Attach ments(68)

The woman, the girl, smiled at Doris and nodded, then smiled at Lincoln. She had broad shoulders and a high, heavy chest. Lincoln’s throat tightened. He smiled back. She turned to the snack machine.

He’d never seen her before, had he? She leaned over to get something out of the machine. Pieces of hair were escaping in soft coils at the back of her neck. She walked briskly toward the door. She was wearing a fitted white shirt and strawberry pink corduroy trousers. Smallish waist. Widish hips. A soft curve at the small of her back. So pretty.

“Too bad that one’s got a boyfriend,” Doris said as the door closed behind the woman. “She’s a nice girl …and about your size, too. You wouldn’t have to break your back kissing her good night.”

Lincoln could feel his cheeks and neck turning red. Doris giggled.

“On that note,” he said, standing up, “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Thanks for the cake, kiddo,” she said.

Lincoln walked tentatively through the newsroom on his way back to the IT office.

Maybe it was her. The girl. Beth. Maybe. Maybe this was the night, his night, to talk to her. On the eve of the eve of the new millennium. She’d smiled at him. Well, she was probably smiling at Doris, but she’d looked at him while she was still smiling.

Maybe it was her. His her.

And maybe she’d be sitting at her desk tonight, and Lincoln would stop to say hello—the way men all over the world stop and say hello to women all the time. Wake up new, he told himself firmly, as the knot in his stomach tightened.

He didn’t get to Beth’s cubicle.

The girl from the break room was sitting at the city desk, next to the police scanner, talking on the phone. She was probably the new police reporter, Megan something; he’d seen her byline. Not Beth.

Still no Beth.

He let himself look at the girl for a moment or two, even though she wasn’t the one. She was so pretty, this girl. So more than pretty. He thought about her hair falling down from her bun. He thought about her smile.





From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Fri, 12/31/1999 4:05 PM

Subject: Yawn 2K

That’s my entry for the front-page headline contest, what do you think?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> D@rn it. That’s so much better than mine—Meh-llennium.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Are you kidding? “Meh-llennium” is excellent. Derek entered, “New Year?

Old hat,” which is worse than no headline at all.

Is it wrong to admit that I’m actually kind of disappointed that nothing terrible has happened yet?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> No, I know! It’s such a letdown. I feel like all the countries ahead of us are ruining the suspense.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> CNN should have “spoiler alert” on its crawl.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> It’s actually less exciting than a regular New Year’s Eve. I’m not even staying up for it.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I’ll stay up, I have to work. None of the special Y2K shifts have been canceled. Plus, I’m hoping to spend most of the night in the break room.

<< Jennifer to Beth>> The break room—does this have something to do with Your Cute Guy?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Uh …uh-huh.

Remember when I said that, if I ever ran into McG, I wouldn’t talk to him? Because that would make me a floozy or some such nonsense?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Vividly.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Yeah …I was wrong about that. If I were ever to run into him, I would definitely talk to him. I might even stand there, smiling my best come-hither smile and hoping he didn’t notice that I was sucking in my stomach.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Floozy. Did you follow him again?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Only to the break room.

I saw him walk out of an office on the first floor, the one with the extra card reader. He must work in security, after all. Which explains why he works nights. And why I’ve seen him in different departments. And his tremendous size. (It doesn’t actually explain his size, but his size explains why he would be hired to work security. I feel more secure just standing across the room from him.) I wonder why he doesn’t wear a uniform like the guards at the front desk. Do you think he’s a plainclothes officer? A detective? Like Serpico?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Wasn’t Serpico a drug dealer?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I think you’re thinking Scarface.

Anyway. I followed him to the break room, then I walked up and down the hall a dozen times, trying to decide if I should go in there and what I would do with myself if I did. And then I finally decided to throw caution to the wind.