"So, Blake," Jennifer’s voice interrupted his musings. "Where are we at on dinner?"

"On hold, pretty much," he replied. "It’ll take a good hour once Garth and Michelle and their kids get here, but there’s not too much point in getting started before they do."

"They should have been here by now," Danny’s mother said. "But they usually run late, so it’s not unexpected. That’s why we set dinner a little early."

"You do what you have to do," Jennifer smiled.

The next half hour was all interesting conversation – not all of it catching up with Danny, of course, there were other things to talk about, and predictably, some of them were about people Danny didn’t know, incidents he hadn’t heard about. That was to be expected and it wouldn’t be so bad next time; after all, while they’d been officially living in town since the late 1980s, Phil and Brandy were just now getting back into being locals again; Jennifer had been gone for several years before she returned with Blake, and in a sense, she was only partly a local, since much of her life was outside the community. And Tara, of course, hadn’t been a local since the day she left for college, and hadn’t even been home in the summers she was in college much, working at camp-counseling jobs, mostly doing arts and crafts. In a way, it was comforting; while he may have been something of a stranger, these people were trying to make him feel at home, and next time it wouldn’t be so awkward.

That couldn’t be said of Garth and Michelle, who arrived a little later with Chandler and Brianna, their two children, who were something like twelve and ten, from Danny’s reckoning. Much as he hated to say it, he hadn’t really been looking forward to their arrival. Oh, it would be good to see Garth again; it had been a long time, and there was some catching up to do. But Michelle – he’d never particularly liked her from the day he’d met her. She was short, shorter yet than Brandy, but heavy-set, even then. She had a very loud, strident voice, didn’t know how to keep it down in a conversation, and besides, seemed to think that every discussion was hers to run. Worse, she took her religion straight and seriously, and expected Garth to do the same.

What Garth had ever seen in her was beyond Danny’s reckoning – but then, what he’d ever seen in Marsha was beyond his reckoning, too. What was it about this family that produced such independent, friendly, competent daughters and seemed to consign the sons to getting hooked up with harridans who had to run their husband’s lives in detail to make sure they stayed permanently miserable? It was a trap that Danny devoutly hoped to avoid in the future, and he’d avoid women altogether if he had to. Free at last, free at last . . .

It had been several years since Danny had seen Garth and Michelle, like his other brothers and sisters with the exception of Brandy, who he’d seen for a couple hours last summer when she made a point of coming out to the Club to see him. Now, it seemed that Michelle was shorter than he remembered – at least her hair was – and she’d put on even more weight. She had to be over three hundred pounds, Danny thought. And, it had been years since he’d seen the kids, and they’d grown up a lot. Still kids, of course, but big ones, now. Chandler was short and heavy, in fact downright fat, with thick glasses. Danny took one look at him and figured that he was the kid chosen last for every playground game, and knew the poor kid was going to catch hell from the other kids before he got out of high school if he didn’t already. Brianna, though younger, was even taller, but slender, taking after Garth some; she had braces, and the soft-palate kid voice that went with them. They seemed like well-mannered kids – quiet, but then, getting a word in edgeways with their mother around had to always have been an issue with them.

After Michelle had given them a considerably detailed account of their perfectly normal trip up to Spearfish Lake from Milwaukee, the subject turned to Jennifer’s pregnancy – and almost immediately, to Michelle’s two, which she related with excruciating detail. Danny didn’t need to look at Jennifer’s face to tell that she was less than interested, and really didn’t want to hear horror stories about what she faced in the next few days. "We’re going to at least attempt a natural birth," Jennifer said finally, with a tone in her voice that indicated that as far as she was concerned, this line of discussion was at an end. "I will consider a C-section if it becomes necessary, but I’m told that at my age it limits the possibilities of future successful pregnancies. We’ve already decided that we do not wish Jeremy to be an only child."

Whether Michelle could hear the frost in Jennifer’s voice or not, everyone else could. "So, sis," Brandy piped up, in a deliberate attempt to change the subject to one where Michelle could have little input. "What about your new album, is that still on the ticket for next summer?"

"We were originally going to start work on it over the holidays," Jennifer said, obviously relieved to have the change in course. "But, for several reasons, Jeremy included, we decided to put it off till next summer. The title is already set, it’ll be called Whispering Pines. It’s a new-wave album, like At Home and Back Porch were, all original music." She turned to Danny. "You may not be aware of this, little brother, but we spent almost a year in negotiations with Nashville-Murray over a new contract, and they just wouldn’t give in on some points that we considered important. Then, when we discovered I was pregnant, we broke off negotiations."

