For more than a century the Spearfish Lake Record-Herald had been housed in a drafty old wooden two-story building on the corner of Second Street and Central Avenue in downtown Spearfish Lake. To say that it had been a firetrap would probably have been pushing the limits of the definition, even though Joe McGuinness, the local fire chief, had been seen to visibly shake his head whenever he walked into the place. Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the Record-Herald's editor Mike McMahon thought, the place had been full and bustling -- so full that most of the newspaper's actual production had been done on the second floor, with the main floor filled with printing equipment. He'd come to the weekly newspaper a quarter century before, not long after the paper had converted from the old fashioned hot type of lead and Linotypes, when the paper had been printed in the plant, and he imagined that the place must really have been full, then.

But over the years, the place emptied out. First, the on-site printing and the loss of the Linotypes and Ludlows and all the wonderful machinery that gave the building an exciting smell of hot lead and newsprint went away when the paper converted to "cold type," modern offset printing. Then, ten years before, the rest of the printing operation had been split off into a separate business, and that left the place really empty. When the printing equipment left the building the layout room moved downstairs, then when the paper went to laying out pages on computer screens, even that was abandoned. Even counting the fact that part of the upstairs had been converted into an apartment for the junior reporter, less than half the building was actually used.

The Record-Herald was employee owned, and the idea that the paper would do well in smaller quarters had been floating around for some time. It wasn't until the publisher, Mike's wife, Kirsten, actually did some cost analysis of heating bills that the idea became more concrete. Just about that time Marlin Computer up the street was moving to bigger quarters, and the deal was easily made.

That was over a year ago, and Mike still wasn't used to it. The old building, which was now a pile of rubble in the county landfill, had borne to its fate the faint smell of hot type and newsprint, the smell that had excited Mike deep in his soul. The new building had been a pizza joint before Marlin Computer had it, and to Mike it still had a faint smell of mozzarella and pepperoni. It wasn't a fair trade as far as he was concerned.

For many decades, the Record-Herald had employed a string of "junior reporters," which were actually a mainstay of their news staff. Usually kids just out of college, they were there getting their first spurs in the trade. They'd stay a few months, sometimes a year or two, and move on to bigger things -- sometimes considerably bigger things; one former Record-Herald junior reporter now covered the White House for CNN, and another was a drama critic for the New York Times. Sometimes, they'd been bad, and sometimes, they'd been very, very good. On the wall of the front office was a big picture of Brenda Hodunk holding the Aherns Award, arguably the second highest award in American journalism. She'd won that as a junior reporter at the Record-Herald a few years ago, and Mike had wished many times that he'd had the guts to submit it to the Pulitzers.

Mike had figured that Brenda wouldn't be around long after that, and she hadn't been. The junior reporter who followed her, Matt Peckanen, had just left a few weeks ago, and now was covering the state legislature for the Geneva Reporter. Although he hadn't scored a win like the Aherns, Matt had been just as good a local reporter. Mike would be pleased indeed if his replacement, Carla Stanton, sitting across the desk from him on her first day of work, turned out to be anywhere near as good.

Carla was green as grass, just out of journalism school at State, a mid-year graduate, but that was fine -- Mike had been about that green when he'd come up here as a junior reporter just out of State many years before. Of the long line of Record-Herald junior reporters -- Mike hadn't ever figured out exactly how many, but it had to be over twenty since he'd held the spot -- only he and George Webb, the now-retired publisher, had made a career out of the place, and George had worked around a few other places between his stint as junior reporter and editor.

Kids just out of journalism school sometimes had some strange ideas about the real world of community journalism, and Mike realized that it was part of his job to knock some of those ideas out and teach them how things really worked. Since it was late in the afternoon of what was really rather a slow Monday as things went around the Record-Herald, Mike figured that this was as good a time as any to sit down with Carla in his office and pass along a few words of wisdom. "One of the things you have to remember in a place like this," he was telling her, "Is that there's often a huge difference in what you know and what you can print. That's true anywhere, but it's especially important in a small town where the gossip travels faster than the Internet. You need to be pretty sure of your ground, especially on touchy issues. One of the things we can't afford here is seagull journalism. You know what that is?"

