“I’m not taking steroids, Mom.” That made him laugh.

And that made her laugh.

“So that’s all it is?” she asked. There was something in her voice still. Worry.

“What do you mean?”

“You just feel sorry for her?”

“Well,” Lincoln said. He could hardly tell his mom that he ate dinner with Doris to up his chances of running into a girl he’d never met. “I guess we’re friends. Doris is actually pretty funny. Not always intentionally …”

His mother took a deep breath, like she was steadying herself. Lincoln’s voice trailed off.

“Oh, Mom, no. It’s not like that. It could not be more not like that. Mom. God.”

She put her hand on her forehead and exhaled.

“Why are you always bracing for me to tell you something weird?” he asked.

“What am I supposed to think when I hear that you eat dinner with the same woman every night?

And it wouldn’t be that weird, you know, a number of my friends enjoy the company of younger men.”

“Mom. ”

“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.

CHAPTER 58

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?”

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.

CHAPTER 59

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>> [email protected] 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.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Caution and fidelity. Floozy.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I walked in all casual, like, “Don’t mind me, I’m just here for the vending machines,” and there he was, sitting with Doris. They were both eating chocolate cake. I was all, “Hi, Doris.” I smiled at them both, made eye contact with them both, gave one of them the serious come- hither, bought a piece of beef jerky and walked away.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Beef jerky?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I was just randomly punching buttons at that point. And, like I said, sucking in my stomach.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Were there fireworks when your eyes met?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> On my end? Capital Yes. Roman candles. On his end? Well, he looked at me in a very pleasant way, as if to say, “Any friend of Doris’s is a friend of mine.”

<<Jennifer to Beth>> They were both eating chocolate cake? Were they sharing a fork?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Don’t be silly.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Oh, I’m being silly. Right. I thought you were giving up Cute-Guy hunting because you realized it would be awkward if he actually noticed and tried to talk to you.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I can’t give him up. What would I have to look forward to?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I refuse to talk about this anymore. It just encourages you.

Mitch just called me to gloat. I tried to talk him into going to Sam’s Club last night to buy stuff for our millennium stockpile, but he refused to go. He said that he preferred Armageddon to Sam’s Club.

Did you stock up on anything?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> God no. If civilization comes crashing down at midnight, the last thing I’d want is to be stuck in my apartment, living off bottled water and canned beans.

CHAPTER 60

WHEN LINCOLN GOT up to the newsroom—because that’s where he went, that’s where he had to go, as soon as he’d read the words “tremendous” and “Roman candles” and “I can’t give him up”—the room was full and buzzing. Most of the reporters must have special Y2K shifts. They were hanging out in clumps around the newsroom, laughing and talking. Lincoln took a deep breath, the air felt like champagne in his lungs.

She was there. The girl from the break room. Beth. She was there, at her desk. Her hair was down, her glasses were pushed up over her forehead, and she was talking on the phone, twisting the cord around her fingers. There she was. Lincoln was going to say hello.

No, he was going to wait until she was off the phone. And then say hello.

No, and then he was going to kiss her.

No, he was just going to kiss her. He wasn’t going to wait. She’d kiss him back. He was absolutely certain that she would kiss him back.

And then he’d tell her that he loved her.

And then he’d tell her his name.

And then and then and then … what?

“If everything goes to hell at midnight, I want you to join my savage gang of looters.”

“What?” Lincoln turned around. Chuck was standing behind him. He had a blue marker in his mouth, and he was looking at a pie graph.