Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

chance he’d seen Beth on campus.
    So much for stopping. So much for what he technically, ethically, knew he should do.
    He’d meant to throw Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages away, as soon as they showed up in the WebFence folder. But then …he didn’t. He opened them, and once he was reading them, he got caught up in their stories, in their back and forth and back and forth.
    I’m getting caught up , he thought to himself after he was done reading about how Beth met her boyfriend, after he’d read through the whole story a second time and spent a few minutes thinking about it, thinking about them, wondering what they all looked like …What she looked like …
    I’m getting caught up, he thought. That’s not good …is it?
    No. But maybe it isn’t exactly all bad …

CHAPTER 17
    From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
To: Beth Fremont
Sent: Fri, 09/10/1999 1:23 PM
Subject: Herring cassoulet.
    You shouldn’t be allowed to eat fish at work. I swear to God, whenever Tony works, I go home reeking of the sea. I know he’s from Rhode Island, where they eat fish all the livelong day, but he should assume that everyone around him here is disgusted by the stink of it.
    <> I’ve seen you eat fish sticks before. And popcorn shrimp.
    <> Both of those have protective fried coatings. I’ll eat fish that’s processed beyond recognition, but I would never eat it at work. I don’t even pop popcorn here. I don’t like to inflict my food odors on others.
    <> Very thoughtful.
    I’ll trade you Tony’s orange roughy stench for Tim’s fingernail clipping any day.
    <> I thought you stole his fingernail clippers …
    <> I did. He has new ones. I’m not sure what bothers me more …the constant clip-clip noises or knowing that his cubicle is completely contaminated by tiny fingernail slivers.
    <> If we ever need any of his DNA for a paternity test or a voodoo spell, we’ll know where to look.
    <> If we ever need any of Tony’s DNA for a paternity test, one of us deserves to be pushed off a cliff.
    Hey, remember when we used to have to leave our desks to have conversations like this?
    <> I don’t think we ever did have conversations like this. I know I never ventured into reporter land unless I had incredibly good gossip or unless I really, really needed to talk.
    <> Or unless somebody brought cookies.
    Remember that lady who sat in the corner, who used to always bring cookies? What happened to her?
    <> The city hall reporter? I heard they fired her when they found out she carried a loaded gun in her purse.
    <> That doesn’t seem fair. As long as she kept it in her purse.
    <> Wow. It wouldn’t be 30 pieces of silver with you, would it? It would be cookies.
    <> No. ( Yes . Snickerdoodles.)

CHAPTER 18
    THAT AFTERNOON, GREG introduced Lincoln to college students he’d hired to take on the Y2K project. There were three of them; one from Vietnam, one from Bosnia, and one from the suburbs. Lincoln couldn’t tell how old they were. Much younger than he was. “They’re like an international strike force,” Greg said, “and you’re their commander.”
    “Me?” Lincoln said. “What exactly does that mean?”
    “It means you have to make sure they’re actually doing something,” Greg said. “If I knew anything about coding, I’d be the commander. You think I don’t want to be the commander?”
    The Y2K kids sat at a table in the corner. They worked days mostly, between their classes, so Lincoln usually tried to meet with them as soon as he came in. He didn’t do much commanding at these meetings. The college students seemed to already know what they needed to do. And they didn’t talk much otherwise, to Lincoln or to each other.
    After about a week, Lincoln was pretty sure that