleep here, Lincoln. You look too tired to drive.”

“Yeah, stay,” Dave said, “we’ll make blueberry pancakes for breakfast.”

Lincoln stayed. He slept on the couch, and when he woke up, he helped Christine make pancakes and argued with Dave about the plot of a fantasy novel they’d both read. After breakfast, they made him promise to come to next week’s game.

“We still have to catch up,” Christine said.

“Yeah,” Dave said. “You still haven’t told us about your job.”

IT WAS SUCH a good weekend that Lincoln still felt cheerful and un-lonely when he got to work Monday night. He was feeling practically sunny when his sister called.

“Have you read any more of that parachute book?” she asked.

“No. It’s too intimidating.”

“What is?”

“The book,” he said. “The future.”

“So you’re done with the future?”

“I’m tightening my focus.”

“To what?”

“The near future,” he said. “I can handle the near future. Tonight, for example, I’m going to read for pleasure. Tomorrow, I’m going to have a beer with lunch. On Saturday, I’m going to play Dungeons & Dragons. And Sunday, I might go see a movie. That’s my plan.”

“That isn’t a plan,” she said.

“It is. It’s my plan. And I feel really good about it.”

“Those aren’t things you plan. You don’t plan to read or to have a beer with lunch. Those are things you do when you have a moment between planned events. Those are incidentals.”

“Not for me,” he said. “That’s my plan.”

“You’re backsliding.”

“Or maybe I’m frontsliding.”

“I can’t talk to you anymore,” Eve said. “Call me this weekend.”

“I’ll pencil you in.”

ALL THE Y2K stuff was keeping Lincoln busier at work—he was helping with the coding and trying to keep track of Greg’s strike force—but he still had hours of free time every night. On Friday night, when he told himself how lucky he was to get paid to reread Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, he mostly believed it.

Money and time, those were the two things that he always heard people complaining about, and he had plenty of both.

There wasn’t anything Lincoln wanted that he couldn’t afford. What did he really want, anyway? To buy new books when they came out in hardback. To not have to think about how much money was in his wallet when he was ordering dinner. Maybe new sneakers …And there wasn’t anything he wanted to do that he couldn’t make time for. 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?

That night, Lincoln got an e-mail from Dave saying that Saturday’s D&D game was off. One of their kids had rotavirus, which Lincoln had never even heard of. It sounded awful. He pictured a virus with rotating blades and an engine. Dave said there’d been lots of vomiting, that they’d had to go to the emergency room, and Christine was scared to death.

“We’ll probably be on hiatus for the next couple weekends,” Dave had written.

“No problem,” Lincoln messaged back. “I hope he feels better. Get some rest.”

Poor kid. Poor Christine.

This isn’t a big deal, Lincoln told himself. The plan is flexible. He could still go see a movie this weekend. He could pick up his comics. He could call Justin.

There were twenty-three red-flagged messages in the WebFence folder. There might even be something in there that Lincoln should take care of. He opened it, telling himself that he may as well earn an hour of his paycheck tonight.

He opened it, hoping.

CHAPTER 21

From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Thurs, 09/30/1999 3:42 PM

Subject: If you were Superman …

…and you could choose any alter ego you wanted, why the hell would you choose to spend your Clark Kent hours—which already suck because you have to wear glasses and you can’t fly—at a newspaper?

Why not pose as a wealthy playboy like Batman? Or the leader of a small but important nation like Black Panther?

Why would you choose to spend your days on deadline, making crap money, dealing with terminally crabby editors?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I thought we agreed not to swear in e-mails.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> We agreed that it would probably be a good idea to stop swearing in e-mails.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Still thinking about Lois Lane?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Sort of. I mean, I get why Lois Lane went to journalism school. I know her type. Wants to make a difference, wants to uncover great truths. Nosy. But Clark Kent …why not Clark Kent, sexy TV weatherman? Or Clark Kent, mayor of Cincinnati?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Aren’t you missing the point? Clark Kent doesn’t want to be famous. He doesn’t want people to look at him. If they really look at him, they’d see that he’s just Superman with glasses.