"I've never heard the term," Carla frowned. She was a medium-sized girl, a little on the plain side, with short brown hair. Not a looker, Mike thought, but seemed like a nice enough person. But then, Brenda hadn't exactly been a looker when she came here. Mike had hired Brenda more out of desperation than being impressed with her talents, but he soon learned that she had about the hardest nose of any junior reporter he'd ever seen. Who knew what lay buried in this girl?

"Seagull journalism," Mike said, "Is where some young reporter comes to town, tries to make a name for themself by crapping all over everything, then flies away leaving others behind to clean up the mess. I won't have it, simply because I have to live here. If something genuinely messy comes up, we'll report the facts, but we aren't out to wreck someone's reputation just for the hell of it. You get some time, go back to, oh, the bound volume from the first quarter of '98, and see how Brenda handled the basketball and cheerleader issue. That went on for years, and there were some genuine idiots involved, but she never trashed anyone, just did good, clean, honest reporting. I was really more impressed with the way she handled that than I was with the story that got her the Aherns."

"That's the woman in the photo out front, right?" Carla asked, then went on, "Mike, I don't understand why she's wearing handcuffs in that picture."

"Long story," Mike smiled. "I won't bother to tell you, since it's in that same bound volume. It kind of illustrates how far you have to go to get a story and do it right sometimes."

"I don't follow you," Carla frowned.

Mike sighed. "Well, the bottom line is that she wore those handcuffs 24/7 for nine weeks in order to get the story that ultimately resulted in her getting the Aherns. That was while she was doing everything else, including covering the basketball mess, police, courts, council, commission, school board, and whatever. I'll admit, I wasn't crazy about the idea, but she was right. It worked out . . ."

A bright red phone on the table behind Mike's desk went off with a distinctive buzz. Mike stopped in the middle of what he was saying and said, "Carla, one of the rules around this place is that nobody answers that phone but me, ever."

"I can go," she said.

"No, stick around," Mike said. "Odds are that this will turn into another lesson. He swung around, picked up the phone, and said in a loud Scandinavian-sounding accent, "Yaaah, dis is Eino, 'ere."

"Eino, this is Lenny, from the Trib," Mike heard in his ear. "How are things up there these days?"

"Aw, 'bout da same, yaah, you betcha, eh?" Mike swung around holding the phone, more to get a view of Carla's raised eyebrows than anything else. "Whad can I do fer ya, eh?"

"I hear that Jenny Easton just had a baby," Lenny's voice sounded in the phone.

"Yaah, dere was a pichure of 'im in dat Record-Herald 'ere, yaah."

"Hey, Eino, you wouldn't happen to have a shot of Jenny and her husband with the baby, would you?"

"Naw, ain't got nuddin' like dat," 'Eino' told the caller. "I might could get ya somethin', but da wedder here, been kinda bad, yaaah. Dey not goin' out togedder much, ey?"

"Well, how about a shot of the two of them together, when she was pretty pregnant? That would work just as well."

"Don't got nuddin' like dat," 'Eino' replied. "Cudda had a shot like dat up at da market las' month, yaah, but I di'nt have da camera wid me. You know da deal, I keep it ouda sight unless I godda."

"You seem to be pretty good with coming up with stuff," Lenny said. "Like those wedding photos."

"Da weddin' phodos, dat was differen', eh? Dere wasn't no way I could get inta dat."

"Then how'd you get the photos?" Lenny asked.

"Dat was differen', like I said, yaah. Me brudder, Toivo, his wife, she runs da one-hour photo machine at dat drugstore, yaah? She saw dem photos, made an extra seda prints. Udderwise, ya'd a got nuddin, eh."

"Well, if you can't you can't," Lenny said. "I know how that works. Look, see what you can do about getting a shot of Jenny and her husband and the baby. No big rush, but do what you can."

"Yaah, I kin do dat," 'Eino' grinned. "Maybe take a while, yaah. What you want dem fur, eh?"

