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THE STUDIO IN THE COUNTRY - Part 3

DISCLAIMER: The story that follows is a work of fiction. Many characters are completely fictional. Though some characters are based on actual persons, they should not be considered accurate or truthful representations of those persons. This story is not intended to reflect the behavior, work habits, personal hygiene, or sexual proclivities of any real person, living or dead, since the invention of soap.

THE STUDIO IN THE COUNTRY

Part 3- Monday night

The walk back to the house took a little longer. The path went through the woods most of the way, and we had to stop once to climb a wooden fence that separated the pasture from the area around the house. Brian and I approached the house from the east side, so we entered through our front door. We found Mom and Robby at work in the kitchen.

"There you are!" Robby said.

"Brian wanted to walk around, so I took him around the pasture trail. Brian, this is my mother, Evelyn Corbyn. Mom, this is Brian Littrell, one of the Backstreet Boys."

"The missing one, no doubt," Mom said, smiling. "It's nice to meet you, Brian. We're having dinner in the main dining room in about twenty minutes, so you two might want to get washed up. And you," she added to me, "need to get the table set."

"How many for dinner?"

"Fourteen," she said. " I asked Stacey to stay for dinner, since she worked so late today."

Brian grinned at me. "That will make AJ happy," he said.

"I thought she like Howie best," Robby said.

"Well, let's be sure to ask her at dinner," I replied.

"My, this is funny," Mom said a little sarcastically. "But we have work. Scoot!"

"My mother, the task master," I said toward Brian as I turned to leave the room.

"You had to get it somewhere," he replied with a smile as he stepped out toward the hotel rooms.

I took an incredibly quick shower. Fifteen minutes later, I was dried, dressed, and setting the large table. It was actually four tables pushed together, though the tablecloth hid that fact. Configured this way, we could seat up to sixteen people and still have plenty of room for all the food. Dad had planned several configurations depending on seating more or fewer people than that. When it was just the five of us, three of the tables were folded and stored in the laundry room off the dining room.

The plates and place settings were down, and I was setting out two glasses per person when Nick and Howie came in.

"Gah, that's a big table!" Nick said.

"Yeah," I smiled at him. "Several trees died to make this meal possible, so you'd better enjoy it." When I started to pour iced water into one glass per person, Howie took the pitcher from me.

"Here, let me help."

"Thanks," I told him. "If you're gonna be helpful, I may have to trade one of my brothers for you. While you do this, I'll start bringing in the food."

Nick followed in me into the kitchen; and we, with Mom and Robby's help, had the food on the table pretty quickly. I'd been right about the pot roast, but Mom had planned things well. Usually she served basic home cooking, but there was a small chicken salad in case anyone had an aversion to red meat and enough vegetables—both steamed and fresh—to take care of any vegetarians that we hadn't known about.

I wonder what she had planned for me tomorrow. She did all the meal planning, but we all took turns doing the cooking and cleaning, including the hotel rooms and the laundry. Tomorrow I had to cook five meals—Dad and Mom were big believers in mid-morning snack and teatime in addition to the regular three—while Robby set the table and Mom did the dishes. On Wednesday, I'd do the dishes after Robby cooked. Normally this was not hard work, but this week we had to feed an extra eight people -- nine, if Stacey stayed for dinner often. I had a feeling that she'd be doing just that.

Brian and Kevin were the next to arrive.

"What smells so good?" Kevin asked almost as soon as he hit the door.

"That's me," Brian said. "I took a shower."

"I hope you didn't take the last one," Howie said to him, with a grin.

"I guess we know why you guys are singers," Nick said, shaking his head. "If you were comedians, you'd starve." Everyone laughed.

"Well, you won't starve this week," Mom said. "I spent years feeding four teenage boys, so I've made sure there's plenty of food."

Just then Dad walked in grinning, followed by Mike and Stacey. "Good. You haven't started yet. I was afraid everything would be gone. Sit down, guys." Mom and Dad took their usual seats at either end of the table. I sat between them, in the middle of one side and close to the kitchen door.

While the guys were finding seats, everyone else arrived. Dave and Ms. Shaw were discussing the music tracks and sat next to each other near Dad. Ed sat on the corner beside Dad, and Robby took the chair beside him. Stacey took the chair beside Howie, and when Mike started to sit on her other side, I saw Robby wave to stop him. Robby shook his head in a silent 'no' and nodded him toward the empty chair beside Mom. With a confused look on this face, Mike sat on Mom's left. Nick was on her right, and AJ took the chair beside Stacey. Once everyone was seated, Howie was across from me, next to the two empty chairs, and Kevin and Brian were on either side of me.

