Attachments (11 page)

CHAPTER 27

“
HAVE YOU BEEN
up to the newsroom before?” Greg asked Lincoln when he got to work Monday afternoon.

“No.” How did Greg know? What did Greg know? No, wait, nothing. There was nothing to know. “I’m sorry,” Lincoln said, “what?”

“What? The newsroom,” Greg said. “You’ve been up to the newsroom before, right?”

“Right,” Lincoln said.

“Right, anyway. So you know where the copy editors sit?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I need you to install these new towers at a few stations.” Greg pointed to a stack of computer boxes and handed Lincoln a piece of paper.

“Now?”

“Yeah. They know you’re coming. They’ve moved their people to different desks.”

Lincoln loaded the boxes onto a cart and took the elevator to the newsroom. The place was hardly recognizable at four o’clock, in daylight. There were people everywhere, all typing or talking or moving around. You wouldn’t think that writing and editing would make so much noise. Telephones ringing, televisions buzzing, babies crying …

Babies? There was a crowd of people at one end of the copy desk, all fussing over a stroller. A small boy was sitting on someone’s desk, playing with a stapler.

Lincoln started disconnecting cables, untangling wires, and trying not to look too closely at any of them. Jennifer must sit over here with the other day copy editors. She might still be here. This might even be her desk. No, not unless she was obsessed with Kansas basketball. What did he know about her? That she was married. Would she look married? That she thought she was fat …That could be any of them. Beth could be here, too. Walking around. Talking to an editor. Cooing over that baby.

No,
he told himself,
don’t look
.

It took about three hours to install the new computers. The newsroom turned into its nighttime self while Lincoln worked. It got quieter and darker. The people wearing ties gave way to people wearing wrinkled T-shirts and shorts. One of the nighttime editors, a girl with a limp blond ponytail and nice blue eyes, brought in banana bread and offered him a piece.

He thanked her, then headed up to the empty IT office without looking back.

CHAPTER 28

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Mon, 10/18/1999 4:08 PM
Subject: This isn’t a day care, you know.

It’s a newsroom.

<>
What are you getting at—that I shouldn’t be taking a nap? Or that I shouldn’t be using a sippy cup? Because it’s all part of my method.

<>
What I’m getting at is, I shouldn’t have to listen to babbling and cooing when I’m trying to edit Dear Abby.

<>
Why do you have to edit Dear Abby? Doesn’t all that stuff come in a package from the wire service?

<>
Someone has to write the headline. Someone has to give it a good once-over, make sure there aren’t words or entire paragraphs missing. Content doesn’t magically appear in the newspaper. Hence, the roomful of editors.

<>
Editors, huh? By golly …you’re right. They’re
everywhere
. What is this place? Heaven?

<>
Ha.

<>
You’re supposed to say, “It’s Iowa.”

<>
Maybe next time.

Why do people with children bring them to work? This isn’t a place for children. There are no toys here. There are no changing stations. The drinking fountains are all set at adult heights.

This is a
workplace
. People come here to get away from their kids—to get away from all talk of kids. If we wanted to work with children, we would get jobs at primary schools and puppet shows. We would walk around with peppermint sticks in our pockets.

This is a newsroom. Do you see any peppermint sticks?

<>
You alliterate when you’re angry. It’s adorable.

<>
You are a barrel of laughs today, an entire barrel.

<>
Speaking of adorable, I saw my cute guy again last week.

<>
Are you sure? I didn’t hear the alarm. Also, when did he become
your
cute guy?

<>
No one else has claimed him. He definitely works in Advertising. I saw him sitting back there.

<>
What were you doing in Advertising? That’s on the other side of the building.

<>
I was trolling for cute guys. (Also, Advertising has the only pop machine in the building that sells root beer.) He was sitting at his cute desk, typing on his cute computer, looking super-super cute.

<>
Advertising, huh? I’m pretty sure they make more than us over there.

<>
They might just
look
like they make more.

And he doesn’t necessarily look like he sells advertising. He’s not one of those guys with the suits and the
Glengarry Glen Ross
smiles. He doesn’t look like he wears product in his hair.

<>
I want to see him. Maybe we should take a root-beer break.

<>
How can someone who hates children enjoy root beer?

