Attach ments(93)

“Anything,” Eve said. There really wasn’t much else to move besides clothes and his computer.

He went home, to his mom’s house, for lunch every day of the next week. She sent him off with boxes full of cereal bowls and drinking glasses. A bookcase. A coffee table that just barely fit into his backseat. Hand-embroidered kitchen towels.

“All this stuff is so old,” Eve said, when she came to see his apartment. “It’s like somebody’s grandmother died, and you moved in.”

“I like it,” he said.

“I’m buying you something made of stainless steel,” she said, “something bachelor-y.”





From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Tues, 02/29/2000 3:48 PM

Subject: I told Derek about Chris …

And now the entire eastern third of the newsroom knows that I’m single. Melissa came over and patted my hand for, I swear, 20 minutes. She said she’s going to take me to this totally hot club —“wall-to-wall boys”—where you can get half-price appletinis after 10 o’clock on weeknights.

I told Derek that if I get cornered into drinking appletinis on a weeknight, I’m dragging his big mouth with me.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> What do you have against appletinis?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I just don’t understand why everything has to be a martini. I don’t like drinking out of martini glasses, you have to pucker your mouth all weird to keep from spilling.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> How are you ever going to meet another man if you’re not going to drink martinis?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I’m not, apparently. The last time I went on a first date, I wasn’t old enough to drink.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Are you even interested in dating yet?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I don’t know. In a way, I don’t really feel single. My life hasn’t changed substantially since Chris left, which shows, I guess, how little I’d been seeing him. I could almost go on pretending that I’m still in a serious relationship. Derek thinks I should take down all the photos of Chris in my cubicle. (Or in his words, “Jesus Christ, Beth, even I’m tired of looking at that asshole.”)

What do you think?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I think it’s up to you. Does it make you sad to look at them?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Yeah, it does. I should take them down.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Your Cute Guy is never going to ask you out if your cubicle is full of photos of another man.

Seriously …there’s nothing keeping you from making contact with YCG now.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I can’t have a real relationship with him. I’ve already been pretend-dating him for months. If we started dating, I’d have to eventually tell him about the time I followed him home from the movie theater. That doesn’t seem healthy.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> But he’s so nice.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Are you saying that because he gave you French fries?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m saying it because he seemed really, really nice.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I need to date a guy I haven’t already contaminated with a nickname.





EMILIE STOPPED INTO the IT office Thursday night between editions. She did that now, a few times a week, just to say hi. Well, not just to say hi, Lincoln knew she was interested in him. But he hadn’t decided yet what do with that knowledge.

He was interested in feeling the way he felt around Emilie. Like the brightest, shiniest thing in the room. Tall. And smart. And funny. When Emilie was around, he never fumbled his Christopher Walken impression. But he couldn’t see anything in her eyes past his own reflection. And now that Beth was back, he couldn’t make himself want to.

Emilie was twirling her ponytail around her fingers. “So, a few of us are going to do karaoke tomorrow night, there’s a cheesy bar in Bellevue, you should totally come, it’s going to be fun …”

“It sounds fun,” Lincoln said. “But I play Dungeons & Dragons on Saturday nights. Usually.” He’d missed some more games lately, he’d wanted to have the weekends to himself in his new apartment.

“It’s been a few weeks, so I really can’t miss tomorrow night.”

“Oh, you play Dungeons & Dragons?”

“Yeah … ,” he said.

“That’s cool … ,” she said.

That made Lincoln smile. Which made Emilie smile even wider. Which made him feel kind of guilty.

DAVE ANSWERED THE door Saturday night. He looked at Lincoln and frowned.

“Either you’re in the game or you’re not,” Dave said, after Christine had set Lincoln up with a plate of homemade tacos and a flagon (an actual flagon) of beer. “You can’t just drop in now and then.”