"This smells great, Ms. Corbyn," Brian said. I started to introduce Mom to the rest of the guys, but Nick told me that they'd all met her while Brian and I had been out walking around.

"Where'd you guys go, anyway?" Kevin asked. "I thought maybe you'd gone riding without me."

"No, we just walked around one of the riding paths," I told him.

"After the plane and the van, I didn't want to sit anymore." Brian explained.

"Guys," Dad said, "we're not terribly formal here. Everyone just take whatever you want from the serving dish nearest you and then pass it to the left. If you want more formality, that can be arranged, but for tonight we'll be pretty casual."

"I like it," Howie said, passing one of the platters of sliced pot roast to Stacey. "It's like eating in a real house instead of a hotel."

"You are eating in a real house," Mike grinned at him.

"You know what I mean. It's not carts of food from room service," Howie explained.

Brian and AJ agreed with him. "Room service gets old," Kevin added.

"Well, we should discuss breakfast," I said. "I know you have to get an early start in the morning. We normally just have a buffet breakfast down here, but if you'd rather have..."—I smiled at Howie—"... 'carts of food' in your rooms, let me know. It's my turn to cook tomorrow."

"Buffet sounds good to me," Nick says. "What time will it be ready? We have get to work at 8."

"Make it 8:30," said Dave, "I want some time after breakfast to make sure I've got all the recordings organized. If we do this efficiently tomorrow and the next day, the rest of the week will be easy."

"I'll have everything out here at 7," I said, looking at Nick but talking to everyone. "It'll just be come-and-go. If anyone wants to eat then shower or the other way around, they can. I'll clean everything away about 9:30."

"Can I help you out in the studio tomorrow?" Robby asked Dave and Ed. "I'm trying to learn all I can about the technical side of the business."

Before Dave could answer, Dad started bragging on my brother. "Robby's good. He learned everything I could teach him a couple of years ago, and he's actually worked with the engineers on a lot of the jobs here."

"Do you work in the studio too?" I heard Nick asking Mike.

"No, I'm more interested in mechanics than electronics," my youngest brother said. "I'm going to study mechanical engineering at Texas Tech next year. But right now..."—he stared at Robby as he went on—"...they need me here for when Robby wrecks the van." Mom, Nick and Kevin laughed at what he said, then laughed again when the words sank in to Robby.

"Hey!" Robby said.

"Oh, good comeback, dude!" said AJ said to Robby.

Now that everyone had food, I got up to offer everyone drinks. Most people took iced tea or stuck with iced water. Whenever anyone asked for a soft drink, I got a can from the sidebar and made a mental note of the brand they requested. Tomorrow, when we cleaned the rooms, we'd stock their refrigerators with an extra six pack of anything we knew they liked.

When I sat back down, leaving two pitchers each of tea and iced water on the table, Kevin said to me, "Mike's the mechanic, and Robby's the engineer. What do you do around here?"

I smiled. "Oh, I'm the oldest, so it's my job to tell them when they've done something wrong." The guys laughed.

Brian said, "It's the same thing Kevin does for us," making them all laugh again.

"Ben keeps me organized," Dad explained. "I market our services and write up our contracts. Once we have a client, Ben makes all the arrangements for their stay. He makes sure that I know what needs to be done today so that tomorrow goes smoothly."

"A job Stacey is rapidly taking over," I smiled at her. "Soon, I'm gonna be superfluous."

"Wow," said Howie, "I'm impressed."

Stacey made a show of shaking her long auburn hair. In a mock pretentious tone, she said, "I am impressive, aren't I?"

"No," Howie told her, deadpan. "I mean I've never heard anyone use the word 'superfluous' in conversation before." He smiled at Stacey, who smiled back sweetly before punching him in the shoulder.

The general conversation broke into smaller conversations. Ms. Shaw and the engineers talked shop with Dad most of the time, and I noticed Robby listening closely—Robby had a great capacity to learn things just by listening: Mike and I learned by asking lots of questions, and Ethan just seemed to do everything right the first time.

Stacey sat talking to both Howie and AJ, with a grin on face so big that she looked a little demented sometimes. I mostly talked to Kevin and Brian, but sometimes our talk included Mike, Mom and Nick. When they weren't talking to us, Nick and Mike seemed to be talking about electronic games. Evidently, Mike mentioned the basketball goal to Nick, because Nick called down the table to Brian, "Hey, Brian. They have a basketball court behind the gym."