CHAPTER 29

BETH HAD BEEN
there. At her desk. In the same room with him, at the same time. Thinking about somebody else. About somebody who worked in Advertising, no less. Lincoln hated the guys who worked in Advertising. Whenever WebFence caught a dirty joke, it inevitably originated from a guy in Advertising. Salespeople. Lincoln hated salespeople. Except Justin. And, honestly, if he didn’t know Justin, he’d probably hate him, too.

One time, he’d had to rebuild a hard drive up in Advertising; it’d taken a few hours, and the next day, when Lincoln went to put on his sweatshirt, it still smelled like Drakkar Noir.
No wonder my mom thinks I’m gay.

Jealous, he thought, as he walked by Beth’s desk that night—coffee cups, Halloween candy, Discman—
I’m jealous.
And not even of the boyfriend. He felt so far from being in the same league as Chris, that he couldn’t be jealous of him. But some guy who works in Advertising, some guy who tries to upsell, who makes cold calls …

Lincoln picked up a miniature Mr. Goodbar and unwrapped it. Beth had been sitting right here while he was working on the copy desk. He might have been able to see her if he’d looked.

CHAPTER 30

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Tues, 10/26/1999 9:45 AM
Subject: I think I’m pregnant.

I’m serious this time.

<>
Have you been exposed to radiation? Eating a lot of tuna? Shooting heroin?

<>
No, honestly, this isn’t a paranoid thing. I think I’m pregnant.

<>
Because your period is three minutes late. Because you’ve had to pee twice in the last hour. Because you feel a
presence
in your womb.

<>
Because I had unprotected sex while I was ovulating.

<>
Is this a joke? Am I on
Candid Camera
? Who are you really, and what have you done with my friend?

The Jennifer Scribner-Snyder I know and love would never publicly admit to having had any sex at all, and certainly wouldn’t sully her fingertips by typing it out like that.

She also would never start a sentence with “because.” Where’s my prudish little friend? What have you done with her?

<>
I don’t have time to mince words.

<>
Why not? How pregnant are you?

<>
Four days.

<>
That’s a little specific. (Almost grossly specific.) How could you possibly know already? And how do you know you were ovulating? Are you one of those women who can feel their eggs moving around?

<>
I know I was ovulating because I bought a fertility monitor.

<>
Just assume that my response to your next 12 statements is, “Say what?”

<>
I thought that if I knew when I was ovulating, I could avoid intimate contact at those times (which, honestly, hasn’t been much of an issue lately).

So, four days ago, I knew I was ovulating. On that day, I hardly talked to Mitch. He left for school while I was still asleep. When I came home from work, he was upstairs, practicing the tuba. I could have gone up to tell him I was home, but I didn’t. I could have yelled up to see if he wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, but I didn’t.

When he came up to bed, I was already there, watching a
Frasier
rerun. I watched him get ready for bed, and he didn’t say a word to me. It wasn’t like he was mad; it was more like I was a piece of debris in the middle of the road that he was driving around.

I thought to myself, “My marriage is the most important thing in my life. I would rather have a happy marriage than anything—a good job, a nice house, opposable thumbs, the right to vote,
anything
. If not wanting a baby is destroying my marriage, I’ll have a baby. I’ll have 10 babies. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

<>
What did Mitch think?

<>
I don’t know. I didn’t tell him about the ovulating part. He was surprised by the unprotected part. I don’t know.

<>
Okay, so you might be pregnant. But you might not.

<>
You mean, I might be infertile.

<>
No, I mean, you might have at least another month to think about whether you really want to get pregnant. Most couples have to try more than once. You might not have sealed your fate four days ago.

<>
I hope I did. I just want to get this over with.

<>
Write that down, so you’ll remember to put it in the baby book.

How long before you know for sure?

<>
Not long. They have those super-sensitive pregnancy tests that can tell whether you’re even thinking about getting pregnant.

<>
So, are we rooting for a positive or a negative result, here?

<>
Just root for me.

<>
I always do.

CHAPTER 31

“
I HAVEN’T HEARD
you complain about work for a while,” Eve said. “Are you liking it better?”

She’d brought her boys over for Sunday brunch after church. Lincoln’s mother had made potato casserole with eggs, turkey, tomatoes, mushrooms, dandelion greens, and three kinds of cheese.

“Work is fine,” Lincoln said, taking a bite.

“You’re not bored?” Eve asked.

“I guess I’m getting used to it,” he said, covering his mouth.

“Are you still looking for something with better hours?”

He shrugged. “These hours will be great if I decide to go back to school.”

Eve frowned. She was especially edgy this afternoon. When she’d walked into the house, their mother had asked the boys if they’d had a good conversation with their higher power.

