"What, you memorized it?"
He pulled the tape recorder and the tape out of his pockets. She looked from one to the other and then whooped once with laughter and then got a frown on her forehead. "You did have the tape in the recorder, I hope!"
"You'll hear it all, Fish Lady," said Step. "The Junk Man really got the junk this time."
She threw her arms around him, as far as they would go, with her belly so large and solid in front of her.
And she kissed him. "Come on inside," she said. "Stevie's been so nervous, you need to tell him everything went well. This is great, you having the afternoon off work like this."
"What am I doing?" said Step. "I can't believe that I even came home. I'm on my lunch hour. I've got to go back."
"Oh, no!" she said. "It's four o'clock, there's only an hour left anyway."
"Yes, but Dicky and I had a run- in about me leaving, so I've got to show my face there, but I'll tell you what, I'll get home as early as I can, all right? Tell Stevie it went fine, tell him that his teacher will never pick on him again-and if she gives even one hint of it tomorrow, I'll get her fired, and I can do it."
DeAnne laughed. "I'll bet you can."
"And thanks for getting the lawn mowed," he said.
"I'll pass it along to Bappy."
But he couldn't go. "Aw, Fish Lady" he said, in his mock-sorry voice, "I gotta tell him myself."
"Oh, of course, you goof," said DeAnne. "He's in the family room playing computer games."
Step leaned through the doorway from the kitchen to the family room. Stevie was sitting at the Atari, playing some game with a pirate ship, talking at the screen. "Come on, Scotty!" Stevie said.
"Stevie ," said Step. "I've got to go back to work, but I wanted to tell you."
Stevie pushed the reset button on the computer, and the screen went blank and then blue.
"You didn't have to turn it off," said Step. "I was just telling you, everything went fine with Mrs. Jones. The tough days are behind you, I promise you."
Stevie nodded-glumly. Well, of course, Step thought. Even if I'm right, he knows that getting the teacher off his case won't instantly give him a whole bunch of friends at school. But at least maybe some of them will talk to him.
Step kissed DeAnne again, got back in the car, and headed back to work. When he got there, he saw three notes on his desk. All three were messages from Ray Keene. They all said the same thing: Ray called. Wants to know where you are.
Dicky was so low, so petty, so spiteful that after months of trying to make sure that Step never got a chance to talk to Ray Keene directly, he got Ray to attempt direct contact when he knew Step was gone in the middle of the afternoon.
Step immediately picked up the phone and punched in Ray's extension. As he had hoped, it was Ray's secretary who answered. "Hi," he said. "I'm returning Ray's call."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ray's in a meeting right now," said the secretary.
"Isn't that the way it goes?" said Step. "I'll bet the meeting is with Dicky, isn't it?"
"Well, Dicky's one of the guys in there, anyway," she said.
"Isn't that the silliest thing?" said Step. "Ray was trying to call me, and yet Dicky was with him, and Dicky knew that I had taken a late lunch today so I could meet with my son's teacher. You'd think Dicky would have told Ray so Ray wouldn't waste his time trying to reach me."
"Oh, Dicky probably just forgot," said the secretary.
"I'm sure you're right," said Step. "Would you tell Ray that I'm sorry he called me during my late lunch today? And give Dicky a poke in the ribs for me, forgetting to tell Ray where I was like that!"
"I sure will," said the secretary. "Isn't that just the way things go?"
"Ain't it the truth," said Step, and hung up.
Maybe the scene would play right and maybe it wouldn't, thought Step, but at least Dicky might have an embarrassing moment or two, if the secretary actually relayed the message even halfway accurately, and if Ray just happened to be standing there when she did.
Because he hadn't been there for much of the afternoon, Step wasn't deeply involved with any projects and so he was able to get away by five-thirty. When he walked past the pit on his way to the door, Glass called to him. "Hey, Step!"
