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  Subject: This message was almost about Doritos.

  But I don’t think I have it in me. I don’t have it in me to be trivial.

  <> Hush your mouth, what could you possibly mean?

  <> These days, I’m using up all my energy on matters of life and death. Everything else feels like a waste of time. Last night, I watched 60 Minutes instead of Grease. I even listened to NPR this morning on the way to work.

  <> Wait, Grease was on? Damn.

  What do you usually listen to on the way to work?

  <> Flame 98, bringing today’s country hits straight to the heart of the heartland. I really like Kat and Mowzer in the morning. At least, I used to. Lately, I can’t stand listening to them—or any of the other morning shows. They’re all sound-and-fury, tale-told-by-an-idiot, signifying-nothing.

  <> That’s got to be the first time someone has almost quoted Shakespeare in reference to Kat and Mowzer.

  <> I feel like I don’t have time for anything trivial. Every night, when Mitch comes home, I drag him into excruciatingly deep conversations—usually about whether we should try to get pregnant again and what it means to be a parent and whether it really is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  <> I’ve been thinking a lot about that last thing myself.

  <> Are you holding up okay?

  <> Yeah. Mostly. I had a wobbly moment at the grocery store last night when I realized I was buying a single banana. There’s nothing sadder than buying bananas one at a time. It’s like announcing to the world that there isn’t a soul in the world who’ll be breaking bread with you anytime soon. I don’t even buy bread anymore. There’s no way I can get through an entire loaf of bread before it starts to mold. I can’t decide which is more dejecting: grocery shopping for one or sitting alone in a restaurant.

  <> You should come eat with us. Mitch always cooks something healthy and delicious. We had shrimp tempura last night.

  <> Plus, I hear the dinner conversation is scintillating.

  <> You’re welcome anytime. Truly, why don’t you come tonight?

  <> Only if you tell me the Dorito story right now.

  <> It isn’t much of a story: I went to get some M&M’S from the break room today, and ended up in line behind the publisher at the snack machine. I was sure he would choose a conservative and traditional snack—perhaps mixed nuts or a great American Hershey’s bar—but, no, he went right for the Salsa Verde Doritos.

  <> This is at odds with everything I thought I understood about our editorial policy.

  <> I know. How can someone who eats Salsa Verde Doritos so vehemently oppose gay marriage?

  <> And affirmative action.

  <> And traffic roundabouts.

  <> I can’t believe you thought that was trivial.

  <> So …do you have any interesting break room stories to report? Have you been cruising the beef jerky machine even when you’re not hungry?

  <> Uh, no. And since when do you advocate that sort of behavior?

  <> I told you. I’ve totally reversed my position on Your Cute Guy. You’re single now, and he’s the kind of guy who helps damsels in distress. Seize the day, I say. Carpe Cute Guy!

  <> It’s still too weird. And I’m not ready to date anybody. I’m not even ready to rebound. I’d feel like I was hitting on someone at my husband’s funeral.

  <> He wasn’t your husband, and nobody died.

  <> Still.

  CHAPTER 82

  THAT NIGHT, LYING in his new bed, staring at his new ceiling, Lincoln thought furiously. The same thoughts over and over again, until trying not to think them was like trying to get a song out of his head.

  Hi, I’m Lincoln. I’ve seen you in the break room …

  Hi, I’m Lincoln, Doris’s friend …

  Hi, have we met before? In the break room? I’m Doris’s friend …

  Hi, I’m Lincoln. I work downstairs in the information technology office …

  Hi, I work downstairs, in computer support, my name is Lincoln. Look, I know this might seem out of the blue, but would you like to have coffee sometime?

  Would you like to get dinner sometime?

  Would you like to join Doris and me in the break room? My mom cooks for us.

  Would you like to go out? For a drink? Or coffee? Or dinner?

  Before we go, there’s something I need to tell you.

  I think, before we go, I should confess something.

  I have secrets, Beth, secrets that I’ll never reveal, and you’re just going to have to be okay with that. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

  What if I told you that I have a secret, one secret, that you must never ask me to share with you? Because if you ask, I’ll have to tell you the truth. But if I tell you the truth, we’ll never be happy. It’s kind of a Beauty and the Beast/Rumpelstiltskin/Crane Wife thing …

  Hi, my name is Lincoln, I work downstairs. Would you like to get together sometime, maybe go out?

  LINCOLN HAD AN apartment-warming party that weekend. Eve had suggested it. “It’ll be like your coming-out party,” she said, “you know, your cotillion.”

  “Jesus,” Lincoln said, “don’t put either of those on the invitations.”

  His mom brought dinner—lasagna and stuffed artichokes and honey ricotta pie—as well as a complete set of silverware, world music CDs, and fresh flowers. She insisted on answering the door when it buzzed.

  “She’s acting like she owns the place,” Eve complained.

  Lincoln smiled. He was already eating an artichoke. So was Eve. “Isn’t it enough to know that she doesn’t?”

  Doris was the first unrelated guest to arrive. She brought a date, a retired pressman, and a pan of brownies, and she greeted Lincoln’s mother like they were old school chums. “Maureen! Look at you!”

