An old black woman now emerged from behind the hedge, leaning so deeply into her cane that Don wondered if she even had a hip. This must be Miz Judy.

"I'll bet you four bits, Miz Evvie, four bits says he's bought the place hisself."

So the white woman was Miz Evvie. But of course those were names they called each other. Don knew better than to call them by name until he was given the right name to call.

"Don't be silly," said the white woman. "People with money never do the work theirself."

Don hated to take sides. He remembered the story of the Trojan War in high school and how it all started because poor Paris got himself trapped into judging which goddess was most beautiful. Never get in the middle of arguments between women, that was the main theme of Homer, as far as Don ever cared—it was the only lesson that seemed to apply to the real world. These two old bats weren't exactly Athena and Aphrodite—or was it Diana? Didn't matter, it wasn't going to be a beauty contest. Don was the only one with the answer to their bet and while he didn't expect a war to start, he had a feeling that he was about to get himself roped into a lot of unwelcome conversations later. Oh well, couldn't be helped. His mother would come back and haunt him if he wasn't polite to old ladies.

Directing himself to Miz Evvie, Don shook his head sadly and said, "You made yourself a bad bet, ma'am. I own the place, or I will as soon as we close."

Evvie turned to Judy and pounded the rake into the grass a couple of times. "Damn all! Damn upon damn!"

At which Miz Judy seemed to take great offense. "Don't you go swearin' at me like some cheap hillbilly whore!"

"Gladys told you, didn't she!" said Evvie. "You're a cheater!"

"I never said Gladys didn't tell me, now, did I?"

"It ain't sportin' to bet on a sure thing!"

"I don't know what you mean by sportin'," murmured Miz Judy. "I'm having fun!"

They were so caught up in their argument that they seemed to have forgotten all about Don. Maybe they wouldn't be such bad neighbors after all—not if they did all their talking to each other. Don touched his forehead in farewell and made his way back to the pickup.

The Black & Decker Workmate wasn't all that heavy, really. He routinely carried loads of lumber or masonry much heavier and more awkward. What made it weigh so much was that he carried with it all the days and weeks and months of work that lay ahead. Sometimes that bench seemed like his best friend; he knew just how to use it, how it held things for him. And, like a best friend, sometimes he hated looking at it so bad he wanted to throw it out a window. Carrying it in meant the job was really going to happen and it made him tired.

He brought it into the north parlor and set it up in the middle of the room where the overhead light would shine down over his left shoulder as he worked. He leaned on the bench and surveyed his new quarters. The jumble of furniture would be gone in a day or so. The room was the largest space he'd had to work in since he started doing old houses. The bare floor brought the warmth of wood to the room. Out the front window he could see the carpet lying between the sidewalk and the street and it looked like progress to him.

The door leading to the entry hall stood ajar but because of a slight angle in the hanging it had creaked half shut every time he passed through it, so it still blocked his view of the front door. That was going to be a constant annoyance, having to open and close that door or walk around it all the time. So Don took out a screwdriver and popped the pins out of the cheap hinges. It was a sure thing this door wasn't part of the original house—no doubt this space had been an arch when the house was first built, and the door was installed only when the place was cut up into apartments. As soon as the door was off the hinges the place looked better. The space flowed better.

Don carried the door out to the sidewalk and laid it down on the carpet. Before, it had been just a carpet lying by the street. Now, with a door lying on it, it had become a junkpile. On another street the neighbors might have objected, but here it meant that somebody was taking trash out of the derelict house. That had to be a welcome sight to the neighbors.

He was about to go back in when a Sable pulled up at the curb right in front of the new junkpile. It was Cindy Claybourne. She got out of the car in a smooth motion that Don found attractive precisely because it did not seem designed to make men watch her do it. It was more like she'd been bounced out of the car and hit the ground walking.

"I'm glad I caught you here!" she said. "Hard to get in touch with somebody who's got no phone."

"Not really," said Don. "I'll be here, mostly."

"That's what I thought." She glanced at the door and the roll of carpet. "Already clearing things out?"

"Just my workspace," he said. "I don't do the hauling. Cheaper to have it done and get the junk out of my way."

"Well, I'm sure you can guess why I came by."

"Closing set?"

"Since there's no bank involved and you're willing to trust the last title search, there was no reason for delay. Our lawyer fit you in tomorrow morning at nine, if that's a good time."

"Fine with me."

"I mean, if that's too early..."

"I'm up at dawn most days," he said. "Don't like wasting daylight."

"Oh, right," she said. "I guess it'll be a while before they get the power hooked up."

"Duke Power came today," said Don. "But I'm not using the house wiring so I still need daylight."

She nodded. Their business was done, but she was lingering. And truth to tell, he wasn't all that eager for her to go. She kept looking at the house, not at him, and so he said the obvious thing. "Want to go inside?"

"I don't want to interrupt you if you're busy."

"Done all I'm going to do today." Which wasn't true, exactly, so he corrected himself. "Except do a tour of the bathrooms, see which fixtures look to be usable maybe."

She grinned. "Can I come along on the tour?"

"Not exactly what most women look forward to on their first date," said Don. Then he wondered what she'd make of his joke. And then he wondered whether he was joking after all.

"Don't fool yourself," she answered him. "Since women clean ninety percent of the bathrooms in America, we are endlessly fascinated with how the fixtures are working."

Don thought of how he had insisted that he was going to clean all the bathrooms in the house because no wife of his was going to have to kneel down and clean up any spots where maybe he splashed when he was peeing, but then one day he caught his wife down on her knees scrubbing the bathroom he had cleaned the night before. After that he gave up and left the job to her and just tried to aim straight. He figured it wasn't that his wife liked doing the job, it's that she felt like no man could be trusted to do it right. Never mind that Don was the meticulous one in the family. Must be a woman thing.

He didn't speak of any of this to Cindy, though. Nothing more pathetic than a divorced man who can't stop talking about his ex-wife. Or was he a widower? When your ex-wife dies, does that count? Only if you still loved her, Don decided. Only if you grieved. And he was still too angry with her for that. The one he grieved for was his baby. Why didn't they have a word for a father who'd lost his child?

All this reflection only took a moment or two, but he realized that the hesitation had been obvious to Cindy and she was beginning to laugh off her request and excuse herself.

"No, no," he said. "I'll be glad to take you on the grand tour of the plumbing."

She searched his face for a moment. He knew what she was looking for—some sign of interest on his part, some reassurance that his hesitation was not because he didn't want to spend time with her. He had no idea what that sign would be or whether he gave it. He just turned toward the house and said "Come on" and when he got to the porch she was right behind him so whatever she was looking for she must have found it.