Bill heard his secretary's voice over the intercom. "A rep. on the phone, Mr. Pierce."

"Put him through, Denise." July of '76 was slightly less crazy than July of the two previous years had been, but that didn't mean that it wasn't crazy.

"He's not here, Mr. Pierce." He didn't recognize the voice.

"Who's 'he'? Who, for that matter, are you?" It must have been one of the new hires. He could identify most of the old hands by their voices, and nobody got to be an old hand without learning proper telephone technique.

"Dr. Ginsberg's not here. Nobody's here. I'm Greg Williams, a new representative." He remembered the name, could almost remember the face.

"Is the office closed? Is his name on the door? What's the address?" The last was critical. There probably was more than one doctor on their list named 'Ginsberg.' The office was closed. There was no notice that he would be back, let alone when. He took down the address.

"It's simple. You go to the next name on your list. For God's sake, man, you're there to show him some pills; you're not looking for him to suture up a knife wound. If his patients can survive without him, you can too. How long have you worked for Andalusia?"

"Two weeks of training. They sent me off yesterday to buy a car. This is my third call."

"Well, the training should have included telephone technique. When you call your supervisor, you always identify yourself. And you should call your supervisor, not me."

"Yes sir, but he's on vacation. You told me to call you if there were any problem." He sounded like an English major.

"Well, call me if there are any problems you can't solve." He hung up the phone, hoping that little Gregory had gotten his hint.

He gave Denise Davis the name and address. She would look him up in the phone book and call his office. With any luck, the recording would include the vacation schedule. Still, fewer and fewer reps, including three who were green as grass, were visiting doctors -- too many of whom were on vacation. Summers were always a problem, but he was especially antsy this summer.

The President was going to be 70 in October, and he would retire then. Watkins, the VP of marketing, was a possibility for that job. If Watkin's slot became vacant, Bill was a contender to move up. As sales manager for the central region, he already had an office in national HQ. His region was not only the largest, its share had grown under his leadership. He would look even better if its share increased this quarter; sales in every region would dip slightly in the summer, but if the central regions's sales dipped less, it would be one more plus for him.

On the other hand, there were several other regional sales managers who were older and had held that position longer. Pete Carlson, who was in charge of national over-the-counter sales was also a contender. He, too, worked in the national HQ, and the company was putting a little more emphasis on OTC medicines recently.

The polite fiction, of course, was that there was no competition at all. They would go to the birthday-farewell party for the president because they were fond of the guy and were sorry to see him go. If Watkins got the job, they would congratulate him and tell him that the board had picked well. Whoever got the VP slot would be a friend. Andalusia wasn't the mafia where your subordinates went gunning for my subordinates. The mafia was much more honest about competition.

And, now, Carolyn wanted him to ask for a week's vacation on short notice. She wanted to present a paper to a conference. He'd got vacation days for the second week in August, but he'd had to ask Mr. Watkins for them. If Watkins became president, the board would ask his recommendation for his replacement. Would he remember that Bill had asked at an inconvenient time for vacation days during a period when he would be very likely to be needed? Would that influence his recommendation? Bill didn't know, but it worried him.

Greg Williams's call hadn't been the first crisis of the day, not even the first crisis of the afternoon. It turned out, however, to be the last. 5:00 came. He looked up at the picture on his wall before heading out into the muggy street. Carolyn and the twins all smiled down at him. Well, while Carolyn would smile for the photographer, he could remember how many takes had been required to get both boys smiling at the same time. This year, he considered himself lucky to get one of the three to smile.

The EL platform was hot with only the breeze for relief. The train was hot without a breeze. The windows didn't open because the car was supposed to be air conditioned, but the air conditioning wasn't noticeable in the crowded car. He removed his coat when he got to the platform at Central. His car was now in the shade but like an oven inside. He turned the key in the ignition and got the windows down before getting in. He left the air on these days, but it didn't work when the ignition was off. The seat was hot against his back as he drove home. He left the windows open until he was parked, but the breeze didn't cool him. It just blew dirt and fumes into his face.

Carolyn didn't offer to kiss him when he walked into the apartment, and it was just as well. He walked over to the air conditioner and turned one of the vents upwards. He turned around in the stream of cool air, trying to get all of him cooled off while he removed his tie and draped it over his coat on the chair.