Plus, he needs to be someplace like a newsroom, where he’s the first to hear big news. He can’t afford to read “Joker attacks moon” the next day in the newspaper.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> You make an excellent point. Especially for someone who doesn’t know that Superman never fights the Joker.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Especially for someone who doesn’t care. I hope you’re not right about life sucking for everyone who can’t fly and wears glasses. That describes everyone in this room.

What are you working on?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> We do all wear glasses. Weird.

Another Indian Hills story. I’m not so much working as I am waiting for a phone call.

It turns out, the hospital next door to the theater already bought the land. Months ago. They’re going to make it a parking lot. I’m waiting for the hospital spokesperson to call me back so that she can say, “No comment.” And then I can write, “Hospital officials would not comment on the sale.” And then I can go home.

Do you know how mind-numbing it is to sit around waiting for someone to call you back so that they can officially tell you nothing? I just don’t think Superman would stand for it. He could be out finding lost Boy Scouts and plugging volcanoes with giant boulders.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Superman works at a newspaper because he’s trying to get with Lois Lane.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> He probably makes twice as much as she does.

CHAPTER 22

ON FRIDAY MORNING , Lincoln picked up a spring schedule from the city college. There was a professor in the anthropology department who specialized in Afghan studies. Why not take a few classes? He had plenty of time during the day, and he could always study at work. He’d love to study at work.

“What is this?” his mother asked when she saw the class schedule.

“Something that I thought I’d put in my backpack.” He took the brochure from her hands.

“Seriously, Mom, what are you doing in my bag? Are you steaming open my mail, too?”

“You don’t get any mail.” She folded her arms. You could never be offended or dismayed with her —she always beat you to it. “I was checking your bag for dirty dishes,” she said. “Do those papers mean that you’re going back to school?”

“Not immediately.” The fall semester had already started.

“I don’t know how I feel about that, Lincoln. I’m starting to think you might have a problem. With school.”

“I’ve never had a problem with school,” he said, knowing how lame that sounded, knowing that refusing to take part in the conversation wasn’t the same as avoiding it.

“You know what I mean,” she said. She wagged a dirty spoon at him. “A problem. Like those women who get addicted to plastic surgery. They keep going back and going back, trying to look better until there is no more better. Like they can’t look better because they don’t even look like themselves anymore. And then it’s just about looking different, I think. I saw this woman in a magazine who looked just like a cat. Like a cat of prey, a big cat. Have you ever seen her? She has a lot of money. I think she might be from Austria.”

“No,” he said.

“Well, she looks very unhappy.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, shoving the schedule back into his backpack.

“Okay?”

“You don’t want me to go back to school, or have plastic surgery to make myself look like a cat.

Okay, I get it. So noted.”

“And you don’t want me to open your backpack …”

“I really don’t.”

“Fine,” she said, walking back to the kitchen. “So noted.”

THE COURIER HAD begun holding weekly Millennium Preparedness meetings. All the department heads had to attend, including Greg, who was expected to give a readiness report at each one. He usually came back from these meetings looking red-faced and hypertensive.

“I don’t know what they expect of me, Lincoln. I’m one man. The publisher thinks I should have seen this Y2K thing coming. Last week, he yelled at me for sending all our old Selectrics to churches in El Salvador. Even though the board gave me a plaque for that three years ago. It’s hanging in my den …I think I just talked them into buying backup generators.”

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.”

<<Beth to Jennifer>>

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. (!!!!)

<<Jennifer to Beth>> 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.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> 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.

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

<<Beth to Jennifer>>

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.

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

<<Beth to Jennifer>> 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.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> 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?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> 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.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Ew. Is that a euphemism for [email protected]?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> No. I think it’s @ euphemism for [email protected] the electric [email protected]. Or @n idiom.

I don’t know. Do you really think “masturb**ion” is one of Tron’s red-flag words?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> 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.