  Chuck came. With his practically-not-estranged-anymore wife. Justin and Dena couldn’t come, they were going to Vegas for the weekend. But most of the D&D players came, and Dave and Christine brought their kids. (As well as their dice, you know, just in case.)

  Everyone said nice things about Lincoln’s apartment and even nicer things about his mom’s lasagna. After Doris and Chuck left, the party did in fact turn into a D&D session. Jake Jr. was mesmerized. He wanted to stay and learn how to play. Eve was horrified. “You’re too young,” she said, “and too socially adept.”

  “I’m buying him dice for his eleventh birthday,” Lincoln said.

  His mother stayed until almost midnight. She and Christine did the dishes together and had a two-hour conversation about natural childbirth and raw milk. They exchanged telephone numbers.

  “Your mother is so wise,” Christine said later. “There’s so much I can learn from her.”

  When the last guest left, Lincoln imagined what it would be like to have someone standing next to him at the door. He imagined Beth gathering up glasses in the living room, falling into the bed next to him.

  Hi, my name is Lincoln, we’ve almost met a few times in the break room. Look, I know this is kind of out of the blue, but would you like to go somewhere, sometime? And talk?

  CHAPTER 83

  LINCOLN GOT A haircut before work Monday night. The girl at Great Cuts asked him what style he wanted, and he told her that he wanted hair like Morrissey. He’d always wanted hair like Morrissey. She didn’t know who that was. “James Dean?” he asked.

  “Let me talk to my supervisor,” she said.

  Her supervisor was in her forties. She carried a hot pink comb with a handle as sharp as a dagger. “James Dean … ,” she said, tapping her chin with the comb. “A
re you sure you don’t want George Clooney?” He didn’t.

  “We’ll give it our best shot,” she said.

  Lincoln was embarrassingly pleased with the results. He bought something called styling wax and left a 75-percent tip. (Nine dollars.)

  He decided to go home and change before he went to work. He put on a short-sleeved white T-shirt and tried not to flex when he checked his reflection in the mirror. Is this what women felt like when they put on miniskirts?

  When he got to The Courier, he walked straight to the newsroom, straight to Beth’s desk. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do when he got there. He wasn’t thinking about that, because if he thought about it—if he thought any of this through—he wouldn’t do it. And he needed to do it. More than he needed to do anything, at this moment, on this day, in this lifetime, in this incarnation, on this Monday afternoon, Lincoln needed to talk to Beth.

  And he needed to be the one who started the conversation. He needed to stand at her desk, in daylight, with his shoulders back and his head up, and his hands—God, what would he do with his hands? Don’t think about it. Don’t think. For once in your godforsaken life, don’t think.

  Lincoln walked to Beth’s cubicle, not trying to pretend he was doing something else. Not sneaking. Not furtive. (Not that anyone was probably paying attention.)

  He walked right up to her cubicle.

  She wasn’t there.

  Lincoln hadn’t thought about what he would do if Beth wasn’t there. So he just stood at her cubicle. With his shoulders back and his head up and everything. He looked at her desk. He looked around. He thought about the last time he’d tried to talk to her, on New Year’s Eve, and how he’d run away. I’m not running away this time, he thought.

  The man in the next cubicle—“Derek Hastings,” his nameplate said—was on the phone, but watching Lincoln. After a few minutes, a conversation about the local zoo and panda bears, Derek hung up the phone.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  “Uh, no,” Lincoln said. “I need to talk to Beth, Beth Fremont.”

  “She’s not here,” Derek said.

  Lincoln nodded.

  “Can I give her a message?” Derek asked. “Is there something wrong with her computer?”

  So, he knows what I do, who I am, Lincoln thought. It’s not a secret.

  “No,” Lincoln said, standing his ground. Standing Beth’s ground.

  Derek eyed him suspiciously, and slowly unwrapped a Dum Dum sucker, the kind they give to kids in bank drive-throughs. Lincoln could handle the suspicion and the staring, but he couldn’t handle the Dum Dum.

  “I’ll come back,” he said, as much to himself as to Derek. I can’t make myself talk to her if she isn’t even here, he thought. This doesn’t count as running away.

  CHAPTER 84

  From: Beth Fremont

  To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

  Sent: Mon, 03/20/2000 12:22 PM

  Subject: Remember when I said it was too soon to date?

  Guess I was wrong. I have a date.

  <> With Your Cute Guy?

  <> With a cute guy, but not My Cute Guy. Remember last year, when I first wrote about the Indian Hills theater, and I told that cute pharmacy student I interviewed that I was engaged?

  Well, I ran into him last night at the big farewell gala.

  He came over to talk to me and said that he’d been reading my reviews since I interviewed him, and that my Titanic review had made him laugh out loud. And I said that Titanic had made me laugh out loud. And then we both laughed at how funny I am, and he asked if it would be a conflict of interest if he bought me a drink.

  I thought it probably would be, so I bought him a drink instead. And we ended up sitting next to each other during the showing of the Indian Hill’s very last movie, How the West Was Won, one of the last films ever made in Cinerama.

