"Thank you, thank you." Rob bowed to an imaginary audience on either side.

"And what's your discerning assessment, madame?" he asked Angela, as he spooned chicken onto her dinosaur plate.

"Yum!" She squelched the food through her fingers.

"Thank god for bibs," Julianne said shuddering. "All right, baby boy, here's your peas, Davey's favorite!"

The twins gobbled their usual fast and messy meal, while their parents cut up chicken as quickly as possible and kept the plates filled. Once fully fed, they could be cleaned off, lifted down, and allowed to roister with toys underfoot. Then an adult meal became possible at last. Rob heaped his plate with chicken for himself this time, and asked, "So what's the story with Debra now?"

"Oh, you won't believe what a difference!" Julianne piled her fork with noodles and chicken. "You remember those graph slides? Well, she told me all about it. It was Gordon Rowe's fault after all! He took the graphs and had the graphics people transfer them without telling a soul, just boom!

Like that..."

Rob's attention drifted a little. He had heard this sort of thing before.

Directly between his ankles Angela was playing with her new bongo drum. At least it felt like the drum, whacking irregularly against his instep. He put his foot on it, casually pinning it against the rug, but she jerked it away, exclaiming, "Naughty Daddo!" Now, was it normal for an eighteen-month-old to be so assertive?

Suddenly he focused on Julianne again. The flavor and tone of her complaint was powerfully familiar, and it only took him a second to recognize it from lunchtime. She was working up to a demand. Resigned, he waited for it.

"-the simplest thing, all things considered, would be for me to take over Rowe's position, when he retires next year."

"What, become director of the Association? I thought the garment designer members got to vote on the director."

"Why shouldn't they choose me? You could tell them to do it."

Rob concentrated on scraping food up with his fork. "And Rowe has been promising to retire next year since the Reagan Administration. What makes you think he's serious this time?"

"He's going to have to bite the bullet some time." Julianne said it as if this were the most obvious fact in the world. "He's never there anyway, except when someone important comes by. All he does is work on his golf handicap."

"Nothing has to be done about it right away, right?" Rob said. "Let's wait on it awhile. See how things develop." He stared unhappily at the congealing mess on his plate. It looked like library paste studded with carrots and peas. Maybe he should learn another recipe.

"And there was another idea I had." Julianne speared another chicken wing and transferred it deftly to her plate. "You know how Ike is getting his degree next month?"

"Is he really?" Rob turned his attention to Ike's problems with relief.

Julianne's younger brother, a perpetual student, had stretched his four-year undergraduate degree program well into his twenties. "What's his major now?"

"Oh god, some time-waster, I think it's sociology. The point is, he'll need a job in the real world."

"Not easy in this economic climate, Jul. He doesn't exactly have a stellar resume."

"Well, I told him to leave the bar gigs off," Julianne said. "And all those part-time busboy jobs at Shoney's. But what I figure is, once he decides what field to go into, you could give him a boost."

"Me?" Rob wanted to clutch his forehead with both hands. "And suppose he wants to be a rock drummer, like he did in the eighties? Jul, I don't know that I can create talent where there isn't any!"

"Did I say he was going to be a drummer?" Julianne demanded. "We wouldn't let him do that. I think he'd make a great CPA. Or maybe a lawyer."

"He'd make a lousy CPA," Rob said flatly. "Ike can't balance his own checkbook! How on earth will you talk him into graduate school, and on such a tough track?"

"You can do it."

"Noway!"

"Oh, come on, Rob," Julianne coaxed. "We want him to support himself, right? God knows my parents won't last forever, and once they're gone he'll sponge off of us, unless he develops some openings."

"No. Zero. Nada. Not one cent, not one finger lifted in his direction.

Ike's only hope is to make it off his own bat."

"And what about Angie?" Julianne demanded.

"What about her?" Rob asked, caught off balance by the sudden change of subject.

"Her real problem is that lukewarm boyfriend of hers, what's-his-name, Jerry. If there's one thing that gets on my nerves it's a commitment-phobic man."

"Good gosh, you don't want me to stampede Jerry Catharing, do you? Maybe Angie hasn't made up her own mind about him-have you thought of that?"

"True, but-" At that moment a squall of rage came from the living room. Rob got up to investigate and found the twins wrestling over a toy. "Now, sugar pie, you know that the walrus is Davey's special friend," Rob said reasonably.

"No!"

"Where's Angela's special pal, huh? Where's Tigger?" He snagged the toy out of the playpen and thrust it into Angela's arms. "Okay, now everybody's ready to go upstairs, right?"

"No upstairs!" Angela said. She hated bedtime.

"We'll take a bath first," Rob reminded her.

"Bath," Davey said happily.

"You're up for it, huh sport? Jul, I'm taking Davey upstairs for his bath.

And then we'll read 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff.' "

Angela wavered. They might squabble, but the twins hated to be separated.

And the story was an irresistible lure. "Okay, bath," she conceded.

Rob hoisted them both up. "We're all going up for a bath," he told Julianne as they passed the kitchen.

Julianne was speeding through the dinner cleanup, rattling the silverware into the dishwasher and rinsing plates. "What you really ought to find her, Rob," she said, "is a better boyfriend. Angie, I mean. A nice rich one, not too old or too flaky."

Rob didn't bother to answer that one. On either side of his head the twins were hooting, achieving their famous stereo effect that cancelled all rational thought. He galloped up the stairs with them, shouting, "Gangway!"

They screamed with delight. How wonderfully simple it was, to please them!

CHAPTER 7.

The next day was Thursday. The West Coast salvage team wouldn't arrive till this afternoon, so there was nothing for Rob to go in to work for. Julianne took the bus to the station, leaving him to drop off the twins at his leisure. Rob watched her trot off, glancing at her watch, her high heels clicking. It was a week ago today, exactly, that the bus driver had tried to ignore her. It might have been a decade. Certainly Rob felt as if he'd had ten years' worth of experiences.

He herded the kids into the van and drove them to Miss Linda's. "Going in a little late today, huh, Mr. Rob?" she greeted him.

"I'm sure sleeping in did us all good," he answered. She was assuming he was going in to the office, and he didn't correct her.

Instead he drove to Great Falls. It was a less than ideal day to go-he remembered with regret the piercingly mild days earlier in the week. Today was cooler, tending to rain. He wore new jeans and a nylon Redskins warm-up jacket, and hoped the drizzle wouldn't become a downpour.

The unpaved trail wound through a strip of woodland. Beyond was an infinity of cloudy gray sky between the tall trunks. He came out onto a shoulder of rock the size of an office building. The water-seamed granite sloped slightly downhill, and he picked his way carefully to the verge.