"No, it's a half court," Brian told him, "and I already saw it. You and I are supposed to challenge Robby and Michael."

"Mike," Mike corrected him quietly.

"Challenge Robby and Michael to what?" Robby asked, paying attention once he'd heard his name.

"Basketball," Brian said. "Ben said that Nick and I should play the two of you."

"It's a plan," Robby said.

A few minutes later, there was one of those inexplicable pauses in conversation, when most everyone stops talking. When it happened, the only sound in the room was Stacey saying to AJ "... never even heard your music." She stopped when she realized that everyone was listening to her.

But AJ started where she left off. "They never even heard of us!" He was looking from Robby to me and back again.

"Sure, we'd heard of you," I started explaining, "but I had never heard your music."

"But you've heard it now, right?" Brian asked.

"Yeah," Robby said, laughing. "When Stacey found out you were coming and that we'd never heard your music, she brought us your CDs and 'NSYNC and 98 Degrees." He stressed the word "and" harder each time. "It was like our own, private, boy-band music festival all week long." He was laughing really hard now, and some of the others began to laugh along.

"I hope Stacey didn't tell a lot of people we were coming," Phyllis Shaw said, eyeing her coolly.

I could sense both Mom and Dad about to defend Stacey, but Stacey beat them to it. Looking down at her plate, Stacey said, "Speaking practically, I have a good job here, Ms. Shaw, and I'm not going to mess that up. Speaking more idealistically, I know what to say and what not to say." Stacey looked Ms. Shaw straight in the eye and added, "It's a useful thing to know."

There was a bit of a pause, which Howie diplomatically broke by "So, what'd you think of our music?" I hesitated, thinking how I'd answered the question when Stacey asked me the same thing three days ago.

Robby started talking before I did. "Well, 98 Degrees has a good production value, but it's smooth-sounding background music—nothing I'd put on to really listen to."

"And most of their songs sound very much alike," I added. "The songs are well done, but they bore me. You and 'NSYNC have a good sound, too. And your songs are more creative than a lot of the competition. I think 'NSYNC has takes more chances in their choice of songs, but they're also cheesier."

Then Dad joined the conversation. "'Sailing' was a cheesy song when Christopher Cross sang it, and it's even more cheesy in close harmony."

"You mean someone recorded that before 'NSYNC?" Stacey asked.

"I'll play it for you later," he told her. "My wife has the album," he added, trying to embarrass Mom.

It didn't work. All Mom said was, "Kevin, would you please pass the broccoli?"

"So, do you like our music?" Brian asked me. He wasn't going to let this go.

I looked at him. "Not really," I finally said. "I mean, you're really good at what you do. But it's just not my favorite style of music." I tried to watch the expression on his face, but he turned toward Robby when he started talking.

"And I pretty much listen to country music," Robby added.

"Yeah," Ms. Shaw laughed for the first time. "I remember all that Hank Williams in the van."

"That's this month," Mike told her across the length of the table. "Last month, he only listened to Ernest Tubb."

"I've never heard of him," Nick said.

"Nick," Ms. Shaw said, still laughing. "He was dead before your parents were born."

The conversation broke up again. Stacey was giving her opinion of Backstreet Boys songs to AJ and Howie. At Dad's end of the table, Ms. Shaw and Robby were discussing where he got such a taste for old music. At the other end, Nick and Mike were trading stories of being told "that was before your time."

As I reached for the mashed potatoes, I asked Kevin and Brian, "So, is it a problem, me not being a starry-eyed fan of your music?"

"No, way," said Kevin. "I get tired of being constantly surrounded by people who just rave about our music all the time. You start to wonder if they mean it."

"At least," added Brian, grinning again, "you didn't claim to be a fan when you weren't. I hate when people do that." He took the mashed potatoes from me. "So, what do you listen to?" he asked.

Some time later, after most people had had dessert and after Nick and Mike had each had two, the group broke up. Dad and Robby carried most of the things to the kitchen, where Dad got to work washing and putting things away—he'd done the cooking yesterday, so washing up was his job today. Stacey offered to help clean up, but when Mom told her to go on home, she somehow managed to get both AJ and Howie to walk her to her car.