Soon enough, the boys lost their interest in the TV and came over for a roughhouse. Johnny climbed on his back while he pinned Paul. Paul pulled his shoelace free while he pinned Johnny. When the boys worked in concert, they won. He could carry both boys at once, one in each arm. In these games, though, working together always succeeded. Some day, they might learn that lesson. Bill wasn't holding his breath.

"Okay," Carolyn said, "let Daddy up. He has to wash his hands before he eats." Her tone communicated to him -- and maybe to them -- her displeasure at the game.

Did she think he didn't want to cuddle them? The point was that when either boy wanted to be cuddled, he wanted to be cuddled by his mother. And, even when one of them wanted that, he often struggled against his desire and hers. Bill could hold them, and they would hold him, but only if it was a big-boy, masculine holding like spinning them around or holding them down in a fight.

He got the boys into the bathroom. He pissed into the toilet while Paul used the potty seat. Then he emptied it and rinsed it out. After Johnny used it and he rinsed it out again, they all washed their hands.

Since the 14th was an even day, he got Johnny. Johnny ate his meatloaf, but played with his potatoes and gravy. When he wanted more meatloaf, Bill told him that he had to finish the rest of the meal first. Carolyn, whatever her other faults as a mother, however much she tried to raise their boys as girls, put less on their plates than would feed them. Instead of having to persuade the kids to eat, they permitted the kids to have seconds -- but only after they had finished everything in the first serving.

The kids had been inside all day. All right, outside had been beastly hot and humid. All right, Barb was only one person, and one person couldn't really ride herd on two boys in the park. Still, the boys were going stir-crazy without knowing what to call it. It was too late to take them out, even if Carolyn would come along. Instead, he got them a little exercise, and him too much exercise, inside.

By 7:30, they had worked off a little of their accumulated energy. He flipped a coin. It landed on his palm heads for the third night in a row. While he slapped it onto the back of his hand he reversed the coin. That prestidigitation was simple.

"Heads," he said and showed them the coin. "Johnny." He took him to the bathroom. Johnny used the potty seat again, washed his hands, and brushed his teeth. Bill took him into the boy's room and supervised while he removed his clothes. He diapered him and got him into his jammies. With Johnny in bed, he went back to empty out the potty seat for Paul's use. He heard the motion before he was out of the door. He hoped Johnny wasn't going to hide under Paul's bed again. That always led to a screaming match. No. He could hear the closet door.

Paul went through the same regimen. When Paul was in bed, Bill took notice that Johnny's bed was empty. Carefully, he looked under Paul's bed, under Johnny's bed, and -- only then -- in the closet. Johnny was not only not under Paul's bed, he wasn't even on Paul's side of the closet. Bill sat on Johnny's bed, turned him over his knee, and gave him a swat. The plastic which surrounded the diaper held enough air to make a satisfying pop when his hand landed. He doubted that Johnny felt anything at all.

When both boys were in bed, he read them a couple of stories. The books were mostly pictures, which weren't of much use when two boys were in different beds. He turned the overhead light off as he went out.

"Daddy. I need a drink." "I do, too." So he got them drinks of water. Carolyn came in and kissed them good night. They left together, grateful that there were no more demands.

"Did you get the vacation days?" Carolyn asked as soon as they got into the living room. That she'd waited 'til now showed that she knew that this was a fighting topic. Other new parents waited until the kids were asleep to get a little make-out time. The two of them waited until the kids were asleep to have a fight. Fighting with Carolyn, or making up with Carolyn at least, used to be more fun.

"I got them. I'm senior enough to get the days I want on a month's notice. The problem is that the reason that I'm senior is that they need me to run things, and I'm needed more in August than in any other month. But I got the week." And getting the week might just mean that he wouldn't get the promotion. And he was at a level where promotions were only possible when the situation called for it. If Watkins moved up and he didn't, he might never make VP.

"Do you think we could give Barb that week off? She's entitled to two weeks off a year." Now that was ridiculous! Barb not only took care of the kids, she took care of the apartment so Carolyn could run around doing economic research. Barb cooked lunch and dinner. Bill couldn't cook, and the boys either wouldn't like his taste in delivered meals or would get addicted to them and revolt against the meals that Barb cooked the next week. Besides, he wanted to take the kids out of the house. That really required two adults.

