Attach ments(67)

“Are you sure that Doris understands your intentions?”

“Yes.” Now his forehead was in his hands.

“You always were too generous,” she said, resting her hand on his head. “Remember when you dropped your action figures in the Salvation Army kettle?” He remembered. Snaggletooth and Luke Skywalker, X-Wing pilot. It had been an impulse. He’d ended up crying himself to sleep that night when he understood the repercussions.

She pushed his hair to the side, off his forehead, and held it for a moment.

“Do you feel like waffles?” she asked abruptly, standing up. “I’ve already made the batter. Oh, and don’t eat the rest of the lamb. I told Doris you’d bring her a chop …”

“Is that why she called?” he asked. “To thank you?”

“Oh no,” his mother said, talking more loudly as she walked into the kitchen, “she called for you.

She’s moving—did you know she’s moving? She said the movers showed up for her furniture and they were throwing things around like the Samsonite gorilla. She didn’t trust them with her grandmother’s curio cabinet, and I don’t blame her. I offered to send you right over—you’ve got a strong, young back —but she said it could wait a few days. What do you think, whipped cream on waffles or maple syrup?

Or both? We’ve got both.”





“Both,” Lincoln said. He followed her into the kitchen, smiling, but dizzy. Even when he and his mother were on the same page, Lincoln felt like he was just keeping up.





EVERYONE IN IT stayed late that week, even the people who weren’t directly helping with the code patch. Greg was racked with anxiety. He was sure that the Y2K kids were grifting him. He told Lincoln that his doctor had written him a prescription for Paxil. Lincoln kept watching the International Strike Force for signs of fear or evasion. But they just sat in the corner, staring at screens full of code, calmly punching keys and drinking Mountain Dew.

With all the company, and all the work, Lincoln didn’t have a chance to obsess over the WebFence folder or hang around the newsroom. He didn’t even take a real dinner break until Thursday. (T-minus twenty-seven hours.) Doris was thrilled to see him, and even more thrilled to see that he’d brought chocolate cake.

“Your mother told you about my cabinet, right? You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Lincoln said, unwrapping the cake. “Just tell me when.”

“That’s just what your mom said. Boy, is she a character. A real dynamo, I could tell, on top of being a good cook. I’ll bet she’s pretty, too. Why didn’t she ever get remarried?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

He couldn’t imagine his mother married, even though he knew that she had been, briefly, to Eve’s dad. He’d seen a photo of her at the wedding, wearing a white lace minidress and her hair in a blond bubble. Lincoln couldn’t even imagine his mother going out on a date. Eve said it was different before he was born. She remembered men and parties and strangers at breakfast …

“I couldn’t think about dating for the first few years after my Paul died,” Doris said. “But then I realized that I could live another forty years. That’s longer than Paul and I were together. I don’t think he’d want me moping around for forty years. I know he wouldn’t.”

“So you started dating?”

“Sure I did,” Doris said. “I have a couple of gentlemen I see on a regular basis. Nothing serious yet, but you never know.”

Lincoln was starting to wonder if he was having dinner with Doris just to be nice, or if it was the other way around.

“My mom said to tell you not to worry about your blood pressure,” he said, handing Doris a plastic fork. “She made this with olive oil.”

“Olive oil in a cake?” Doris said. “Is it green?”

“It’s good,” Lincoln said. “I’ve already had three pieces.”

Doris took a big bite. “Oh my,” she said with a mouth full of crumbs, “that is good. So moist. And the frosting—do you think she uses olive oil in that, too?”

“I think the frosting’s made with butter,” he said.

“Oh, well.”

A woman walked into the break room and stepped up to the snack machine behind them. She was young, Lincoln’s age, and tall. Her hair was pulled up into a thick dark bun, and she had a sweep of freckles across her face. Pretty …

“Hi, Doris,” she said.

“Hey there, honey,” Doris said, “working late?”