Ms. Shaw claimed she was tired and wanted to turn in early. Dave said the same thing: he'd been in the studio for some eleven hours that day and wanted to be ready to get back to it in the morning. Ed had moved into one of the other bedrooms in Dave's suite, but he said he wanted to watch a little TV before turning in. Mike and Nick headed into the next room to connect the Playstation to our big-screen TV. With Robby in the kitchen, Mike wanted to play as much as possible before our brother knew the thing was out of the box. Brian flopped onto the big couch to watch them play.

I tossed Kevin a can of Coke from the sidebar and said, "C'mon, let's go check the horses for the night."

Kevin and I left Mike, Nick and Brian in the game room and walked through the house. At the south end of the house, we stepped into the den and through it into the gym.

"Whoa, nice set-up!" Kevin said, seeing the gym for the first time.

"Yeah, we added this room almost ten years ago, and Dad and Ethan have been building up this collection of equipment since then," I told him. "Those two doors at the end are for two showers - we use them as changing rooms for the pool. That back door leads to the basketball court Nick was talking about."

"Who's Ethan?" Kevin asked. "The brother I haven't met?"

"Yeah, he lives in Austin. But you may meet him this weekend: he's supposed to come up on Friday." I opened the French doors that lead out to the pool, making sure that they were locked behind us. "Do you think you'll wanna use the gym this week?"

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

"Sure, it's usually unlocked during the day. If you come early in the morning, it may be locked up, but your room key will open these doors to the pool. The alarm system shuts itself off at 6:30." By now, I was leading him around the corner of the building toward the barn and stables. The pool was empty, but the underwater lights made it glow a pale blue.

"Maybe we could use the pool, too," Kevin said, looking at it as we walked past. "It was almost warm enough today."

"And it's supposed to get warmer for the rest of the week," I said. "September weather is a little weird in Texas: we never know if it will be hot and sunny, or cold and wet. Sometimes it's both—on the same day."

"Sounds like home," he laughed. We stepped across the gravel drive to the barn. As I opened the large barn door, the smell of animals and hay hit our noses. I'm told that a strong animal smell is unpleasant to most people, but I've grown up around cattle and horses: I like the smell.

Kevin evidently did too. One small light bulb was burning near the ceiling of the barn my grandfather had built, and when I turned on the others we could see the corn crib on the left and six horse stalls on the right. One was empty, but three horse heads were hanging out into the room. They turned to look at us, and Kevin's smile was big when he saw them.

He stepped over to the nearest one, a palomino mare named Vanessa, and reached out his hand to her. Instead of immediately touching her, he let her sniff her hand, let her get used to him. When she felt safe enough to nuzzle Kevin's hand, he gently stroked her nose and spoke to her softly.

I opened the corn crib to get some sweet feed for the stalls. Hearing the squeaky door open, nuzzles appeared in the last two stalls and Tico began to stamp and complain. I walked to him with a bucket of full of feed in my left hand. "Bitch, bitch, bitch," I said to him with affection in my voice. I patted his nose and cheeks before reaching to stroke his long neck. "You act like you're neglected, Tico. The most neglected horse in the world. When really you're just spoiled rotten."

"Tico's your horse?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah. Well, technically, Dad owns them all, but Tico only behaves for me, so I get him by default."

"Why does he behave for you?"

"I don't know. Other people can ride him, but he paws the ground and twitches and just generally complains until they get off. But when I'm on him, he seems happy." I poured some of the sweet feed into the small plastic trough nailed to the wall of Tico's stall, then stepped to the other stalls to do the same thing.

"Will we get to ride tomorrow?"

"If you have time. It sounds like you guys are going to be very busy."

"We won't be at it all day. Our voices get tired after a few hours, so we don't do much recording. We'll probably have a long break for lunch and then stop for the day in the late afternoon."

"I haven't checked Mom's menu for tomorrow, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do for lunch and dinner. But if you have time to ride after you're done in the afternoon, I'll make sure I have time too. Call me in the kitchen when you know something: I'll probably be in there all day." By now, I was pouring the last of the sweet feed into Vanessa's trough. After petting her and telling her goodnight, I crossed the room to hang the bucket on a peg near the corn crib's door.

"That's not very much food you gave them," Kevin said, sounding a little confused and concerned. I opened the barn door and closed and locked it after Kevin had come out.

"Oh, it's not meant to be a meal. More of a dessert, really. Most days the horses are out in the pasture, but we like them to stay in the stables at night. Knowing they're going to get some sweet feed every night makes them come looking for the barn in the late afternoon, instead of us having to go look for them."

