“I guess,” Ruthie agreed. “I’ve been looking for another job.”

“Really? Doing what?”

“Anything. I saw an ad for a ward secretary at the hospital in Portland, and I put my name in for customer service rep at Kmart. There’s not much out there, but anything’s better than this.”

“I hope you find something, but I’ll really miss you,” said Lucy, feeling bereft. “I miss the old gang.”

Lucy’s light went on, and she answered with the usual, “Country Cousins, may I help you?”

The voice that answered was clipped and very British. It was the expedition leader of a group planning to map the Andes.

“Never been done, up till now. Done properly, that is,” explained the voice, which went on to order nine sets of polar underwear, nine Arctic Tundra parkas, nine pairs of Arctic Tundra pants, nine pairs of Glove-Mitts, and nine pairs of Sure-Tread boots, “guaranteed under all weather conditions.”

“Do (you need any camping gear?” asked Lucy.

“I’m afraid we do,” complained the voice. “Lost an awful lot of stuff to a yeti in the Himalayas last spring. ”

“Really? I thought they were mythical.”

“It’s difficult to be certain,” said the voice. “There’s not much oxygen up there; men behave strangely in extreme circumstances.”

“I suppose they do,” agreed Lucy. “Now, what do you need?”

She placed orders for nine down-filled mummy bags (guaranteed to maintain body temperature to -20 degrees), five two-man mountain tents, five flame-glo camp stoves, and a case of pressurized fuel canisters.

“Anything else? Socks, for example?”

“Good show,” said the voice. “You can never have too many socks on an expedition.”

“That has been my experience,” said Lucy, thinking of last summer’s camping trip to Mount Desert Island.

“I’ll take thirty-six pairs of your very best socks.”

Lucy smiled as she typed in the order—the socks alone, she figured, would come to nearly three hundred dollars.

“Do you want a total?” Lucy asked.

“Not really. We’ll just let the Royal Geographical Society worry about that,” confided the voice. “How soon can I expect the shipment? We’re scheduled to leave on February first.”

Lucy worked out the details for the geographer and smiled as he rang off with a very British, “Cheerio.”

“Wow,” said Ruthie as Lucy hit the return button and saw her total was now nearly ten thousand dollars.

“Boy, that was something that doesn’t happen every day. That man was outfitting a nine-man mountain-climbing expedition. I think I’ll call Ted Stillings. Maybe he’ll put it in the paper.”

“Might as well,” agreed Ruthie. “There’s nothing else going on.”

Lucy stood up and stretched, dug her change purse out of her bag, and headed for the break room, where the pay phone was located. She got a diet Coke from the machine and dialed Ted’s number.