It took a third ring before the front door slowly opened and a middle-aged woman emerged. A huge woman. Now, I’m not so small myself, but she must have been a good inch and a half taller than me. And broad at the shoulders, too. She looked like she was plenty angry at something. She was around fifty, I’d say. No beauty certainly, but a presentable face. Although, of course, by “presentable” I don’t mean to suggest that hers was the most likable face. Rather thick eyebrows and a squarish jaw attested to a stubborn, never-go-back-on-your-word temperament.

Through sleep-dulled eyes she gave me the most bothered look. A slightly graying shock of stiff frizzy hair rippled across the crown of her head; her two thick arms drooped out of the shoulders of a frumpy brown cotton dress. Her limbs were utterly pale. “What is it?” she said.

“I’ve come to mow the lawn,” I said, taking off my sunglasses.

“The lawn?” She twisted her neck. “You mow lawns?”

“That’s right, and since you called—”

“Oh, I guess I did. The lawn. What’s the date today?”

“The fourteenth.”

To which she yawned, “The fourteenth, eh?” Then she yawned again. “Say, you wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?”

Taking a pack of Hope regulars out of my pocket, I offered her one and lit it with a match. Whereupon she exhaled a long, leisurely puff of smoke up into the open air.

“Of all the …” she began. “What’s it gonna take?”

“Timewise?”

She thrust out her jaw and nodded.

“Depends on the size and how much work it needs. May I take a look?”

“Go ahead. Seeing’s how you gotta size it up first.”

There were some hydrangea bushes and that camphor tree and the rest was lawn. Two empty birdcages were set out beneath a window. The yard looked well tended, the grass was fairly short—hardly in need of mowing. I was kind of disappointed.

“This here’s still okay for another two weeks. No reason to mow now.”

“That’s for me to decide, am I right?”

I gave her a quick look. Well, she did have me there.

“I want it shorter. That’s what I’m paying you money for. Fair enough?”

I nodded. “I’ll be done in four hours.”

“Awful slow, don’t you think?”

“I like to work slow.”

“Well, suit yourself.”

I went to the van, took out the electric lawn mower, grass clippers, rake, garbage bag, my thermos of iced coffee, and my transistor radio, and brought them into the yard. The sun was climbing steadily toward the center of the sky. The temperature was also rising steadily. Meanwhile, as I was hauling out my equipment, the woman had lined up ten pairs of shoes by the front door and began dusting them with a rag. All of them women’s shoes, but of two different sizes, small and extra-large.