"Hey, Glass," said Step. He came a little way into the room. There were several programmers there, but they were goofing around, not working- he knew that, because he recognized the games that were on the screens, and none of them were published by Eight Bits Inc. They did that sometimes, staying after work and fooling around with other companies' games. They called it "industrial espionage" but the truth was that they loved computer games, and here were all these machines and all this software lying around, and most of them didn't have families anyway except maybe parents, and so why the hell not stay late and play?
"Heading for home?" asked Glass.
"Wish I had time to play" said Step. "But yeah, I'm going home."
"Ray was looking for you," said Glass.
"I got the messages. I was taking a late lunch."
"It sounded important."
"Well, when. I got back, I called in and so Ray knew that I was back and he didn't call again, so it can't have been too important."
Glass rolled his eyes. "Do you know what the term 'deep shit' means?"
"Glass," said Step, "Dicky knew where I was. Dicky didn't like where I was, but it was my lunch hour, and I wasn't cutting out on work. So if this is even a halfway rational universe, I'm not in deep shit."
"I didn't say you were in it," said Glass, grinning. "I just asked if you knew what it meant."
Step faked slapping him across the face. "Why I oughta ..."
"Oughta what?"
"Never mind, you're too young," said Step. "In fact, I'm too young. I don't get it myself. Seeya tomorrow, humans. Seeya tomorrow, Glass."
Step headed out to the car. On the way, it occurred to him that he'd seen practically every game on the market for the Atari, and he didn't remember any of them with that pirate ship he had seen Stevie playing with.
He'd have to check and see what the game was. Probably just one of the games he brought home from work to look at- it was one of the perks of working for a software company, that you could bring games home as long as you brought them back. Stevie must have found one that Step hadn't actually seen on a machine yet.
By the time he got home, his mind had turned to other things, and when he finally stood there in front of the Atari, he could only remember that there was something he wanted to do with it but he couldn't remember what. Oh well, it would come back to him.
The family actually had dinner together, and he was able to coax Stevie into playing some games with them afterward. He wasn't much fun, though, but at least he was playing, and after he saw that things were better at school, maybe things would also start to get better at home.
Step was all set to help DeAnne get the kids through bathtime and bed when the phone rang. It was Sam Freebody, the elders quorum president. Freebody was a tall man, sloppily fat, and he seemed determined to prove every cliche about the joviality of fat people. So it took a bit of convivial chitchat before he finally came to the reason for the call. It was what Step had expected-and, truth be known, dreaded. "I'd like to give you your home teaching assignment," Brother Freebody said.
"You know," said Step, "if yo u could hold off on that for a while, I'd be grateful."
"We're really short-handed in the quorum," said Freebody. "Everybody has to do his share or the Church will grind to a halt."
Step remembered giving the same speech many times when he was elders quorum president back in Vigor.
"Brother Freebody," he said, "I know what you mean, and I believe in home teaching and I'm actually an excellent home teacher, but right now at work I'm putting in twelve- hour days most days and I never get to see my family and I don't think it'd be fair to them or to me if I spent one of my few days home going out-"
"You're home now," Freebody pointed out.
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Step wanted to scream over the phone, It's none of your business! But he knew Freebody was only doing his calling, and doing it well. "Yeah, I guess so," said Step. "OK, look, I'll do my best. I just warn you that I might not get to everybody every month."
"Right now, Brother Fletcher, you would improve our quorum average if you just got to anybody, any month."
Step laughed and then wrote down the names of the families they were supposed to visit and a few notes about each of them. Freebody was an excellent elders quorum president, Step realized-he actually knew who these people were, they weren't just names on the roster to him. Home teaching wasn't just something Freebody had to get other people to do, it was an enterprise that he cared about and understood. It made Step determined to take the time to do his home teaching, to help Freebody and because Step, too, believed in the program.
Really believed in it, except when he forgot to think about it at all, which was most of the time.
"And your companion is a young prospective elder named Lee Weeks. He's a new convert, nineteen years old, and I'm hoping to get him ready for a mission maybe in a year or so. So set him a good example!"