"News to me," Danny said. "All I knew was that you did At Home, Back Porch, and Saturday Night on your own label."

"There’s a good reason for that," Jennifer explained, glancing over at Michelle, who was eagerly awaiting a chance to stick in her two cents worth . . . or more. Apparently Chandler and Brianna weren’t very interested in hearing the story, since they asked their mother if they could go outside and play in the snow, and their mother approved, but only if they dressed warmly.

"Nashville-Murray has always considered me to be a pure country singer," Jennifer continued after the brief interruption, "and we’ve tried to pull away from that in recent years. The only way they got the last contract signed was to give us the option of allowing us to produce two albums of my own that weren’t down-home country. They didn’t like it one bit, but that was the only way they got the contract. I had to do two down-home country albums, which Blake calls ‘cheatin’, honky-tonkin’, and drivin’ pickups’ albums for Nashville-Murray. And, we did, Fencerow and Come Closer. But we decided that we’d alternate years, one old-line country one year, one what we call ‘new-wave’ the next. Since we were in negotiations with Nashville-Murray, we really hadn’t done much planning for the next album, which had to be old-line. Then, I discovered I was pregnant, so that put a time limit on getting an album done if we wanted to do it before Jeremy was born. Besides, we sort of wanted to prove that we could do old line better than Nashville-Murray. Blake was the one who came up with the idea of doing an all-up concert album with the Boreal String Band over at the Pike Bar. We threw it together in about a month, and recorded it in one big day, in front of video cameras as well as recording equipment."

"We were going to come to the session," Michelle said as Jennifer stopped for a breath. "But we didn’t think it was a very good example for Chandler and Brianna to be hanging around some bar. We certainly didn’t know you were planning on getting married, but if we had known, I suppose we might have done something different."

"It was a wild hair that came up at the last minute," Jennifer said, as Danny realized that he and Marsha hadn’t been the only ones frozen out of the wedding because of a loudmouthed wife, although in that case Jennifer had let Michelle take the responsibility. "It just seemed like the right thing to do," she continued. "And really, it worked out pretty well. The album hasn’t been a chartbuster, but it has sold well, partly because Blake managed to get us good coverage on Great Performances on PBS, of all places."

"Darn," Danny said. "I didn’t see it. I wish now I had."

"We have plenty of videotapes," Jennifer grinned. "It was aired after things blew up with you and Marsha, anyway, and you were out of reach there for a while so no one could tell you. Anyway, all in all we were pleased, considering that it was such a thrown-together idea. There were several things we wanted to do with that album and video, and we accomplished most of them, not the least of which was to showcase Myleigh Harris a little."

"Myleigh?" Michelle frowned. "Oh, the woman with the harp. That seemed a little strange, to me. I would have thought you would have done something more conventional."

"That was the point, to go out and do things a little unconventionally," Jennifer explained. "Myleigh is something unconventional but very special. Among other things, she and Randy Clark drew my attention to Dawnwalker, which proved to be a surprise hit and gold cut on At Home. Blake and I had given up on it, but when we heard Myleigh play it, we realized that song was written for the Celtic harp. As it turned out, she was available all the next summer. We did a lot of things with her, and I think she learned a few things, too."

"She really is incredible with that thing," Blake said, as Chandler and Brianna headed out the door, heavily dressed. "She does things I didn’t think could be done with a harp."

"Is she really a doctor of literature?" Michelle asked. "It seems, well, odd."

"Let me tell you," Jennifer smiled. "Dr. Myleigh Harris is one of the most brilliant, extraordinary people I’ve ever met. I’ve heard people say that about me, and I don’t like to compare myself to her. Yes, I was an overnight success at the age of eighteen." She let out a sigh. "At the age of eighteen, Myleigh Harris walked into the dorm at Northern Michigan University, with her harp in one hand, everything else she owned in the world in her other hand, and maybe a couple hundred bucks in her pocket, which she’d earned washing dishes and mopping floors. She was totally estranged from her parents, who I understand are real louses, and her only other family in the world was an aunt who was near death, but who in her last days, literally as her last useful act in life, drove Myleigh to college.