When we rounded the corner of the gym, we saw Robbie at the other corner of the patio feeding the dogs, Rex and Regina. Regina was eating what he'd put into her dish, but Rex saw started jumping and barking when he saw Kevin and I approaching.

"Calm down, guy," Robbie said to the Labrador, patting the top of his head. "That's no way to treat a PG."

"PG?" Kevin sounded confused.

"A 'paying guest.' Rex needs to treat our clients better." Robby was kneeling beside the dog now. Rex had stopped barking but was still watching Kevin. Kevin extended his hands so that Rex could sniff him and get to know him. Regina raised her head long enough to sniff at Kevin a couple of times, then immediately went back to eating. Eventually, Rex calmed down too and joined her. Robby opened the French doors into the dining room and we went in. The alarm system beeped when the door opened and closed, but it was hard to distinguish from the sounds of the game from the next room.

Robby and Kevin were watching Nick and Mike play. Brian was still on the couch, but he looked half-asleep. There was no sign of AJ or Howie.

Dad came out of the kitchen. The brief glimpse I got of the room through the swinging door showed it spotless. Tomorrow I would mess it up five times and have to clean it four. This thought reminded me that I should see what Mom had planned for me. Then I started thinking that I had to have breakfast ready at seven, then I needed to get up at 5, so I should get to bed at....

My mental calculations were interrupted by Dad saying, "Mike, you're mother's gone to bed, so don't let this game get any louder than this."

"Okay, Dad."

"And have you checked the doors?"

"I'll do it," I said. "Mike's in the middle of something."

"Okay," Dad said. "I want Ms. Shaw to know she and her boys are safe in here."

"No one's gonna get in, Dad," I told him. "Everything will be locked, and the dogs are watching the outside. Though I still think Tico would be a better watch dog."

"No, Tico'd only protect you," Robby said. Kevin and Dad smiled.

"Well, anyway," Dad said, "check the doors. And I'll see you guys in the morning." Like he'd done most nights of our lives, Dad reached up and bent our heads over so he could kiss us "goodnight" on the top of the head. I guess it was his way of being affectionate without being unmanly. "Kevin," he said, "I just met you this afternoon, so you don't get a kiss. Neither do you, Captain Joystick" he added, speaking to Mike, "and if can hear that thing when I get upstairs you'll have to turn the sound completely off."

We all said "goodnight" to him as he went up the stairs. Robby was grinning as he watched him go. "Dad calls Mike 'Captain Joystick' all the time," he said. "I don't think he knows how dirty that sounds."

AJ stepped into the room from the direction of the hotel rooms. "So," Kevin grinned at him, "did Stacey choose Howie over you?"

"We just walked her to her car, and she went home. Then we went to our rooms to call home. Howie's gone to bed, but I came down to see what's going on."

"Bed sounds good to me, too," Kevin said. "I'm gonna call home, then crash. G'night, guys!"

We all said 'goodnight' to him, then he was gone.

"Robby," AJ was saying, looking at the big-screen TV through the doorway that connected the dining room with the game room. "I think these children have had this game long enough. What's say we take it away from them?"

"Come and try it, old man," Nick said without taking his eyes off the screen.

I started confirming that the doors were locked, beginning with the French doors in the dining room and the game room. By the time I'd done this, AJ had leaped on Nick and was trying to get the joystick out of his hands. Robby had his arms wrapped around Mike's just above the elbows, pinning his arms to his sides. This turned out to be a stalemate: Mike couldn't play anymore, but Robby didn't have a free hand to get the joystick from him.

When I stepped out into the hall to check the other doors, I heard Brian say, "Ben, wait! I'll come with you."

We made the circuit, counter-clockwise around the house, checking every door: den, gym, living room, studio front office, and all the doors that opened from the hotel ground floor onto the yard where the pool was.

As we went, we talked about various things, insignificant things. We compared living with three brothers to traveling with four other guys. We compared living and working in your parents' house to being on the road and almost never seeing your family. We compared our lives in lots of ways, and we realized that, though our lives were very different, we seemed to be a lot alike, both pretty even-tempered, down-to-earth guys.

When I mentioned this description to Brian, he grinned again. "Yeah, and that pretty much describes Kevin and Howie, too. AJ goes from being very adult to very off the wall, and Nick just seems hyper all the time."

I laughed. " 'sounds like Robby. Mike and I are happy most of the time, but we can get moody. Robby is always happy."

