"John, I’d heard you had a pretty good job in Camden," Brandy asked. "That was a while ago, now."

"It was a good job, but it was nothing special, either," John replied. "Basically commercial accounting, but we had a heck of a client load. I had to put in a lot of hours, and that made it hard on Candice with the two small kids. The money was OK, but I was pretty well locked into a program where there wasn’t going to be a lot of advancement, either. But, I’d known that when I started and figured that I wasn’t going to stay there forever. I took a few days off to go down to Decatur to interview with Walker, Wade and Garcia, and they were ready to hire me, but I could see it was going to be more of the same thing. So, while I was down there, I did some nosing around and wound up doing corporate bookkeeping with Rotunda Systems, at almost twice what I’d been making in Camden, plus options. It’s gone up from there, since. It was a good move, even if I don’t have as much time home with the kids as I would like."

"I had some of their stock for a while," Phil said. "Did pretty well on it, but when I left Hadley-Monroe I pulled out of high flyers and got into some more conservative stuff."

John nodded. "We do pretty well with online sales, and have some store visibility, too. I’m not into the marketing side, but the PC market is getting a little saturated, and getting a little soft. Earnings may be down some, but we should stay stable."

"Do you think maybe that online sales are a bit overblown?" Phil asked seriously. John could tell that he wasn’t just making conversation.

"We’ve done well on it," John said. "The stock price is still growing pretty good, even with earnings about the same. But then, we do more than just online sales, although people think of us that way. We have a pretty good wholesale business, and we’re trying to get into retail outlets a little more."

"Well, with some things, it may be OK, but I’m getting just a little leery of these online sales operations," Phil replied. "I keep seeing these IPOs on some of the dumbest damned ideas, and the stock takes off like a shot, but you never hear of any earnings. I mean, hell, Amazon-dot-com. That really is a pretty good idea, since a lot of local bookstores don’t stock anything but the most popular titles anyway, and being able to order an offbeat or specialty book online from Amazon is something that you can’t do locally without going to a store and waiting for weeks. Even so, I don’t think they’ve paid a dividend yet. And, that’s for a good idea. I think it was the petfood-dot-com thing that really yanked my chain. What the hell can you do there that you can’t do at your local grocery store for less money? But people jumped on that like it was the last train from Shanghai, and I’ll bet they don’t ever pay a dividend."

"Yeah, that bothered me, too," John said. "I really don’t play the market a lot, just my Rotunda stock and some mutual funds, and Candice has some employee stock out of First Decatur. I figure that to do it right you’ve got to spend some time studying what you’re doing and keep up with what’s going on, and I just don’t have the time to do it right. But, you’re right, there have been some really stupid ideas that are just marketing ideas, with nothing behind them. At least Rotunda does have more than a computer terminal and a warehouse."

"I’m no expert, either," Phil agreed. "But I think it’s a house built out of straw, and the big bad wolf is going to come around some day and blow it down. Mark my words, one of these days some Republican is going to buy himself or steal himself the presidency, and the first thing he’s going to want to do is to cut taxes, which is going to stick a big pin in this bubble we call the stock market. When people come to their senses, the whole thing is going to fall apart. I wouldn’t be surprised to see thirty percent, forty percent, even fifty percent come out of the market, and that’s going to hurt a lot of people. I’m no survivalist or pessimist, but when that happens we could have a depression that’ll make the 1930s look like the big rock candy mountain."

John shook his head. "I’ll agree that there’s going to be a shakeout coming sooner or later, and some of the stuff that’s flying high today isn’t going to be flying quite so high, then. And, there will be some high flyers that will tank completely. But, I don’t see the bottom falling out, either."

"What do you think about the Y2K business?" Candice asked. "I don’t think it’s going to turn into any big deal."

"Me either," Phil replied. "I can tell you this much. If the power companies can keep their acts together, then it’s not going to be any big thing, and from what I can tell the power companies have been working hard to get their acts straight. Oh, there may be a scattered problem here and there, but no worldwide catastrophe like all the whiners keep babbling about. I mean, any company that has not gotten the message about this in the last four years really has their head up their ass and deserves to die."