  How the West Was Won is 162 minutes long, almost three hours, plus there was an intermission. I see so many movies by myself, I’d forgotten what it’s like to sit next to a guy in the theater, a guy who keeps looking up at you every few minutes, just as you’re looking up at him. I’d forgotten about the shoulder touching and the whispering and the leaning in.

  Sean—that’s right, he has a name, a real name, there will be no “Hot Protester Guy” or “Little Red-Haired Pharmacy Student”—and I stayed in our seats during the intermission, and talked about how we like Henry Fonda better than John Wayne, and Karl Malden best of all.

  And when the movie was over, we sat all the way through the credits, then lingered in the lobby. And finally, he said, “I suppose you’re probably still engaged.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m not.” (Some might say I never was.)

  He made a really adorable surprised face, like that answer had taken him totally off his game. “Oh …I’m sorry, I guess?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t be.”

  And then he said that he had expected to feel miserable and defeated all night, but that instead he felt like he’d just been on “the nicest first date” of his life.

  And then he asked if we could see each other again.

  <> And you said?

  <> I said yes!

  But I told him we couldn’t have our first official date until I was done covering the Indian Hills stuff. Conflict of interest, etc. He promised there wouldn’t be any more lawsuits or protests or appeals to the Planning Board. “I am suddenly very happy to say that we are out of options,” he said. “The preservation effort is utterly and absolutely over.”

  I told him my last story would be about the demolition.

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  And then he laughed, which made what he was about to say seem happy and nice instead of cheesy and stupid. “It’s a date.”

  So there—I have a date!

  <> Congratulations! You’re happy about this, right?

  <> I really am. I know it’s soon. But, so far, I really like this guy, and he really likes me. (Really, really—I could tell.) If I said no, who knows when the next nice-guy-who-likes-me will come along? Maybe never.

  Plus, as nice as he was and as cute as he is and as much as I was enjoying myself, I didn’t feel like he was casting a voodoo love spell on me (i.e. Chris).

  He might even be the anti-Chris. A pharmacy student? A community activist? A guy who owns a navy blue suit? And he’s at least six inches shorter.

  <> Well, I did advise you to carpe cute guy. I guess you had my endorsement. When are they tearing the theater down?

  <> Saturday. Those sick people need somewhere to park.

  <> So, technically, you are going on a date with this guy before you write your last Indian Hills story. You better not try to quote him; that wouldn’t be ethical.

  <> Imagine that quote:

  “Do you kiss on the first date?” one protester asked.

  “Are Trix for kids?” this reporter responded.

  CHAPTER 85

  LINCOLN DELETED THE messages. Then he dug deep into the WebFence hard drive and started scrubbing. Slashing and burning through every layer of memory, pouring bleach on every remnant of information.

  When he was done, no one would be able to go back and see who WebFence had flagged and how many times and for what reason. He scrubbed his own hard drive, too, cleared his practically nonexistent e-mail history. He wiped the machine clean and reinstalled all the programs.

  Then he cleaned out his desk—well, the drawer that Kristi had allotted him. There wasn’t much in there. Gum. Microwave popcorn. A few CDs.

  By the time he was done, it was after ten, too late to call Greg. He’d talk to Greg tomorrow. He found Doris in the break room, playing solitaire and eating bright red pistachios.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey, honey. Hey, look at
you. I like your haircut. You know, we used to call that a D.A., ’cause it looks just like a duck’s ass.”

  He tried to run his hand through his hair, to press it down, but his fingers got caught in the styling wax.

  “Have you eaten yet?” She pushed the pistachios toward him.

  “No, I guess I forgot. Look, Doris, I came down to tell you that …I think I’m going to quit tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Lincoln said, and nothing was ever going to happen. “I just really hate this job.”

  “You do?” She looked surprised. Hadn’t he ever complained to Doris about work?

  “Yeah,” he said. “I hate it. I hate the hours. I hate reading everybody’s e-mail.”

  “Why do you read everybody’s e-mail?”

  “That’s my job,” he said. “And I hate it. I hate sitting in that office by myself. I hate being up all night. I don’t even like this newspaper. I disagree with the editorials, and they don’t run any of my favorite comics.”

  “You don’t like Blondie?” she asked. “And Fox Trot?”

  “Fox Trot’s okay,” he said.

  “You’re really quitting?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yes.”

  “Well …good for you. No sense staying someplace after you realize you don’t want to be there. Good for you. And good for me that you stayed this long. Do you have another job?”

  “Not yet. I’ll find one. I have enough in savings that I don’t have to find one right away.”

  “We should celebrate,” Doris said.

  “We should?”

  “Sure. We should have a going-away party.”

  “When?”

  “Right now,” she said. “We’ll order a pizza, and we’ll play pinochle until it’s time to clock out.”

  He wouldn’t have thought he’d feel like celebrating, but he did. Enough is enough, he thought. Enough is enough is enough. They ordered pizza from Pizza Hut—one medium Meat Lover’s Pan Pizza each. And Doris won six rounds of pinochle. When it was time to go home, she got a little choked up.