But, like I said, Myleigh was brilliant, and she was one determined little girl. She made it through college on scholarships, student loans, and odd jobs like running a floor buffer, along with some help from her roommate and Randy Clark, who she met there later on. She was a junior when she and Randy began playing together, and he brought her home for the holiday at Thanksgiving when she was a senior, since she literally didn’t have anyplace else to go. That was when they demonstrated Dawnwalker to us. Now, even though playing her harp is just a hobby to her, she’s a magician at it. The reason for that is simple, I found out later. She never had a lesson in her life until she had already pretty well mastered the harp, so she discovered a lot of things on her own, some of which professional harpists will tell you can’t be done on a harp."

"But, how did she become a doctor of literature?" Garth asked.

"Because she wanted to very badly," Jennifer said. "It was her goal since childhood, and she was not about to let little things like no money stand in her way. Myleigh is quite memorable for the way she speaks. Most of the time, she sounds like she just stepped out of an English novel from two hundred years ago, and she has one of the firmest, but most delightful personalities I’ve ever had the privilege to come across. But, she was broke, and I felt I ought to help out some way if I could. I offered her a low-interest loan, even a gift, to help her with her graduate studies, but she’s not one to take charity, and she turned me down politely but very firmly. So, I had to get sneaky. Rather than offering her scale for her work on At Home, I offered her a share in the album. It took a little while to come through, but she did much of her master’s and all of her doctorate, which included a summer in England, on the proceeds of her work on At Home, and later, on Back Porch. We’re producing another album for her, which will be out this spring, Harp Strings. With any luck, it’ll help her pay off some of those old student loan debts. She’s quite happy being a doctor of literature, and she teaches down at Marienthal College in Kansas City. What’s more, she did it not taking my charity but instead earned her way. She takes a lot of pride in that, and with good reason."

Danny had been thinking all through the last part of Jennifer’s story that Dr. Harris had to be a helluva determined individual, and a pretty interesting person . . . but he had a story that he knew could top it. Was now the time to tell it? Perhaps so; there’d never be a better chance to ease his way into the topic in such a way that it might seem innocent. "Unfortunately," he said slowly, "I’m almost appalled to say that I know a woman who’s even more determined."

"Appalled?" Brandy frowned. "I think that kind of determination is heartwarming, that someone will work that hard to get to their goals. It’s like I tell the kids all the time, the things that are given to you aren’t worth it. It’s the things you have to work for that are."

"Unfortunately, yes, appalled," Danny sighed. "It’s really pretty sad when you stop and think about it. Not long ago, I happened to meet a young woman who wants to be a doctor. Her mother is more or less OK, I guess, but her dad is a real louse, and he won’t sign her financial aid papers so she can get some help in going to college. She busted her butt through two years of premed, got good grades, but was just totally broke and up to her butt in student loan debt already. So, she took a year off school to go to work to build up enough money to get her through school. Her goal is to raise two hundred grand before taxes, and she thinks she has a shot at a quarter million in the sixteen months she plans on working. She was well over a hundred grand a couple weeks ago, so she might do it. Now, a quarter million sounds like a lot of money, but you figure that after a pretty good tax bite she’s got to make that last for tuition for six years, four of it in a fairly expensive med school, plus all the expensive books and stuff, pay living expenses and everything else, plus have something to add to her stipend while she’s in internship and in residency, and it’s not all that damn much money. But, she’s determined, I have little doubt she’ll make it, in spite of what she’s doing for it."

"A quarter million?" Michelle frowned. "In sixteen months? That’s an awful lot of money for a kid with two years of college to be earning. What is it she’s doing?"

Danny glanced toward the door. "Kids outside?" he asked. "Yeah, must be. Michelle, you get three guesses, and if ‘prostitute’ isn’t one of them, you lose."

"Prostitute?" Michelle said, wide-eyed. "She’s a prostitute to get through medical school?"

"Yep," Danny said. "I have to say, if she’s that determined to be a doctor, I think she’ll be a damn good one. I also have to say that I’m awed by her determination, her drive to accomplish her goals, but at the same time I’m more than a little appalled at what she has to do to accomplish what she wants to do."

"I – I can’t believe it," Michelle shook her head, obviously a little speechless for once.

"The concept is bad enough," Danny expanded. "When you run the numbers, it gets even worse. I never asked her what she charges, but one evening she mentioned that she’d netted a thousand bucks out of five parties, so I have to figure the average is two hundred bucks a party, that’s the term that’s used. Divide that into a quarter million, and divide the results over sixteen months." He sighed. "The number boggles my mind of how many times she’s going to have to sell herself to accomplish her goal, but if that’s not determination, I don’t know what is."

"How do you know she’s not pulling your leg?" Brandy asked. "I’ve met a few hookers around mining camps; they will do that, you know."