"Well, she can have them when you're here to take up the slack. I get three weeks of vacation, total, and I worked years to get up to that. You get three months. I'd think you could use some of those months to actually be with your kids instead of using them to shuttle off to a vacation resort away from our family responsibilities." And, of course, most of what she did there was 'networking.' This was a fancy name for socializing. So, he was supposed to frazzle his nerves keeping Johnny and Paul from killing each other instead of giving them quality time with two adults capable of taking them out in public. Meanwhile, she would spend the time socializing with other economists. And other economists just happened to be almost all male.

He'd had an affair with Carolyn, an affair which she gleefully told him wasn't her first. He'd wanted to extend that affair into marriage because she was so damned hot. She had agreed, after a little thought and some concessions on his part. She had never expressed the desire to be faithful to him for life. Only when the church had put those words into her mouth had she even mentioned that. Okay, you could have hot or you could have faithful; you probably couldn't have both. He, when you really got down to it, preferred hot.

But, in Boulder, she was going to get some rest. She would work hard for her presentation. She would listen to several others. But even the after-talk socializing couldn't wear her down the way her regular schedule did. Some faceless professor was going to get what Bill hadn't had for two years, a rested Carolyn.

"Look, Boulder is a college campus. I didn't choose the spot, you know. What I'm going to do is present a paper and meet some colleagues. And as for your generous estimate of my vacation time, that's when I don't have to teach. That's when I do economics. They hire me to teach, but they hire me because I'm a researcher. And I do damn little economics in that plenteous free time because I'm looking after those two monsters day in and day out. You moan and groan over one week's doing what I do after a hard day's research or a hard day's teaching, but that's all you'll be doing. If you so much as take them to the zoo, you'll have Barb along." Damn straight, he'd have Barb along. And he would take them to the zoo again. This year would be much better than last. They'd know what the animals were; they could last loads longer before they needed their strollers. Other days, he'd take them -- and Barb -- to the park.

Yet she was making so much of her -- very brief -- time with them alone. For that matter, she had almost no time with them totally alone: less than an hour in the morning and less than two -- closer to an hour and a half -- in the evening. He got them while she was at Choir practice on Thursdays, and they shared responsibility the rest of the evenings and weekends.

"And that play is part of the problem. They've become violent kids, and that's because you're violent with them." That was fucking-well bull shit! They weren't all that violent for two-year-olds. Her problem was that they were boys. Her picture of kids was girls, older girls, playing nice with their dolls. Anyway, their actual violence, which they would have to be taught was wrong, wasn't his fault. They hadn't learned it from him because he hadn't done it. Johnny and Paul knew the difference between wrestling and fighting. How come Carolyn hadn't learned?

"Violent? Have I ever bitten Paul? Have I ever kicked Johnny? No. So how come their habits of kicking and biting are all my fault. Hell! You used to complain about their kicking before I'd ever met them." And back then, he'd sympathized. Maybe he shouldn't have. They'd been simply moving around in her.

"Well, you're rough with them, and they're rough with each other -- and with anyone else within reach. And you spank them. That's the sort of example you set." Hell! Now she was talking about giving Johnny one swat he hadn't felt. She was looking for some reason to blame the boys' kicking and biting on him, but he was the one who gave them a reason to change. He didn't really give them a reason to stop hiding; it was a game they all enjoyed.

"Hell! They hide from me when they know I'm going to find them and spank them. The spanking can't be that traumatic. If it was, they'd stop hiding."

"It's just that they live in a culture of violence. Is it any wonder that they're violent themselves?" She wanted girls. Well, she didn't have girls, although he was far from certain that two-year-old girls were all that quiescent. Kids were born able to cuddle, cry, piss, and shit. Anything else you wanted them to do, you had to teach them. He could teach them some things, but he'd be damned if he would teach them to be pansies.

"They're two years old. Is it any wonder that they're violent? A little roughhouse, a roughhouse when they're not mad at anybody, is just the exercise they need." She was so insistent that her theoretical training trumped his experience in economics. But she pretended to be the expert in child psychology, too, and she had never had a course in it. She just thought she knew more than he did, period.