"Got a story working," Lenny admitted. 'Eino' could hear him hesitate for a moment, then ask, "Hey, Eino. You ever hear any talk about there that maybe her husband likes boys better than girls?"

"Naw," 'Eino' said. "Never heard nuddin like dat, eh? Guess he couldn't if dey got da baby."

"I suppose," Lenny said. "Well, see what you can do on that photo of three of them, OK?"

"I try, eh?" 'Eino' promised. "But don' be geddin' your hopes up."

"Let me know if you get something," Lenny asked. "Eino, I know you'll come through for me. Catch you around."

Mike swung around, hung up the phone, and turned back to Carla. "I was right," he said, all trace of the Yooper accent gone. "That's something we need to talk about, and now is as good a time as any. Better time than most, in fact."

"What was that all about?" Carla frowned.

"Long story," Mike sighed. "And, it's a sensitive one. Look, what I'm about to tell you is confidential. Everyone on the staff knows about it, but it doesn't go outside this office. If you're not comfortable with that, and you don't think you can keep it quiet and abide by the policy that I'm going to lay down, go pack your bags. I'll see that you get two weeks pay and a recommendation that says you couldn't hack the weather up here or something. Fair enough?"

"I guess so," Carla said, obviously wondering what was going on.

"Don't worry," Mike smiled. "This isn't an 'if I tell you I'll have to kill you' kind of thing. It's actually an extension of what I was talking about earlier, that is, there's often a big difference between what you know and what you can print. This is just a little special, and if you don't like it after you hear it, you can leave with my blessings and I'll find someone else."

"Fair enough," Carla smiled. "What's this all about?"

"You ever listen to country music?" Mike asked.

"A little," she said. "It's not really my thing."

"Ever hear the name, Jenny Easton?"

"Of course," Carla replied. "She lives up here, doesn't she?"

"Yes, and no," Mike said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his desk. "There's a woman up here named Jennifer Walworth. Nice woman, interesting person, has a lot of relatives here, including Carrie out in the front office. She's her mother. You will meet Jennifer sooner or later, probably sooner, and my guess is that you'll like her. She's a very friendly person, usually pretty outgoing. If you get along with her at all, the odds are that you'll be invited to at least one of her parties, and unless you're a real stick in the mud, you'll have one of the more fun evenings of your life. She's good people, Carla. Once in a while, usually not in Spearfish Lake, she'll step up on a stage, pick up a guitar, and become Jenny Easton. But, when she steps off that stage, she reverts to being Jennifer Walworth again. She doesn't particularly like being Jenny Easton. In fact, she moved back here from Los Angeles years ago so she wouldn't have to be Jenny Easton all the time. Here, she can be Jennifer Walworth. She's the local girl that made good, Carla, and she came back here because she likes it here. Almost universally the people here know that and respect it. Generally speaking, if a stranger comes here and asks how to find where Jenny Easton lives, almost anyone will give them a blank stare and say something like, 'There's no person named Jenny Easton around here.' And, they're telling the truth. There isn't, well, at least most of the time."

"I see," Carla said. "You give her special treatment because she's Jenny Easton."

"You're looking at it the wrong way," Mike smiled. "We don't give her any special treatment at all, and it's because she's Jennifer Walworth, well, Evachevski up until last fall. That, in fact, has been the policy of the Record-Herald for going on twenty years now. Jennifer is a member of the community just like anyone else. We practice community journalism here, Carla. We cover Jennifer like we would anyone else in the community, which is to say, we report on them as being part of the community. She just had a baby the other day, for example. We didn't run a big photo on the front page, just a little one-column 'new baby' photo right in with three or four others. An item of pride for her, an item of news -- but no more so than for the other women who had a baby and also had their pictures in the paper. Jennifer is a regular donor at the blood drives every other month. We print the list of donors' names after each drive. Her name is not at the head of the list, it's alphabetical and down with the other donors, way down near the bottom in fact, since her last name now starts with 'W.' So, the policy of the Record-Herald is that we don't give her any special treatment one way or the other. You follow?"

"I think so," Carla frowned.

