"Alexander Jablokov - Market Report" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

She sighed. "I know mothers can never explain their children's jobs right nowadays, and it always drives the kids crazy. But if you'd only have normal jobs, like, I don't know, accountant, or wrestler, or weatherman, or something..."

"Wrestler?"

"Then we could just say it, and people would know what we meant."

"I've told you what Stacy and I do. Call us experimental demographers. That's close enough."

There, I'd brought up the dread name. My mom pursed her lips, but maybe it was because she didn't like the OJ either. "That's not really what you are, is it?"

"No, Mom." I knew she could hear the sadness in my voice. "That's not really what I am. Not anymore."

"Oh, Bertram." Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know who pushed whom, but she's gone, isn't she?"

"As gone as it gets. And my job along with her."

MARKET REPORT 13

"She meant so much to you...." She'd never liked Stacy, but she knew what hurt her son.

"The last job we did .. ."I said. "Stacy soloed, I only advised. She was good, real good. I'd taught her how to spot potentially self-defined groups ... she found a little community of interest among teenagers. A disaffected layer in a lot of high schools, all across the country. People think it's all mass marketing, but that's not where the real value-added stuff comes in, not any more. These kids didn't identify themselves as any sort of group, but I couldЧStacy could tell from what they bought, the kind of magazines they read, the web sites they hit, and music they listened to, and the street drugs they took, that they were looking for something. Something they hadn't found yet. So she gave it to them."

"What?" My mother was interested despite herself.

"The past. The real deep past. It just took a little marketing push, and they started mail-ordering flint blanks for spear points, birth-control dispensers in the shape of Paleolithic fertility figurines, ink-jet-sprayed wall paintings to conjure up mammoths. It was just this group, but they were really into it. Their rooms at home must have looked like Altamira or Lascaux. When the trend tanks you won't be able to give that Acheulean stuff away, but that's off in ... the future."

My mother stood up and ran gnarled fingers through her short gray hair. She didn't look young. I wouldn't pretend that. She was old, she was my mother. But she had more light in her eyes than she'd had in years. She also had scratches on her hands, and calluses on her palms, like she'd been working hard somewhere outdoors for quite some time. My mother had never been a gardener and, in fact, there was no trace of any garden in the yard. I'd looked for it.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Her tone was bitter.

14 ALEXANDER JABLOKOV

"Mom, IЧ"

"Talk to your dad. I mean, really talk to him. I think you still need a few lessons in what life is really like."

She walked out of the kitchen. A few minutes later I heard the door to the yard ease open. I craned my head out the kitchen window, but couldn't see where she went. I sat down to another cup of coffee. Something that looked a lot like a badger poked its head out from under the sink, saw me, and pulled back. The little door clicked back onto its magnet.

"Dad," I said. "I think you got some problems." Mom had gotten me thinking about the possible consequences of his new project. I felt like I was back on the job. It bugged me how much I liked that feeling.

"You're telling me?" He spent some time putting the ball on his tee. "I thought your mother and I could work together on this. Instead, she made a bunch of new girlfriends and now spends her time hunting ungulates in the woods with spears. Is that anything a woman her age should be doing?" He swung at the ball with his driver. It sliced viciously, off into the dark woods that bordered the course. In all our years together, this was the first time he'd ever taken me golfing. I already didn't like it.

"I... well, actually, you know, Dad, it's really about time. It's good for her to do something like that."

"God, I knew you'd take her side."

"I'm not taking her side!"

"Deer liver. I'm talking deer liver for supper, with forest mushrooms, fiddleheads, all sorts of sick hunter-gatherer crap. She just doesn't seem to get the post-technological nature of our enterprise. She's a woman who skulks with the foxes." He left the course and started hacking his way through the underbrush. I followed.