"At First Decatur, we’ve spent a lot of time testing and certifying systems," she said. "We may have missed something, but if we have it’s not something that will bring the whole system down."

"We’ve run some systems tests," John said. "We really haven’t worried too much about it, since we’re running pretty new software, anyway. I, for one, don’t think much is going to happen."

Brandy shifted her position. "So, do you have any plans for the big night?"

"Not really," Candice replied. "It’s awful late for us. I don’t know if we can manage to stay awake till midnight. The boys want to stay up, but I don’t think they’ll make it. There won’t be any wild parties or anything. We’re not really social-type people. I mean, we’ve lived in Decatur for nearly six years now, but we really don’t know anybody very well. I know a few people where I work, and John knows some where he works, but we never really get together with anyone very often."

"I guess it’s pretty much the same with us," Brandy said. "I like the people I work with, or I can at least tolerate them, but by the time we get done with a site, we’re just as happy to not see each other for a while. I can’t imagine socializing with them, not even considering the fact that when we get off a site we scatter all over the country, even all over the world. But then, Phil and I haven’t made a lot of new friends in Spearfish Lake, either. Of course, we’ve never both been in Spearfish Lake at the same time long enough to make much in the way of friends beyond family or the people I already knew."

Phil shook his head. "That’s not totally true," he related. "I have made a few friends, especially Josh and Tiffany, and Brandy’s mom had a lot to do with that, although I met Josh clear back when he was in high school and Brandy and I were in college. When I was home and Brandy wasn’t, I used to spend some time with them. It helped out a lot."

"That’s still sort of a family thing," Brandy protested. "It just came through my family, not your relatives. I guess we’re just kind of homebodies. It always used to be that when we could get together, we had enough to do just to get used to each other again. We do see each other more now, and, who knows? Maybe someday we’ll even have to get married."

"You’re not married?" Candice asked, a little surprised.

"Oh, we could be," Brandy said. "We always shied away from it back when we were in college since it looked like we were going to be going our separate ways. It was just something of a fluke when we wound up coming up with the first prototype magres system. The term, by the way, is short for ‘magnetic resolution,’ but the system is way more than that. Anyway, when we both got to traveling so much, we just weren’t sure we were going to be able to stay together. I mean, it gets lonely like that, but the chances to get together eventually were always something to look forward to, and such home life as we had was something to keep us coming home again. But, I think I can say that we’ve worked that out well enough that it’s not an issue anymore."

Phil nodded as the doorbell rang. "Probably it’s the tax thing that keeps us from getting married now, more than anything else," he said, getting up from where he was sprawled in his chair. "That must be the pizza."

While Phil was paying the pizza delivery kid, Candice asked, "So are you going to be around much longer?"

"Afraid not," Brandy said. "Once we get through the holidays, I’ve got to go to Denver and work on a few things there. Then, it’s Bolivia again, for three months, maybe a little more. I’ve been to the mine before; it’s a dump, but I probably won’t get any farther than 200 yards from the data trailer all the time I’m there, so that’ll probably help."

"You’re not going up to catch the Iditarod, then?" John asked.

"I’d kind of like to, but it’s a hell of a long haul just to stand out in the street in Anchorage and Nome to freeze my butt, which will be used to the heat in Bolivia," she replied. "And, it would mean we’d be that much longer finishing up. Maybe someday, if Phil does the race again."

"You’re going to keep at your job, then," Candice commented.

"The money is very good," Brandy admitted. "But, more important, I think I’d go nuts if I didn’t have the job, or at least something else that’s as challenging. I keep thinking I need to take a year or two off and finish my doctorate, but that just doesn’t seem as important, now."

Phil set the pizza box down on the coffee table and headed for the kitchen for more beer. "It may be just as well," he said over his shoulder. "I can’t imagine what it would be like to be together all the time, with her wishing she had something to do."

North of Camden, near the little town of Moffatt, there’s a point where the two-lane state road that leads from Spearfish Lake turns into four lanes in order to handle the increased commuting traffic. It’s at about that point that the forests and swamps and lakes of the north woods change rather abruptly to fields and farms and clusters of houses that soon become towns, and eventually the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t even a quarter of the way home for John and Candice and their boys, but it was the point where they knew they’d left the fun part of their vacation and the drive home behind. From there on, it would be nothing but miles and hours and exhaustion.