"Let me give you a better example," Mike said. "Jenny Easton's last couple albums have been recorded with a group of people called the Boreal String Band. The band members are mostly from around here, and a couple come in from outside once in a while. Pretty good musicians, if not professionals. They do it as a hobby. One of them is a guy by the name of Randy Clark. Nice guy, mid-twenties, who for practical purposes manages the biggest construction company in the region. Now, suppose you go out and take a photo of him and several other people at the groundbreaking for a new building. Do you make a big deal about it because he plays a bass guitar and records albums in his spare time once in a while? Or, do you make a big deal about the fact that this is the start of a badly needed addition to the school, and mention his name and title third, because he's third from the left?"

"So, you don't mention Jenny Easton at all?" Carla asked, getting the idea.

"Not quite," Mike said. "When Jennifer does something that impacts the community as Jenny Easton, then we report that fact. Her most recent album and the video were shot live at the Pike Bar out on the north side of town. By the way, that's not a place that you as a single woman want to go by yourself on a Friday or Saturday night. Now, shooting the video is news that is of interest to the community, so we'll run a story and maybe a photo with the cutline that says something to the effect, 'Shooting is under way for Saturday Night with Jenny Easton.' Look, don't let it bother you too much. Ask me, and I'll backstop you. Just don't let yourself get awed by the fact that this woman you run into down at the Super Market is Jenny Easton, because, if you run into her there, she isn't. Now, does all that make sense?"

"I think I've got it. If I have doubts, ask, right?"

"Absolutely," Mike agreed.

"So where does the part about you talking funny on the phone a few minutes ago come in?"

Mike smiled. "Here's where it gets tricky. What we've just been talking about is how we handle all this at the Record-Herald. Now obviously, the policy is different at other publications. There are people in the business of covering entertainment who don't see things that way. Some are fully respectable, and some are the pond scum of the journalistic food chain. Our policy, at least as far as it concerns you, is that we let them do their thing, we do ours and stay the hell away from it. Carla, I don't want to sound hardnosed, but the quickest way to get your ass fired with a recommendation so bad that you'll never work in the industry again is to slip an item about Jenny Easton to some scandal rag like the National Tribune or Inside Hollywood. The last junior reporter who tried it, the last I heard was working the drive-up window at the Wendy's in Chadron, Nebraska."

"You're right," Carla said. "That's pretty hardnosed."

"It is," Mike agreed. "I wish it didn't have to be that way, but it gives you a rock-solid excuse for you to stand on as a junior reporter if someone from some scandal sheet hits on you about something. Mostly they quit trying around here years ago. Now from this point on we're straying beyond Record-Herald policy. Back when Jennifer moved back here from LA years ago, we did have a little problem with scandal sheets coming in here trying to get sneak shots of her. She lives at a lakeside house, so a bikini shot theoretically should be doable in their opinion, and it would have been worth some bucks, but most of those places would have been just as happy to get a shot of her in her housecoat taking the garbage out to the curb, if you get my drift. Now, the reason Jennifer moved back here is because she wanted to get away from that sort of stuff. She had to live in the middle of it in California, and there was no escape. In the first years she was back, there were a couple of times that people came up here and tried for sneak shots for scandal rags. They were headed off, never mind how right now, but it was clear that kind of stuff was going to continue unless something was done. Now Jennifer is an old friend. I've known her since my first week here, back when she was still in junior high, and Blake has become a good friend of mine, too. Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out some way to handle the situation. Jennifer keeps a pretty low profile and doesn't often do things that would make for a good sneak shot, but having to live like that sort of impacts on the quality of life, right?"

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Well, we talked it around quite a bit. Now, Jennifer, and in this case I suppose I should say Jenny, agrees that it's open season when she's out on the road, and she doesn't mind. That's part of being Jenny. But this place is Jennifer's refuge. It's fairly expensive for those rags to send some paparazzi up here to stay around for a while, at some degree of risk to them, without a lot of chance to get something useful. So, we decided that if the scandal sheets had a local contact who could ship them a fairly inoffensive photo once in a while, they wouldn't waste the money."

"Eino," Carla laughed. "I get it. That's sneaky, Mike!"

