“How’s that?” she said.

“This job here today’s my last,” I said. “If I don’t get myself back on the ball with my studies, my grade point average is going to be in real trouble.”

The woman looked me hard in the face, then glanced at my feet, then looked back at my face.

“A student, eh?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What school?”

The name of the university made no visible impression on her. It wasn’t a very impressive university. She just scratched behind her ear with her index finger.

“So you’re giving up this line of work, then?”

“Yeah, for this summer at least,” I said. No more mowing lawns for me this summer. Nor next summer, nor the next.

The woman filled her cheeks with vodka tonic as if she were going to gargle, then gulped down her precious mouthwash half a swallow at a time. Her whole forehead beaded up with sweat, like it was crawling with tiny bugs.

“Come inside,” the woman said. “It’s too hot outdoors.”

I looked at my watch. Two thirty-five. Getting late? Still early? I couldn’t make up my mind. I’d already finished with all my work. From tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to mow another inch of grass. I had really mixed feelings.

“You in a hurry?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“So why don’t you just come in and have something cool to drink before you get on your way? Won’t take much time. And besides, I’ve got something I want you to see.”

Something she wants me to see?

Still, there was no hesitating, one way or another. She had already started to shuffle off ahead of me. She didn’t even bother to look back in my direction. I had no choice but to follow her. I felt kind of light-headed from the heat.

The interior of the house was just as deathly quiet as before. Ducking in from the flood of summer afternoon light so suddenly, I felt my eyes tingle from deep behind my pupils. Darkness—in a dim, somehow dilute solution—washed through the place, a darkness that seemed to have settled in decades ago. The air was chilly, but not with the chill of air-conditioning. It was the fluid chill of air in motion: Somewhere a breeze was getting in, somewhere it was leaking out.