"You're home now," Freebody pointed out.

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.