"Yeah. That really helps their meals digest. That really puts them in the mood for sleep." Great, now they'd go to sleep faster if they got absolutely no exercise during the day. When she was gone, he'd time how long they took to go to sleep.

"Those kids haven't been in the mood for sleep since before you weaned them." Paul and Johnny were curious, and some of that they got from her. They didn't want to close their eyes in case they might miss something.

"Now it's my fault!" Shit! That fucking well was not something he'd said, not something he'd thought, not even something his words could possibly mean.

"I never said that. What part of the word 'before' is too complicated for a professor to understand? It's just fucking idiotic of you to blame their resistance to going to sleep on something I never did until long after they both started refusing to go to sleep. They're boys, and I'm going to raise them to be boys. Not that they wouldn't fight each other anyway."

"And you're sure of the ways of boys. Maybe so. I certainly don't expect you ever to teach them anything about being an adult. Maybe when they've learned, they can teach you. It won't be for another twenty years, but I certainly don't expect you to learn before then." Adult?? He wasn't an adult? She should talk. She still didn't understand adulthood.

"Let's see. One of us went to work summers while in college and then full-time right after college. He's been promoted regularly and supervises others. He earns enough to keep a family. Another stayed in school and stayed in school." His voice was rising, but he couldn't control it. "She doesn't earn enough after paying for child care to feed either herself or her kids, let alone clothing and rent. She is so dissatisfied with the job she finally latched onto that she spends her free time networking in hopes of getting another. Now, which one is the adult?"

"Water," Paul said. He couldn't help having heard the tone of their voices, even if he hadn't understood their words. Carolyn got him to the bathroom to piss, and then gave him more water. With Paul awake already, she took Johnny to the bathroom, too.

Well, they shouldn't argue until the kids had a chance to get into deep sleep. He'd turn on the televison. Carolyn sat beside him. For once, she didn't criticize his taste in shows. They watched silently. He gave a bit of his attention to any sounds from the boys' room, and he assumed Carolyn did, too. He heard not a peep.

Then the news came on. The second story was an interview with an economist. He looked over to see if she perked up her ears, but she showed no obvious interest. The guy was senior economist for some investment firm he'd never heard of. He was droning on about inflation. He didn't seem to know how to stop it any more than Bill -- or, for that matter, Ford -- did. Then he said "wage push inflation." Carolyn had criticized him for using that term. Now one of her peers -- one of her superiors, a senior economist working in an actual firm had to be ahead of an assistant professor -- had used it. And a guy like that would be careful of his vocabulary in a TV interview.

"That," he pointed out, "is what it really is. You keep calling it 'cost-push.'"

"Bill, the receipts of OPEC are hardly wages. That's what started, or rather accelerated the recent round." Now she was changing her tune. She'd said earlier that OPEC was only getting the price they deserved.

"And you say that they deserve it."

"Ibn Saud is hardly my favorite international figure. I quite prefer Gerald Ford to him. On the other hand, the oil cartel is not doing any more gouging than domestic companies are." Says who? But she was going on.

"Your preference for 'wage-push' is a position on who should take the hit. I call it 'hot-potato inflation' -- though I'll admit I'll never use that term in a paper. Your costs rise, and you pass the hot potato to me. That means my costs rise, and I pass on the hot potato to somebody else. Not you-you and me-me, of course." Well, he could see that. He wasn't charging her for anything.

If anyone was doing the charging, it was her, though marriage wasn't quite like that. He got a hot woman in his bed and babies -- well, toddlers now -- to hold. She got three squares and a roof over her head. Maybe the trip to Boulder was inflation. She didn't get any more, but she gave less for the same things. That was going too far, though he was paying for her trip. But he had to deal with her argument.

"Well, business costs are real costs," he told her. "If our wages rise, we have to raise prices. The unions are only raising wages because they can."

"And the cost of living of the workers hasn't risen? That's strange; the Pierce family's cost of living has risen." Well, the cost of living a certain way had risen.

"Well, their cost of living would fall if they ate hamburger instead of steak."

"How often do you think the guys on your assembly lines actually eat steak -- as opposed to the executive suite."

"Well, I worked hard to get where I could eat steak. I notice that you don't refuse it when I take you out."