Mike laughed, too. "I guess I've read too many cheap spy thrillers. Playing double agent is kind of fun. Eino Mykkanen is on Rolodexes in the offices of scandal sheets all over the country as the Jenny Easton sneak-shot contact. Eino isn't a particularly good photographer, and can't always get what they want. In fact, he can only manage it about half the time. Of course, in real life he never has trouble getting the shot that Jennifer and Blake want, but we don't have to let people like that joker from the National Tribune who just called know that."

Carla shook her head, still laughing. "I won't tell," she said. "Those things are so disgusting! So infantile! I don't see how anyone could believe that trash. It's good to see someone putting something past them for once."

"I think so, too," Mike grinned. "Of course, on occasion Eino has been able to find out if one of those rags is going to try to send someone else up here, so usually things don't get too far."

"How's that?" Carla grinned, wide-eyed.

"Carla, this falls in the category of 'what you don't know won't hurt you,'" Mike said. "I told you that Jennifer's mom works out front. You'll be working with her a lot, in fact. Her dad runs Spearfish Lake Appliance. Now, Jennifer could support them in luxury for the rest of their lives if they'd let her, but they won't. They've got their pride, and are the kind of people who prefer working anyway. But they have their hobbies. Carrie is a better than average golfer, for example. Gil, on the other hand is a little different. He likes to stay in shape. In fact, count yourself lucky if at the age of 39 you're in the shape he's in at the age of 69. I might add that Gil is a retired Army Sergeant Major, and he taught unarmed combat to Green Berets for years. He has some friends he works out with, up in a room above the Appliance Store. One of them has six black belts; another one just got his third. Another guy spent 40 years as a cop breaking up bar fights, and one was a national-caliber amateur boxer. There are others. When Jenny needs extra security at a show or something, that's the pool her security guards are called out of. That's all I'm going to say about that. Anything else is Fifth Amendment territory."

"Pretty dangerous people, huh?"

"If they need to be. Considering who they are, they rarely have to be. In fact, Brenda got to be pretty good friends with that crew, and they taught her a few things. One night, she and a fifteen-year-old kid caught three big high school football players kicking the shit out of some little kid, and they went to his rescue. In about five seconds, there were three badly broken and bleeding football players lying on the sidewalk at their feet." Mike paused, to let it sink in, then added, "And, Brenda was wearing her handcuffs at the time."

Carla looked down. "That's a little scary, you know?"

"The violence? Those kinds of skills?"

"No, not that," Carla shook her head. "How can I ever measure up to someone like her? She has to be some sort of superhuman."

"If it's any consolation," Mike grinned, "When she came here, I didn't think she had the potential that you have. Brenda has a lot of integrity, is a good writer and reporter, has the brains to seize the day when the chance comes along, and the determination to follow through. Carla, there's no reason you can't be just as good. Maybe not an Aherns, that was luck and being in the right place at the right time, but just as good. You've got all the pieces; you just have to learn to use them. And, I'm here to help you learn." He glanced at his watch. "We've jabbered enough for this time," he said. "And I've got to see a man about a dog."

* * *

In any other place, the line about "got to see a man about a dog" would be the corniest excuse possible, Mike thought as he got into his car. In this case though, he was sure that Carla knew that he still kept a dog team of his own, and that his daughter, Tiffany, and son-in-law, Josh, kept acres of sled-racing dogs. For years, when Mike had headed out of the office using that excuse it had usually been because he really did need to see a man about a dog.

Except that wasn't the case this time. Carla had needed the lecture, and it had been a good time to give it to her without seeming too threatening about it. And, it had gone well. He'd made some points -- important points for a new junior reporter at the Record-Herald -- but had managed to keep it light. There were a couple of things about the way that he and the paper handled Jennifer that really might not wash at a larger paper, but as he'd told Carla, this was Spearfish Lake, and he had to live here. And, that was in its way the most important lesson of all.

