“That mockingbird put the mojo on my ball.”
“Latigo, if we were in Florida, you’d say it was an alligator.” Susan gratefully sipped her sweetened iced tea.
“Well,” the tall fellow drawled, “there are a lot of alligators on the greens down there.”
“You know, they can run faster than we do,” Dr. Yarbrough noted. “You wouldn’t think it to look at them.”
“Speaking of alligators …” Latigo looked intently down at his drink while a former affairette swished by, gave him a hard look, sniffed, then continued.
“Latigo, the lipstick and fingernail polish alone should have put you off.” Susan winked at him.
“I beg pardon?” Latigo’s eyes opened wide.
“Black fingernail polish and dark-purple lipstick. What were you thinking?”
“He wasn’t.” Dr. Yarbrough laughed, and his two companions laughed with him.
“Purple.” Susan just shook her head. “I will never understand men.”
Latigo touched her hand with his forefinger. “I think you understand us well enough.”
“Sometimes I think I do, until my wonderful husband, love him to death, goes into a hardware store. Oh, my God! Hundreds of dollars later, he totters out under the weight of wrenches and screwdrivers.”
Dr. Yarbrough plucked a menu off the table. “Anyone hungry? On me.”
Both Susan and Latigo expressed thanks, ordering light salads.
Harry must have rubbed off on Susan, because she asked Latigo, “You send clients to ReNu. What do you think is going on over there?”
“I don’t know. Victor doesn’t know. It’s deeply upsetting.”
“Why do you refer clients to ReNu?” Susan pressed.
“Good work for good prices. Collision-repair shops indemnify their work.”
“That means you’re not responsible?” Susan blurted out.
“It means if they perform shoddy work, I can go after them. Even the best shops can have a lemon day, for lack of a better phrase. Insurance is more complex than you might think. The Code of Hammurabi mentions an insurance practice in 1750 B.C.”
Susan, sensing he was about to warm up to his pet subject, insurance history, diverted him. “Did you ever consider that love is a fire for which there is no insurance? Even if you crash and burn.”
Dr. Yarbrough laughed, both because of the sentiment and because Susan had cut off the potential lecture of boring information.
On Friday, June 1, the cool morning air refreshed Harry as she cut the endless lawn at St. Luke’s. At ten, the turquoise blue skies were dotted with cream cumulus clouds hovering over the emerald grasses. Once Harry adjusted to the zero-turn mower—her old belly-mount conventional mower had finally died after twenty-five years of cutting grass—she wondered how she’d ever lived without the new manner of mower. Instead of a steering wheel, the driver grasped two long handles, which could move forward and back. She could cut corners so much closer than with a conventional mower. Still she’d have to use an edger along the pathways and the special gardens lining those pathways, but the zero-turn saved so much time.
Peonies, in full bloom this late in the season, crowded the long, brick-laid pathways. The gardening club of the church—now full of men as well as women, since gardening had become just about as competitive as grilling with some of them—created masses of white, pink, and magenta with the peonies. Harry marveled at how beautiful the grounds looked, regardless of season. Even in winter, the hollies shone with red berries, and pyracanthas grew up the side of Herb’s garage, providing a long-distance blast of orange, often against snow. While she liked gardening, she lacked the time to devote herself to it. Her focus was her crops, the foals, and working the horses. Wistfully, she looked down at the cemetery on the lower level, old cream-colored climbing roses spilling over the stone walls. If only she had more time.
The scent of fresh-cut grass filled her, lifted her up. Something about fresh-cut hay and grass made Harry glad to be alive.
Every now and then, Herb would look up from his desk to see one of his favorite parishioners out there mowing away.
Chuckling to Elocution on his lap, he said, “See the pattern? She cuts in one direction, then comes back on the other. Takes longer, but Harry wants there to be a pleasing pattern. Her mother was like that. Well, she inherited her mother’s sense of beauty and her father’s practicality. Not a bad combination.”
A thunk caused Harry to cut the motor.
Once on her hands and knees, Harry saw that a hidden rock, part of it above ground but covered by the grass, had sheared off one of the bolts holding the belly mount. If she continued mowing, she’d scrape the earth and the cut would be uneven. Couldn’t have that.
“Drat,” she muttered under her breath, then said aloud, “Well, I can fix it.”
As she walked toward the administrative buildings on the quad, Herb leaned out the window.
“What now?”
“Sheared a pin. You wouldn’t happen to have spare parts?”
“Don’t. We don’t have a zero-turn.”
“Right. Well, I’ll head to the dealer.”
“Go to Waynesboro. Better price.”
“That’s the truth. Buy something in Charlottesville, add ten percent to the price. Herb, I’ll need to drive over there and fetch a pin. I promise I’ll get this all ready before Sunday. Actually, I think I can finish it today.”
“I’ll drive you over there. It’s such a beautiful day. I’m getting antsy in the office,” Herb volunteered.
“Okay.” Harry walked inside the administrative buildings from the back door, washed grease off her hands, then met Herb out front, for he’d already pulled his truck around.
“Come on, girl. Time for an adventure, especially after your clean mammogram.” The older man grinned.
“Word gets out.” Harry smiled back at him.
“Your friends are very, very happy.”
Handsome, overweight, the Very Reverend Jones was a barrel-chested man, not tall but impressively built. All through his high school and college years, the football coaches wanted him to play on the line. He preferred baseball instead, playing catcher, where his wonderful memory served pitchers well. His knees held up better than if he’d been on the football line, but they creaked. He sometimes wondered how many times he crouched, rose, crouched again.
Within twenty-five minutes, Herb pulled in to the dealer’s. Light traffic helped, but it was actually faster, although a longer distance, to shop in Waynesboro rather than inching up Route 29.
Harry picked up some extra parts just in case. She reached into her jeans’ back pocket to pull out her wallet.
Herb grabbed her wrist. “Church purchase.”
“I don’t mind. It’s my mower and my little offering.”
“Your work is the offering.” He pulled out a silver credit card and handed it to the fellow behind the counter.
“I love doing it.”
“Looks good. My office affords me such a wonderful view, regardless of weather or season. I get most of my best sermon ideas just staring out the window.”
After Herb paid, they hopped back into the truck.
“Ready for our next vestry meeting?” Harry asked.
“We have a good board. Makes it easier. As you know, just maintaining the physical structures takes so much money and effort. Still, I wouldn’t want to be in modern buildings for all the tea in China.”
“Do they grow tea in China?”
“I don’t know, but they sure drink it.” Herb gave her a devilish grin. “We aren’t all that far from Wayne’s Cycle Shop.”
“Yesss?” She lifted an eyebrow.
“Think what St. Luke’s could save on gas if I rode a motorcycle?”
Harry laughed, a light happy sound. “And half the board would have a fit and fall in it.”
Now they both laughed at the old Southern expression.
“Ever own a bike?” he asked.