"I'm quite happy living well. I'd be even happier if I had time to take a breath. But that I enjoy eating well doesn't mean that the next person shouldn't have that opportunity. And if you have to raise prices when wages rise, you only have to raise prices if profits are going to be maintained."

"And if we made no profits, we'd get no investments, and we'd never have the machinery, let alone the research, to make the new medicines."

"Well, Andalusia, yes," she said. But every company had a similar situation. "And 'no profits,' yes. But you want every worker to cut back on his consumption. If every company cut its profits by 10% -- hell! by 50% -- the stock-buyers would still buy stocks. They chase higher profits, but the total amount of money put into stocks and bonds has very little to do with the rate of return." That sounded like another highfalutin theory to him.

"And if they didn't get dividends, where would they get the money to put into the stock market?"

"Well, I said that 'no profits' would bring things to a screeching halt. But so would 'no wages.' You aren't considering wages having no purchasing power; you're considering -- desiring -- that they have less purchasing power. I haven't calculated the size of my hot potato, but it can't be any significant fraction of the size of dividends. I'm not even suggesting that it should all be taken out of dividends or even all out of profits. You're the one suggesting it should be taken all out of wages. I use -- when I'm not confiding in you -- 'cost-push inflation,' and that implies all costs. You want to use 'wage-push,' and that singles out one -- admittedly major -- cost to the exclusion of all others. Sure Andalusia's wages have gone up the last few years, but haven't the cost of raw materials gone up, too? The cost of machinery?" Yeah. They were talking about inflation. That meant that prices had gone up. But it was wage-push inflation because it was wages which had pushed them up.

"Well, their wages have gone up, too."

"As have their other costs. Saying 'wage-push' isn't an analysis of where the pressure comes from. It's an ideological decision as to who should suffer the squeeze without passing it on."

"It's the accurate term." She didn't answer, but she didn't concede, either. She just sat there. He turned his attention back to the news until the sports were over. He clicked off the closing blather.

"You knew I was an economist when you married me," Carolyn said. So he had, if he hadn't known just what that meant. She talked a lot about what she'd have to do to get her degree. She hadn't said a word about going to conferences afterwards.

On the other hand, she hadn't said that she wouldn't. He now remembered Dan's talking about conferences he went to and papers he presented at conferences. But, much as Dan was a friend, he didn't mind a week of absence. They often didn't speak even when they saw each other in church.

"Yeah, but I didn't really know what that meant. I sort of thought that people studied for a while, then they graduated, and then they went to work. And, really, while you certainly talked about your studies, all I really had in my mind was that you were a sexy woman." She'd hear that as an accusation, and it wasn't. "I'm not claiming you hid anything from me. You told me more than I wanted to hear. I'm just saying that your sexual desirability overloaded everything I heard."

The real problem was that she was 'networking' with people from all over the country because she wanted another job. Well, that was something they had discussed before their marriage. She didn't need to net anything from her teaching at circle. Hell! he made enough. He couldn't pay Barb and Carolyn's gas and stuff all out of his paycheck, but could cover a good deal. She didn't need to earn half what she did.

She did need to stay in Evanston.

"Poor Bill," she said. "You married a sex bomb, and you're stuck with an old frump." That wasn't true at all. Sure, he'd noticed the melons first, but he had soon learned that she was sexy in many more ways than the melons -- by the first kiss if not before. She was still sexy; the melons were still sexy, if not so shapely.

"No. I married a sex bomb, and you're still a sex bomb. You're a grouchy sex bomb, but I can't say that I wasn't warned. I don't complain that you're not sexy; I complain that you're not here."

"Well, I'm here." Was she here for always, or only here for now? Well, he didn't want to raise that issue. He didn't want her thinking about it, and he didn't want to precipitate the break if she was already thinking about it.

"Yeah, but you won't be in August, and I don't really want you here." That could be taken wrong. And if anything he said could be taken wrong, Carolyn would take it wrong. "Maybe 20 feet from here and with less armor plate." All this talk had made him horny. He grabbed his robe from their bedroom on his way to the bathroom. The sooner he was in bed, the sooner they'd be in bed together. When he came out, she went in. But she came out in her nightgown.