Eino had pretty much been a success in what he'd intended to do. There had been a couple of incidents back in the beginning, where some desperate measures involving doubtful legality could have really gotten someone into trouble if the issue had been pushed. Mike had been up to his neck in one of them, so it was just as well that no one had been of a mind to push the issue. But once Eino began spreading around the occasional "sneak shot," outsiders coming in for them had pretty well dried up. Oh, there were always fans, and there was no way to control their efforts, but that was a different issue. The important thing was to separate out the over-enthusiastic but legitimate fan from the predatory paparazzi, and Eino had pretty well managed to separate them based on the heads-up that he usually got.

Mike didn't want to say that Jennifer's career had faded. But it had, and that was just how she wanted it. Oh, her records still sold well, she could still draw a crowd of fans, and probably always would be able to as long as she wanted to. But she was no longer hot enough stuff that there was media prying into her life all the time, at least her life here. Up until last summer when Jennifer had married Blake, it had gotten downright rare for Eino's phone to ring or a letter show up in his post office box. Then, there had been a mild frenzy; stock shots had been made available to the media and on her web site. But, there was always the lunatic fringe of places like the National Tribune or Inside Hollywood that didn't want the stock shots, and Eino was able to help them out. But, it had died out quickly, and he had been just a little surprised that nobody had requested a shot of a heavily pregnant Jenny.

But the call from Lenny was a dog of a different color and Mike knew it, which is why when he headed down Central to Lakeshore, he turned right to head out Point Drive rather than left toward home.

As it turned out, Jennifer and Blake were home, as they usually were. They got out when they needed to, but with their recording studio in the basement they didn't have to go out much, especially during the rotten-weather time of year. Some people thought that the two of them sat around there and didn't do much, but Mike knew better. They were among the harder working people in Spearfish Lake and spent a great deal of time developing music and practicing, working on promotions and business, most of which didn't show to the outside world.

There was a warm, crackling fire in the big marble fireplace in the living room; Jennifer sat in an armchair, breast-feeding Jeremy, who was covered up in a blanket. He was just three weeks old. Some women, like Carrie, said that he resembled his father, but Mike wasn't willing to venture an opinion at that age. "Hi, Mike," she said. "What brings you over?"

"Odds and ends," he said, and shifted into Yooper. "Ya know, Eino would sure like dat shot, yaah, you betcha."

"I do look a bit motherly, don't I?" Jennifer smiled. "He's being a very good baby."

"They're all good at that age," Mike said. "I can tell you from going around that block three times. Just wait a couple of years. You look like you're recovering nicely."

"I'm starting to get back to normal," Jennifer smiled. "Whatever normal is, anymore."

"Now you're getting the message," he said, then got serious. "Look, I'm afraid I've got news that you're not going to like."

"What happened?" Blake asked.

"Eino got a call a few minutes ago from that airhead at the National Tribune," he reported. "We've got a new junior reporter, just started today, and we were in the middle of a discussion so I didn't want to rush right out. Blake, I'm afraid they've found out about your past."

"Not surprising," Blake nodded noncommittally. "Shows how dumb they really are to take this long to figure it out. Hell, they have to make up stuff because they can't figure out what's really happening."

"Yeah," Mike said. "But, it's going to be out in the open, probably not too long, either. Eino can probably stall them a week or two, but if he stalls too long there's plenty of stock shots or stuff from tours that they can use."

"What does he want?" Jennifer asked.

"A shot of the three of you," Mike said. "Sneak shot, of course. They just can't steal it off the web site like any normal media would do."

"You're sure they know?" Blake asked.

"I'm pretty sure they've been tipped," Mike said. "Lenny asked Eino, 'You ever hear any talk about there that maybe her husband likes boys better than girls?' Eino told him he'd never heard anything like that, but from the context it's clear that they've got a lead. I'm afraid the secret is going to be out."

There were only five people in Spearfish Lake who knew that Blake had been actively gay when Jenny hired him as her bodyguard over fifteen years before, and three of them were sitting in this room. The other two were Jennifer's sister, Brandy, and her husband Phil; they knew because they'd visited Jennifer in LA after Blake started working for her. Not even her mother and father knew.