All this time, I was struck by how easy Brian was to talk to. All the guys were easy to like: They were relaxed and funny, and they seemed to really appreciate being in a home with a family instead of a hotel with a staff. Howie and I could trade jokes, and Kevin and I got along well. But I found myself really liking Brian. I got the feeling that by the end of the week, I'd be sorry to see these guys go.

Mostly I was relieved to discover the Backstreet Boys were as nice as their reputations said they were.

Once we'd checked all the doors, we got back to the game room in time to see the guys disconnecting the game.

"Mom and Dad say we're keeping them awake," Mike explained as he wrapped some cords around the joysticks. "We moving it to the third floor common room." In the center of each floor of the "hotel" was a common room, next to the fire stairs behind the elevator. The rooms could be accessed by someone with a room key from either the hallway or the kitchen in either suite. Each room was built for a different purpose. The one on the first floor had a bar and a pool table; the one on the second was a library, and the one on the third had another big screen TV. This was the room that we'd bought the game for in the first place.

The four of them had no trouble carrying everything, so they didn't need our help. "I'm gonna make some hot chocolate," I said to Brian. "D'ya want some?"

As I made two cups of hot chocolate, I told him about my grandmother making it for us when I was little. "We'd visit them in this house at Christmas time, and she'd make us two cups of hot chocolate every day: one before our nap and one before bedtime. When I was little, I thought hot chocolate was part of going to bed. Of course, she would think much of this recipe," I said, as I handed Brian a cup. "She didn't have Hershey's syrup and a microwave."

"If this was your grandparent's house, it's been in your family for a while," Brian said.

"I'm the fourth generation," I told him. "That's not much in a lot of places, but it seems like a lot around here, with so many people coming and going. My great-grandfather came here from England and built the first farmhouse. My grandfather and his sons built a bigger house on the same place. When he died ten years ago, my father moved us down here from Chicago and began the recording studio. It started just as his hobby really, but it's been successful enough for him to expand and get people like you guys here."

"It's a good studio," Brian said. "It's small, but it's well built and has great equipment. I wouldn't mind doing more work here."

"And we'd be glad to have you back," I replied, "especially now that I know what nice guys you are."

"You thought we wouldn't be nice?"

"Well, there's always the chance that a performer is gonna show up very full of their own importance, really buying into their hype. Stacey tells me that you guys have a reputation for being nice and ordinary and down-to-earth, but that could have been just the way your publicity people paint you to the world."

"So you were afraid we'd be assholes," he put it bluntly.

I pretended to think about it before nodding slightly. "There was that possibility." When I saw how seriously Brian took my comment, I gave him a grin, which he returned.

"And did Robby and Mike expect us to be assholes, too?" Brian raised his cup to his lips and took a drink. He was swallowing it when I answered him.

"Robby didn't expect anything—he always takes people at face value—but Mike thought you were all gay." This must have surprised him, because he choked just a little on the hot chocolate.

"Why did he think that?" he asked me.

"Mike thinks all guys who can dance are gay. He's lived in Texas a little too long, if you ask me," I told him. We went back to our chocolate and didn't talk for maybe a minute. The quiet was very relaxing, very comfortable.

"Actually," Brian said finally, "our reputation is all hype. In real life, the five of us are spoiled, self-important prima donas who fight all the time and can't stand the sight of each other." His grin was big now, and I returned it.

"And I'm a seven-foot black woman named 'Sheniqua'," I said.

"Nice to meet you, Sheniqua," Brian said.

We sipped at the chocolate for a moment, and I reached over to get Mom's clipboard from the wall. Turning to the next page of the yellow pad, I read what she had in store for me. Brian noticed my frown and asked, "What's that?"

"Tomorrow's menu," I answered. "She wants pancakes for breakfast, so I'm gonna need to be up early to make lots of batter and cook a few at a time so they'll be hot. I guess I should turn in pretty soon."

Brian looked at his watch. "It's after midnight! I didn't know it was that late."

"Time flies when you are with as good a conversationalist as I am," I said with a grin. I put our two cups into the sink: they could get washed in the morning with everything else.

"Actually, you are easy to talk to," Brian said as we headed toward the door.

"I was thinking the same thing about you earlier. At this rate, by the end of the week I'll have used every word I know and will have to start making up new ones."

"Y'know," he said, deadpan, "you're allowed to use those words over and over." He grinned just a split second before I did.

By this time we were standing next to the dining table. As I turned to go left, my right hand came up to pat him on the back. "G'night, Brian."

"G'night, bud," Brian said to me. He stepped through the doorway into the hotel as I started up the stairs.