"I don’t necessarily," he replied. "But there are some others who back up her story pretty much, so I think it stands a good chance of being true."

"Others?" his mother frowned. "Danny, can I ask how you happen to know this young woman?"

"Yeah, you can," he said, choosing his words carefully, and deliberately slanting a few, even away from the literal truth. "There’s something I didn’t tell anybody about the last few weeks because I wanted to hold off on it till I got home. Now, you may not be aware of the fact that prostitution is legal in licensed brothels in some counties in Nevada. It’s the only place in the country where it is, and it’s fairly closely regulated, mostly for public health and safety reasons. Many of those places have bars. I spent the last five weeks working as a bartender and waiter in a place called the Redlite Ranch Bordello in Antelope Valley, Nevada."

"Danny!" his mother said, jaw hanging open, wide-eyed. "You didn’t!"

"I did," he admitted. "Now, I should point out that part of the deal with my working there was that I had to keep my hands off the merchandise. Between the number Marsha did on my head and what these girls are, it wasn’t at all difficult. But, I do have to admit, it was interesting, and I learned an awful lot I never, ever, figured I’d learn."

"Well, good grief," his mother shook her head. "I never dreamed you were doing something like that."

"Like I said, I didn’t want to admit it before I got home," he shrugged. "I was bored, I needed something to do, and the money was good. It was legal and licensed, and while I got to be friends with a few of the girls a little, I didn’t party with them. What do I think about it? I’m of several minds, both good and bad. It isn’t far enough in the past to make a judgment. When I first found out that the place was across the road from the motel where I was staying, I was so appalled that I almost moved. Then I got to know the people involved a little, some of the rationale involved, and it makes a sort of sense in a skewed way."

"Well, I think it’s appalling," Michelle snorted.

"You may be right," Danny conceded. "Obviously, the people in Nevada don’t think so, and, for that matter, I’m still technically a Nevada resident. I’ve had the chance to see the other side of the coin and examine it fairly carefully. I’ve thought about it a lot. It’s not an easy moral judgment, when you stop and think about it. I mean, you’ve got gambling all over the place in Nevada, you can hardly walk into a place anywhere without running into a slot machine. Is gambling any less immoral than prostitution? I don’t know. Seems to me they’re the same side of the coin in some ways, and others not, but the courtroom, the lawyer’s office and the Redlite Ranch were about the only places in Nevada where I never saw a slot machine, so go figure. Next week I may look at it differently. I don’t know. I do know that a copy of Saturday Night was on the jukebox, and it pissed me off to hear my sister’s voice in there whenever anyone played it, but I couldn’t say anything since I didn’t want to admit Jennifer was my sister in a place like that. Anyway, to get back to this girl. The guy who owns the place told me pretty much the same story as she did."

"I thought you were holding back on something," his father grinned. "Something tells me you have some stories to tell."

"Yeah, a few," Danny said. "In fact, some good ones, a couple of amazing ones. But to understand them, you have to make the admission that the business exists, like it or not. I’ve been there, I can do that."

"It’s obvious it exists," Jennifer said, obviously maneuvering to take a little of the heat off of him. "I knew about the licensed houses back in the days when I played in Vegas. Of course, you don’t go far in my business without tripping across prostitution sooner or later, and it takes a lot of different forms. What always struck me was that the system they have there seemed safer and more honest all the way around. But then, I really don’t know. I mean, I wanted to be a prostitute once, but I grew out of it."

"You what?" Michelle cried as Carrie got very red-faced, and Gil got a strange expression on his. Garth just grinned; he remembered, although the younger kids like Danny had obviously never heard this family story.

"It was what I told the school guidance counselor," Jennifer laughed. "I think I was thirteen, she was a stuck up old biddy with a real stuffed shirt, so I thought I’d pull her leg a little."

"Oh, yes she did," Danny’s mother grimaced. "You would not believe how fast we got a phone call."

"I could be wrong," Jennifer said. "But I suspect it’s something a lot of girls kick around at some point in their lives, maybe not very seriously. Maybe not being a street hooker or house girl, but an elegant courtesan or something romantic like that. I know when I got older, I realized that I could never do it."

"I told a couple of the girls that if I was a woman, I wouldn’t have the guts to do it," Danny said. "One of them told me that women are different than men. I suspect she was right. I did see one woman and her husband who wanted to push the edge of the fantasy a little . . . " he continued, then heard the front door opening and the kids heading back inside. " . . . but another time, maybe. Jennifer, have you figured out what you’re doing after Whispering Pines?"

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