Mike only knew because Jennifer had brought a sneak-photo problem to him while she was home on vacation -- the first of the incidents, and one she hadn't wanted to take to her parents; Mike had been the next choice. Blake hadn't come to Spearfish Lake with her -- he was taking a vacation, too; they hadn't expected any security would be needed in Spearfish Lake. It was then that Jennifer told Mike she had first met Blake on a county fair tour some time before. He'd been in Hollywood then, and since his screenwriting aspirations were going nowhere he was making eating money as a security guard. A few months later Jenny, as she was called then, had received a couple of threats -- he still wasn't clear what that was about -- and decided she needed a full-time bodyguard. She called Blake, who said he didn't want the job, and told her why. But, Jenny was cute about it. "Look at it from my viewpoint," she told him. "I don't want to have to have a bodyguard to protect me from my bodyguard. I'm not looking to hire you in spite of the fact that you're gay. I'm looking to hire you because you're gay."

Blake had serious doubts, but he also had serious empty-wallet problems. With considerable reluctance he agreed to take the job, figuring that whatever the threats were they'd blow over soon. But, he discovered before too long that the happy-go-lucky showgirl Jenny was only a cover up of the deeply depressed Jennifer Evachevski who lived beneath. He soon became her closest friend, her confidant, the only person in Los Angeles who Jenny could be Jennifer Evachevski with. Blake was a talented person in several fields -- martial arts, music, and gourmet cooking were only some of them. Under his tutelage Blake had turned Jennifer into an accomplished guitar player, and they soon branched into songwriting.

Even with Blake's support, the pressures of being Jenny Easton were getting to be too much for Jennifer when she admitted all that to Mike in his office at the Record-Herald. Mike organized a little shenanigan to get rid of the film crew; it involved a little sleight of hand, and set the film crew roaring through the red light on the state road at Central Avenue at a radar-gun calibrated speed of 117 miles an hour in front of pre-alerted cops, who were none too happy. That took care of the film crew. Afterward, Mike got Jennifer off to the side in a series of gentle discussions about who she was, and where she wanted to be -- and the answer was back home, in Spearfish Lake.

The move home took a while as Jenny had a number of pre-existing commitments, but it was started in the fall of '87 and complete by the summer of the following year. Jennifer insisted that Blake come with her, at least for a while, to help her get settled; he could keep it in the closet for a while if he had to. Blake told Mike shortly before the move that he was still actively gay, but Mike had the impression that it had ceased not long after that. Jennifer and Blake had their private lives, and they weren't his business unless they wanted to tell him something about it. They rarely did. In the eyes of the town, they were an extremely close couple, just a couple who had never gotten around to getting married.

In those years Blake had found a home in Spearfish Lake. He now hated his home town of Los Angeles almost as bad as Jennifer did. He'd found friends here, activities, interests. A martial arts expert since high school days, Blake had thought his talents would deteriorate from lack of practice, but Jennifer's dad offered to practice with him -- Gil hadn't known anything about formal martial arts, but quickly proved he hadn't forgotten much about what he'd taught Green Berets. Over the years, a small, informal group had evolved around it. Blake had learned as much as he'd taught, and had developed the closest male friends he'd ever had in the process. Gil had gotten him into fly fishing too, and Jennifer's mom had gotten him into cross country skiing and golf. Mike had taught him a little dogsledding; Tiffany and Josh had gotten him into kayaking. Several years before Mike had put him together with the high school principal, who had been looking for someone to direct the school play. Blake had been involved with the process often enough and knew the ropes. It had proved a lot of fun, and the kids were thrilled to hear some of Blake's chosen Hollywood stories. A lot of that, maybe most of it, wouldn't have happened if he'd been openly gay.

And, things had blossomed in other ways, too. When Blake first came to Spearfish Lake he'd been a bodyguard, a friend, a practice accompanist. It wasn't long after that that he began to accompany Jenny on stage as well, although staying firmly in her shadow. Her fans knew who he was; though there wasn't a lot of publicity, Jenny was never seen in public outside of Spearfish Lake without him hovering close by. But, it was never made clear publicly just what their relationship was other than "good friend."