"I'll go to them first. You can take the nightie off." They had both slept naked more often than not until the twins were born. Tonight, she shook her head. "At least pull it up." Simply getting out of bed would lower it to cover her. She began to raise it, and he helped her. His hands, if not his eyes, had access to her. Carolyn's sexiness was not only her desirability, it was also her participation. Maybe the second increased the first. Even if she was never rested, she was almost always receptive.

He reached under the hem and up to her melons. He kissed her, licking every corner of her mouth he could reach. Her tongue met his. If the body of her melon wasn't as firm as it had been before the twins, the nip was larger. As it hardened, he really had something to play with there.

Whatever their troubles, she seldom brought them into bed. When his hand drifted down towards her snatch, she opened her legs in silent invitation. As he stroked her little button, her kiss grew hotter. She lay open to him, accepting his tongue and finger. When she stiffened, it was arousal instead of rejection. He pulled his tongue back in caution and began to lick the insides of her lips.

She gasped into his mouth. Her legs clamped together and her crotch rose into his hand. Her snatch was suddenly juicier. Even so, he rested his finger and moved his mouth to her forehead. She was so sexy, so much a woman, but she needed some time to come back down.

"You are the sexiest woman." He brought her hand to his mouth. He loved her; at this moment, he loved her more than usual. Her lips, however, weren't available for kissing just now. Neither set of lips was. When her breath evened so that the top set was available, he kept her hand in his. He leaned over to kiss her, but he'd do this series of kisses from between her legs.

"Wait," she said. She pushed his hand back. "Lie flat. No. Help me with this and then lie flat." She took her hand away to pull at her nightgown. He was glad to help. Considering the implications, he was glad to lie flat, too. When she was naked and the nightgown was hung on the headboard, she pulled the sheet back so he was as exposed as she was. Since she planned to be on top, he moved almost to the center of the bed. She straddled him and crawled slowly up in the bed over him.

"Darling!" She bent a little more until the ends of her long nipples touched his chest. He felt his cock jerk at the contact. He kept his hands at his sides, although she hadn't told him to. She was in charge, and that was delightful. She continued upwards until one nip was within reach of his mouth. He sucked greedily and then began to tongue it.

He stroked her seat tentatively. It was her game, but she hadn't told him the rules. When she didn't object, he squeezed both cheeks. Then he moved his right hand to her thighs. When she moved so that he had a different breast in his mouth, he brought up his left hand to feel the nipple he'd been sucking. He rubbed the lips of her snatch against each other on the way to her clit. She was nice and juicy, and the juice flowing out of her snatch was reaching her clit without his help. He gave it a little help, anyway.

She was teasing him, and he was so hard it was aching. Still, Carolyn wasn't going to leave him dry, and the present sensations -- especially her melon in his mouth -- were delightful. Then she grabbed his hand.

"Not yet," she said. She pulled the melon out of his mouth and sat up. She gripped his cock, and he almost came in anticipation. Then the warm folds at the entrance of her snatch were around the tip of his cock. She sank back, taking more of him into her. She lowered herself until his entire cock was surrounded. The warmth, the softness around him, the smoothness were wonderful.

"You have the best ideas," he said and reached down to get her clit again. When he needed to move within her, although in that position he really couldn't, she provided the motion. After rising until he was almost out and then settling all the way down two or three times, she changed to short strokes. He started to raise his hips to enter her more deeply as she sank down. Her expression turned inward and he sensed that she wasn't seeing him though her eyes were wide open. Her muscles were tense, and she was taking shorter, faster strokes. He slowed his strokes on her clit to make it last longer, then sped them up as he felt himself begin to lose control.

Then her snatch pressed around him. She grunted. She rose, pulling her tight snatch all along his cock. He lost it.

"Yes," he gasped. He drove into her and erupted. Then she dropped onto him. Her melons were mashed against his chest. She pulled her snatch from around him. The last of his come shot out, then dribbled out, into the air.

He put his arms around her, and she lay on him for minutes. Then one of the boys -- it sounded like Paul -- cried. Well, it was his watch; he'd said so. On the other hand, he couldn't get up until she did first.

"I said I'd get it, but you'll have to get off." Well, she'd just gotten off and gotten him off, but now she'd have to get off of him.

"No. I'll get Paul. You just be ready in your robe for Johnny's cry." Well, he'd do that. They might not be the most compatible couple he knew, but they'd learned to coordinate caring for the twins.