"You mean, like, don't take him out for a beer afterward?"
Freebody guffawed. "I mean show him what a normal member of the Church is like. He has a lot of enthusiasm, but some of it is directed toward some kind of weird ideas."
"Weird ideas?"
"How can I put this, Brother Fletcher? Let's just say that he was first contacted by Brother and Sister LeSueur, and he took all the lessons in the ir home."
"I'm not sure I know what that means," said Step. Of course, he knew exactly what Freebody meant-the kid had been exposed to the strangest, most self- servingly charismatic version of the gospel that could be imagined.
But Step was already getting into the spirit of the way things worked in the Steuben 1 st Ward: You know that certain people are difficult, but you just work around them as best you can and try not to put the nastiness right out in the open. As a westerner, Step was used to a more direct way of doing things. But if this elaborate effort to avoid hurting anybody's feelings or provoking any conflict was the southern way, then Step would learn to act southern.
So Step wasn't surprised when Freebody's only explanation was to say, "You'll see. He's a good kid, though."
Step wrote down Lee Weeks's name and phone number. "Does he live at home or will I maybe get a roommate when I call?" he asked.
"Lives at home. His mom's a shrink. Divorced, so I haven't met the father. She approved of Lee joining the Church, though, so there's no problem with hostility."
"So she'll deliver messages."
"Heck, she'll probably push him out the door to go home teaching with you. She even drives him to church on Sunday."
"He doesn't have a license?"
"I guess not, or maybe he cracked up the car once too often or something. She drives him, anyway."
That was that. Step said his good-byes and hung up the phone and sighed as he sat back down at the kitchen table.
"Home teaching, right?" said DeAnne. She was loading the dishwasher.
He got up and started helping.
"No, Step, I'm almost done, and you've already been the hero of the day. I just want to hear the tape."
"The kids are all bathed?"
"I'm real fast now," said DeAnne. "Splish-splash and I pop 'em in bed. And Stevie takes his own bath. Done in record time. I'm a wonder"
"You are, you know," he said.
She smiled. "Let me hear the tape."
So they sat in the family room and listened as Step copied the tape from the microcassette recorder to the cheap little Panasonic that clearly wanted to be a boom box when it grew up but would never, never make it.
The quality of the recording wasn't that good, especially when Step had been across the room from her, but it was certainly good enough to hear pretty much everything, and even the copy was OK.
"Oh, Step," said DeAnne when the tape was finished. "You are sly."
She meant it as a compliment, but to Step it had a hollow ring. He didn't like thinking of himself as a sly person.
"You should have heard me later," said Step. "I stopped being sly, and turned into a bully." Then he told her in some detail what he had done after he stopped recording. And how Mrs. Jones had called it blackmail, and he wasn't sure but what she was right. At some level, anyway.
DeAnne slapped him playfully on the arm. "There, I hereby punish you. Case dismissed."
"I just thought it would feel better than it did."
"Come on, didn't it feel just a little bit good when you pulled out the recorder and showed her?"
"Yes," said Step. "But afterward ..."
"Afterward you found a way of making yourself the villain of the piece," said DeAnne. "But you weren't.
You were rescuing your little boy."
"Yeah," said Step. "When I remember that, I feel better. But I don't always remember it."
"Then I'll remind you," she said. "Again and again and again." To his surprise, she kissed him long and soft and deep, and he realized that she was going to make love to him tonight.
"Maybe I should bully defenseless teacher ladies more often," he said, when the kiss was finally done.
"Shut up, Junk Man," she said, and kissed him again.
"Step! Step!" He dreamed that DeAnne was very, very upset and she was calling to him, softly so she wouldn't wake the kids but her voice was full of fear. Then he opened his eyes and looked at the clock and at the same time heard her call his name again and he realized that it wasn't a dream at all, it was three in the morning and something was wrong and DeAnne was calling out for help, she needed him to help her.
