“But I’m not snooping around.”
“You could,” Greg said.
“I could?”
Greg went back to what he was doing, some sort of laptop autopsy. “Look, Lincoln, I’ve told you.
Somebody has to be here at night anyway. Somebody has to answer the phone and say, ‘Help desk.’ You’re just sitting around, I know. You don’t have enough work, I know. I don’t care. Do the crossword. Learn a foreign language. We had a gal who used to crochet …”
Lincoln didn’t crochet.
He read the newspaper. He brought in comic books and magazines and paperback novels. He called his sister sometimes, if it wasn’t too late and if he felt lonely.
Mostly, he surfed the Net.
From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Wed, 08/25/1999 10:33 AM
Subject: This is only a test. In the case of an actual emergency …
It’s here. Return to your usual programming.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> It?
<<Jennifer to Beth>> You know … it, the thing that tells you you’re not pregnant.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> 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?
<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m trying to be more careful. I don’t want to trigger one of those red flags and send some company watchdog computer into a frenzy, just because I sent an e-mail about it.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> I can’t imagine that any of the company’s red-flag words involve menstruation.
<<Jennifer to Beth>> So you’re not worried about it?
<<Beth to Jennifer>> About your period?
<<Jennifer to Beth>> No, about that note we got. The one that warned us not to send personal e- mails. The one that said we could be fired for improper use of our computers.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> Am I worried that the bad guys from Tron are reading our e-mail? Uh, no.
All this security stuff isn’t aimed at people like us. They’re trying to catch the pervs. The online porn addicts, the Internet blackjack players, the corporate spies …
<<Jennifer to Beth>> Those are probably all red-flag words. Pervs. Porn. Spies. I bet red flag is a red flag.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> I don’t care if they are reading our mail. Bring it on, Tron! I dare you. Try to take away my freedom of expression. I’m a journalist. A free-speech warrior. I serve in the Army of the First Amendment. I didn’t take this job for the bad money and the regressive health care coverage.
I’m here for the truth, the sunshine, the casting open of closed doors!
<<Jennifer to Beth>> Free-speech warrior. I see. What are you fighting for? The right to give Billy Madison five stars?
<<Beth to Jennifer>> Hey now. I wasn’t always a spoiled movie reviewer. Don’t forget my two years covering North Havenbrook. Two years in the trenches. I bled ink all over that suburb. I went Bob Woodward on its ass.
Furthermore, I would have given Billy Madison six stars if they were mine to give. You know how I feel about Adam Sandler—and that I give bonus stars for Styx songs. (Two stars if it’s “Renegade.”)
<<Jennifer to Beth>> Fine. I surrender. Company Internet policy be d@mned: I started my period last night.
<<Beth to Jennifer>> Say it loud, say it proud. Congratulations.
<<Jennifer to Beth>> Yeah, that’s the thing …
<<Beth to Jennifer>> What’s the thing?
<<Jennifer to Beth>> When it started, I didn’t feel my usual hurricane of relief and Zima cravings.
I mean, I was relieved—because, on top of the Zima drinking, I don’t think I’ve eaten anything with folic acid in the last six months. I may even be eating things that leach folic acid from your system, so I was definitely relieved—but I wasn’t ecstatic.
I went downstairs to tell Mitch. He was working on marching band diagrams, which, normally, I wouldn’t interrupt, but this was important. “Just FYI,” I said, “I started my period.”
And he set down his pencil and said, “Oh.” (Just like that. “Oh.”)
When I asked him why he said it that way, he said he thought that maybe I really was pregnant this time—and that that would have been nice. “You know I want kids,” he said.
“Right,” I said. “Someday.”
“Someday soon,” he said.
“Someday eventually. When we’re ready.”
And then he turned back to his diagrams. Not mad or impatient. Just sorrowful, which is much, much worse. So I said, “When we’re ready, right?” And he said …