The car was packed, not unpredictably, to the point where John and Walt had to tie the new mountain bikes onto the roof rack, and the car was still loaded from the Christmas haul. The boys were fairly quiet in the back seat, though; Shay was playing a handheld computer game he’d gotten as a present, and Cody was wrapped up with a couple of Christmas books.

The traffic wasn’t bad, and it got a little easier once they got out on the four-lane. "You know," John said once he got the cruise control set, "I sort of wish we still lived in Camden. We could get home more often."

"That’s so right," Candice agreed. "That was a really, really good Christmas. The last time we were with family was two years ago, at Arvada Center, and it seemed so sad since everybody knew it would be the last one like that."

"It took the edge off, even for me," John replied. "I know it was worse for you."

Candice nodded. "That’s all in the past, now. But, this year, well, it was good to be with friends and relatives. The last couple times, I didn’t feel as at home at Arvada Center as I did at your folks the last few days."

"I’m glad you tripped across Phil," John said. "That evening we spent with them . . . well, I can’t tell you the last time that we just sat around with some friends, shooting the bull, solving the problems of the world, and just enjoying being together."

"I’ve missed it a lot," Candice agreed. "I can’t remember a night like that since we were in college. Oh, we’ve been together with other couples, but there was always some, well, uneasiness about it. Like we were trying to score points off each other, or something. But with Phil and Brandy it wasn’t like that at all."

"Yeah, it was like we were with friends we’d known forever. Well, it was, in a way, because you’ve known Phil and I’ve known Brandy since we were kids. They’ve got to have some pretty good money, but you could never tell it to look at them, or the way they live."

"You get right down to it, we’re pretty different, in a lot of ways," Candice nodded. "But, we’re a lot alike, too."

"I suppose one of the things that make us feel that way is that we’re all college people," John said after thinking about it for a moment. "I mean, that gives us some common ground that we lack with some of the other people we spent time with. Don’t get me wrong, I think Josh and Tiffany are great, but Josh decided while he was still in high school that he’d rather be a railroader than go to college. At least he thought about going to college down at Athens with that gal he ran around with right after we were first married. I think the only time Tiffany has ever been on a college campus is the spot where the Iditarod race route crosses a community college on the edge of Anchorage. She barely made it out of high school, not because she isn’t smart, but because she spent most of her time messing with her dogs when she should have been studying. Or, Jackie and Mark. Jackie was thinking of going to a community college, but she ran off with Mark, instead. Mark has an immense amount of technical savvy. Phil may know something about computer applications, but I’ll bet that Mark knows a lot more about how to make a system sit up and talk. None of them are dumb, but not going to college does give them a little different perspective than we have."

"You’re probably right," Candice shrugged. "Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing Phil and Brandy again."

"I hope we do, too. Of course, catching them home will probably continue to be the problem. Maybe we can find out when she’s going to be home, sometime next summer, and take a weekend to run up there."

"I’d like to spend more than a weekend. We’d have to spend some time with your folks, too. Besides, I keep thinking that going on one of Josh and Tiffany’s kayak trips would be fun. Nothing really adventurous, just going out and camping out on an island some place. The boys are getting old enough that we could do that."

He cocked his head over and looked at her, and she knew he was looking. The statement surprised John a little; while Candice was a farm girl and knew what it was like to be outside, she hadn’t been big on the idea of a family camping trip the once or twice he’d brought the idea up. Of course, the boys were pretty little, then. "I’ve wanted to do it for years," he said.

"Well, the boys are getting to the point where they need to know something about the world outside the city," she said, reading John’s questioning glance perfectly. "It’s not like we can take them down to the farm and let them get used to horses, anymore."

"What do you think, Shay?" John said over his shoulder.

"What?" the boy answered, looking up from the beep-beep-beep of the computer game.

"Do you think you’d like to go on a kayaking and camping trip with Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Josh and Mom and Dad next summer?"

"That’d be fun," he said. "Could we maybe go fishing, too?"

"Cody, what do you think? How about a camping trip next summer?"