He threw back the covers and got up and realized that he was naked; he must have fallen asleep as soon as they were through making love. I hope I stayed awake long enough to actually finish, he thought. And then remembered that yes, he had. DeAnne had not been left unsatisfied tonight, as she had so many nights before.
He inwardly slapped himself for the churlish thought and went to get his bathrobe out of the closet. The only light in the room was what spilled in from the kids' bathroom, which was around the corner and down the hall, so he could hardly see anything; but he found the robe and put it on. She called again.
"I'm coming," he said, trying to be loud enough and yet soft enough at the same time.
"Put on your slippers first," she said.
"I don't need them," he said.
"Yes you do!" she said, and her voice rose almost to a scream at the end, and so he put on his slippers and then went to the door into the hall and just as he was turning on the light he realized that he had just stepped on something, and something had just bumped against his leg, and now the light was on and he saw that the floor was jumping with crickets. Dozens of them, hundreds of them.
"Holy shit," he said. "I mean good heavens."
"Where are they coming from, Step?"
"What an excellent question," he answered. He bent over and brushed several of them off his legs. It was almost impossible to take a step without crushing one under his feet while others jumped at him, landed on him.
DeAnne was standing there holding a can of Raid. "I don't think I should be breathing insecticide fumes when I'm pregnant," she said.
"There isn't enough Raid in a can to kill them all," he said. "We'd asphyxiate the children long before we got the crickets."
"What, then? Sweep them up into garbage bags?"
"Sounds better than trying to stomp them all," he said. "Where are the seagulls when you really need them?"
"I'll get the garbage bags," she said, heading for the kitchen.
While she was gone, he tried to find the source. The hall was the worst place, it seemed-there were only a few in Betsy's room and in the bathroom. But when he turned the light on in the boys' room, it was even worse.
The crickets were so thick on the floor that in places he couldn't even see the carpet
. The crickets jump ing on him made him want to scream, and walking was very slow when he had to keep brushing them off, and finally he just stopped brushing them off, even though he couldn't stand the way it felt to have their feet on his naked legs. He couldn't brush them off because they were here in his children's bedroom and he had to get rid of them and so what did it matter whether he was comfortable or not?
They were coming up from a small gap in the back of the boys' closet. He could see them crawling out, first the antennas and then their black, mechanical bodies, their legs like pistons. Robot crickets, that's what they are, he thought. Somebody made them.
And then he thought, 1 made them. Crickets from hell. A plague of crickets. A sign to me that God saw the way I bullied that woman today and he knows that I secretly loved doing it, that I loved the power I had over her. So just like Pharaoh, I get a plague.
DeAnne was in the room now, holding several garbage bags and a broom and dustpan. "You'll have to hold the dustpan while I sweep," she said. "I can't bend over that far these days."
"Forget the dustpan," said Step. "They'd just jump off. I'll hold the bag open for you. But first we've got to stop them from coming in."
"You found the place?"
"A crack between the floor and the wall in the back of the closet. Do we have any rags?"
"All the old socks," she said.
"Get them wet and we'll jam them in," he said.
"Wet? Why?"
"Oh, please, DeAnne, I don't know, just do it." He wasn't really sure why. He just had some vague idea that if the socks were wet then he could jam them in tighter and they'd stay in place better and it would do a better job of keeping the crickets from coming through.
It took all the socks DeAnne had been saving for dustcloths, but when he had jammed them in, no more crickets were able to come through.
Then the hard part started. The crickets were not inclined to hold still, and so it seemed an almost sisyphean task. Step would keep the bottom of the garbage bag flat on the floor by holding down two corners with his feet, and then hold the top open as far as he could with his hands, while DeAnne tried her best to sweep them in. All the while, of course, they were jumping up at Step's head and onto his arms and legs; yet he couldn't let go of the bag to brush them off, he could only shudder and shake his head. The boldest of the crickets seemed to enjoy this, and hung on for the ride until Step finally asked DeAnne to sweep them off.
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