“Jesus,” Eve had said. “We call him Jesus.”

“That’s one of the names he answers to,” her mother had said.

“So,” Eve said to Lincoln now, stabbing a mushroom, “you must have enough money saved to get a place closer to campus.”

“It’s not a bad drive from here,” he said evenly.

Their mother started giving everyone a second helping of casserole. He could see she was torn. On the one hand, she still didn’t like him going back to school, on the other, she hated when Eve bullied him.

“Why are they doing that?” his mother said, frowning at her grandsons. The boys were sorting the casserole into piles on their plates.

“Doing what?” Eve asked.

“Why aren’t they eating their food?”

“They don’t like it when things touch,” Eve said.

“What things?” his mother asked.

“Their food. They don’t like it when different foods touch or mix together.”

“How do you serve dinner, in ice cube trays?”

“We only eat two things, Grandma,” said Eve’s older son, six-year-old Jake Jr.

“What two things?” she asked.

“Like hot dogs and macaroni,” Jake said. “Or hamburgers and corn.”

“I don’t like ketchup on my hamburger,” said Ben, the four-year-old.

“I like ketchup on the side,” Jake said.

“Fine,” Lincoln’s mom said, taking their plates and scraping them onto her own. “Are you boys still hungry? I’ve got fruit, I’ve got bananas, do you like bananas?”

“So you’re staying here?” Eve turned on Lincoln with new ferocity. “You’re just going to keep living here?”

“For now,” he said.

“Lincoln is always welcome here,” their mother said.

“I’m sure he is,” Eve said. “He’s welcome to rot here for the rest of his life.”

Lincoln set down his fork.

“Grandma,” Ben said, “this banana is dirty.”

“That’s not dirt,” she said.

“It’s brown,” he said.

“It’s banana-colored.”

“Bananas are yellow,” Jake said.

“Lincoln is not rotting,” their grandmother said.

“He isn’t living,” Eve said.

“Don’t tell me how to raise my son.”

“He’s twenty-eight years old,” Eve said. “Your job is done. He’s risen.”

“Like Jesus,” Jake said.

“Not like Jesus,” Eve said.

Lincoln stood up from the table. “Would anyone else like juice? Ben? Jake?” His nephews ignored him.

“You’re never done raising your children,” his mother said. “You’ll see. You’re not done until you’re dead.”

“Jesus died when he was thirty-three,” Jake said.

“Stop talking about Jesus,” Eve said.

“Jesus!” Ben said.

“I’m still Lincoln’s mother. I’m still your mother. Whether you like it or not, I’m not done raising either of you.”

“You never started raising me,” Eve said.

“Eve …” Lincoln winced.

“You’re excused, boys,” Eve said.

“I’m still hungry,” Ben said.

“Can we go to Wendy’s?” Jake asked.

“Tell me more about how to be a good mother,” Eve’s mother said.

“I’ll tell you this,” Eve said. “My boys are going to have lives of their own. They’re going to go on dates and get married and move out. I’m not going to make them feel like they aren’t allowed to say good-bye to me.”

“I never made you feel that way.”

“You came to kindergarten with me for the first month.”

“You asked me to.”

“I was five,” Eve said. “You should have told me no.”

“You were scared.”

“I was
five
.”

“I didn’t send Lincoln until he was seven, and I’m so glad. He was so much more prepared.”

Lincoln had been prepared for kindergarten. He could already read and do some addition and subtraction. He’d ended up skipping the first grade.

“Oh my God”—Eve slammed her fork on the table—“can’t you even hear yourself?”

“Don’t talk about Jesus, Mommy,” Ben whispered.

“Come on, boys,” Lincoln said, “let’s go outside. Let’s play soccer.”

“You’re a very bad soccer player,” Jake said.

“I know,” Lincoln said. “You can teach me.”

The kitchen windows were open. Even after Lincoln took his nephews outside, they could still hear his sister and mother shouting.

“Food touches!” Lincoln heard his mother say. “The world touches!”

After about twenty minutes, Eve leaned out the back door and told the boys to come say good-bye to Grandma. Eve looked frustrated and angry, and she’d been crying.

“We’re going to Wendy’s,” she said to Lincoln. “Do you want to come?”

“No, I’m full.”

“I’m not sorry about anything I said,” she said. “It was all true. You are rotting here.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I’m ripening.”

Eve slammed the back door closed.