“Okay,” said Ken. “Do you want to visit or join?”
“I want to see Candy,” said the man with the opened neck dress shirt and sunglasses.
“Let me see if I can find her,” Ken said. He was back in less than five minutes because he found Candy working away in the kitchen.
“Alex!” Candy yelled when she saw him. “What are you doing way up here?”
“I was visiting with your folks and they told me you were here, so I came to check the place out.”
“Alex, this is Ken and Marge and Grace,” Candy said, pointing the communards out, one by one. “Hey, folks, this is my cousin, Alex.”
“Pleased to meet you, Alex,” said Marge. “Where do you hail from?”
“I’m working in the big city these days,” Alex said. “You know, the Giant Apple. I actually live on an island that can’t decide if it’s part of New York or New Jersey.”
“What do you do in the city?” Grace asked.
“I’m in retail,” Ken said. “I track numbers for companies that don’t trust their own number people.”
“You ever see a commune before?” Ken asked.
“I didn’t think they really existed,” Alex said. “Although I’ve heard rumors that there’s one on the island I live on. I actually thought that they all vanished in the nineteen seventies.”
“Wanna tour of the place?” Candy asked.
“Sure,” said Alex.
*
“What are those?” asked Alex as they walked through the kitchen.
“They’re blackberry-eggplant muffins,” said Candy.
“You’re kidding,” Alex said. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“No,” said Candy. “They’re very popular around here.”
“I guess when you’re this far out in the sticks, you’ve got to do something for excitement.”
“I like them,” Candy said.
“Okay, okay,” said Alex. “So do you folks actually have computers here and things like the internet, or is this place too back to the land for that?”
“Oh, no,” Candy said, as they finished touring the main building. “We have a computer.”
“Okay,” said Alex. “You have a computer. Can I see it?”
“Sure. It’s over here in the back house.”
They walked into the back house and into a room where they found Sal swearing at a small computer.
“That’s the computer?” Alex said. “It looks like something Steve Jobs or Bill Gates might have practiced on.”
“Hey,” said Candy. “It gets the job done.”
“Eventually,” added Sal.
“I can show you our crops,” Candy said.
“Thanks, but I’ve seen farmland,” Alex said. “Look, I’ve got to run. I appreciate you showing me around. You’re happy here?”
“Yeah, I really am,” Candy said.
“Well I guess that’s what counts,” said Alex.
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