It was more than that, by now. Mike never knew exactly when the switchover was, or what had caused it, but he'd always figured that Blake hanging around Jennifer had sooner or later worn him down. But, he was in on the secret that Blake had become more than an employee when they formed Jenny Easton Productions and started doing the Wonderful Winter World TV specials. Most people thought Jenny Easton Productions was nothing more than a tax dodge for Jennifer, and to a degree, they were right; but if anyone ever bothered to look at the books, they would have discovered that Blake owned 48% of the company. Jennifer held 51%, at his insistence -- Mike had been in on the discussion, mostly because he, Brandy, and Phil shared the other one percent to fill out a board. Mike had never talked it over with Blake and Jennifer, or with Brandy and Phil, but he figured that told him that Blake had become even more important to her in the years she had been in Spearfish Lake.

Then a year ago this coming spring Jennifer discovered she was pregnant. She told Mike later that summer that she'd always thought she was infertile, but guess what? Jeremy ruined that theory. After fifteen years of living together, she and Blake were married between takes on the set of Saturday Night, to the surprise of most of the crowd. Mike had been one of only a very few who had known it was going to happen -- he'd taken the stills of the ceremony, which was where Eino had really gotten the wedding photos.

"It's not like it's any big surprise," Jennifer said, smiling down at Jeremy, nestled against her breast under the blanket. "I'm surprised that it took anyone this long to figure it out."

"Yeah, me too," Blake agreed. "Of course, some of those people have trouble remembering if they changed their shorts in the morning. It's been a long time."

"Mike, it's not like we didn't know the issue was out there when we got married," she said. "In fact, this may be the best way for it to come out. Nobody believes what's in those supermarket rags anyway. If anyone brings it up, we can just say, 'Come on, it was in the Trib! You're going to believe that, are you?"

"I know," Mike said. "But I'm still worried about what happens if it gets beyond that."

"I'm not," Jennifer said. "In fact, that's the least of my worries. Yes, there may be some static from the country music crowd. Since I've been trying to distance myself from that bunch for years, that's actually in my favor. Blake may get some static from the gay community for turning straight on them, but it's not going to hurt sales. Look, we talked it out last summer, nearly to death, and you were in on a lot of it. There's not the same stigma about it there was even a few years ago. If anybody wants to make an issue out of it, Jeremy is all the argument I need."

"That was an awful brave statement," Mike said, "Especially as much work as we've gone to in keeping jokers like the Trib out of this town. The bottom line, Jennifer, it's your call. Yours and Blake's."

"It'll blow over if we don't do anything to fan the flames," Jennifer said.

"So, what does Eino do about Lenny and the Trib?" Mike shrugged. "I mean, no point in helping them."

"Like you said, they'll come up with a picture somewhere, even if it's off the web site," Jennifer said thoughtfully. "I think we'd better give them one, though. It might maintain Eino's credibility if we need the heads up later on. I don't want to try to get one here, though. Eino might have a problem explaining how he got into our living room. Maybe at the Super Market, while we're out buying diapers."

"That sounds like an Eino shot," Mike said. "I can grab a disposable off the rack and shoot one there." Mike had figured out a long time before that if you wanted a photo to look like it was shot with a crappy camera, the easiest way to get it was to shoot it with a crappy camera.

"Not right now," Jennifer said. "I think I've got our little man about full, and I think he's getting sleepy. And I know you've got a paper to get out. Thursday sometime, I guess."

"Whatever you want," Mike said. "I'm just sorry this had to happen."

"It's not like we didn't know it was going to," Blake told them. "And it could be something more serious than the Trib. Having them on point just blunts it."

"Mike," Jennifer said. "If worse comes to worst, I'm just going to take the Tammy Wynette option. In fact, Blake, the next time we get together with the gang let's work it up a little, just in case we need it."

"What's that?" Mike asked, confused.

"Shhh," Jennifer said softly. "I think he's dropping off." Softly, slowly, in a mother's lullaby, rather than the top-of-the-lungs screech that Tammy Wynette fans were familiar with, she began to sing, "Stand by your man . . ."

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