"That’d be neat," the boy replied. "Could we spend some more time with Uncle Josh and Aunt Tiffany’s dogs, too?"

"They don’t go dogsledding in the summer," Candice said.

"Aunt Tiffany said they train them in the summer. She said she drove the dogs to school and ran her first race when she wasn’t a lot older than I am. That’d be cool!"

"Your Aunt Tiffany was a little precocious," John smiled with a sarcastic tone.

"What’s precocious, Dad?" he replied with a confused look.

"It means that she started doing something a little before she really should have started doing it."

"Oh," Shay piped up. "You mean, like Amanda Wilson is precocious because she’s making out with her boyfriend when she’s only twelve?"

John and Candice exchanged some very heavy thoughts with brief mutual glances before John tried to brush it off. "Yeah, that’s sort of what it means. But, it means things like, oh, driving a car before you’re old enough to have a license, too." Shay’s parents glanced at each other again. There was clearly going to have to be a serious talk when the boys weren’t around. "Your mom and I are just thinking about the camping trip," John said, to try to defuse the subject. "But it could be fun,"

"Does that mean we’d get to see Grandpa and Grandma Archer next summer, too?" Cody asked.

"Oh, probably," John said. At least that topic was diverted into a different course. "I don’t see how we could go up there and not see them."

"That’d be cool," Shay replied. "Grandpa said he’d take us for a ride on a railroad engine."

"Well, we’ll just have to see," Candice replied. They rode on in silence for two or three miles; Shay went back to his computer game, and Cody back to his book. Once she was pretty sure the boys’ attention was adequately diverted again, she caught John’s eye and spoke a single word: "Valley?"

"Dunno," John replied with a shrug, just as cryptic as she had been. They’d been around this block before. They were not real impressed with the school the boys were attending. It was a little ‘precocious,’ the way Shay used the word. In addition to the gun incident that Shay had mentioned while they’d been setting up the tree, there had been two drug busts that fall, and enough other things that made them uncomfortable with the place. They’d discussed getting the boys into Valley Christian Academy. It was expensive, but they could afford it if they wanted to, but they were a little uncomfortable with the idea. For one thing, they weren’t particularly churchy people, and they weren’t sure they wanted that degree of Christianity forced on the boys. In addition, John felt there was a degree of isolation from the real world at the place. Not that the quality of education was any less than the public school; it was clearly better, since the rough element in the public schools was kept out, but the boys would have to face a rough element in their lives sooner or later, and it was probably just as well that they knew it existed. That had to be tempered by being good parents, they knew, setting a good example for their kids, and, in the old saw, "teaching them right from wrong." But, as much as he was working, it was hard to spend the time he should with the boys, and he knew it, and Candice working didn’t make it any easier, and no amount of soccer leagues and after-school programs could fill in the gap.

"Me, either," Candice replied after a moment. "But . . . " Nothing had changed, but things had just gotten a touch more imperative. Valley, or maybe some other school, was clearly an option, but she doubted it was a solution to the real problem, if there was a solution. After all, any good parent wants to do the right things for their children, and things were enough different from the schools they had grown up with that they weren’t sure they were doing the right thing. At heart, they were country people, small-town people, and they knew it. The last few days had driven home to them just how much they missed that life.

"Yeah," he nodded, still reading her perfectly – not all that difficult, since it was a discussion they’d had many times before, often enough that they could talk in shorthand over the boys’ heads. "Too big." The elementary school the boys attended was a good ten times the size of the Spearfish Lake elementary John had attended, well over ten times the size of the whole school system in Arvada Center. No one could control a school system that size and give the kids the degree of personal attention John or Candice had experienced as kids. One of the disadvantages of a small school was that everybody knew everybody else, knew everyone’s likes and dislikes, whether they were trouble or not. Of course, it was one of the advantages, too. In any case, it was what they had to use as a measure, to compare their current situation.

Candice shrugged. "What can you do?" They weren’t country people anymore; the boys were growing up as city kids, or, at least, suburban kids. They probably would never be country people. The standards were different from what they had experienced, the times were different, the lives were different. In any case, there wasn’t really much they could do, however much they wanted to.

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