Community Service Read Free Page A

tied around his waist so as not to lose it, she
supposed.
    “ Ah, I was just wondering
what other sorts of things you have that need doin’. The weeds seem
a lot better now, but you might want to have a look.”
    “ Oh, thank you.” She
shaded her eyes and stared out into the yard. “Hmn. Other
jobs?”
    She hadn’t really thought about it.
Marion hadn’t even had her breakfast yet.
    He took a half-step backwards and she
came out on the rear deck and looked around.
    “ Where did you put the
weeds?”
    “ Ah, in the composter,
Ma’am.”
    “ Thank you. Very good. Can
you run a lawnmower?”
    Albert just grinned and again she felt
a proper fool. Of course the man could run a lawnmower, and she had
always hated the noisy, stinking thing. Her usual boy, a thirteen
year-old named Jason, had moved last year with his family, and she
didn’t have anyone on the hook yet. She’d been paying the kid forty
bucks a week to do it and she had thought it a bargain. The lawn
wasn’t all that big, really.
    “ Sure. You’ll find it in
the garage…ah…”
    He put his hat back on.
    “ Albert.” He turned to go
around to the front of the house again.
    With privacy fences on three sides and
a fairly narrow frontage, there was really only one way around and
that was down the sidewalk just outside of her breakfast
nook.
    He was certainly very fit-looking, and
he had definitely taken a look at her legs and her
shorts.
    That was something, right?
    Now that the initial panic was
gone.
     
    ***
     
    Marion took herself off to the
shopping centre and got hung up there returning a blouse she had
bought. The thing was coming apart at the seams. The attendant was
asking if she’d washed it and she kept saying no, the tags are
practically still on it…she’d only worn it once. She picked up
fresh eggs and some green vegetables, feeling all health-conscious
and not merely stalling for time.
    When she got home, the garage door was
locked up. It was after noon and Albert was nowhere in sight. Her
place seemed more airless and dismally quiet than usual all of a
sudden.
    It was slightly deflating, as she had
been hoping to talk to him a little bit. Now that she thought about
it, there was any number of little jobs that needed doing around
the place. The back yard was already looking better and the grass
was neatly cut and trimmed.
    Interesting. She’d sort of forgotten
what it used to look like, almost as if she’d been in a state of
total denial these past years. The place had once given her, both
of them really, a lot of pleasure and satisfaction—or at least she
thought it had at the time.
     
    ***
     
    The rest of the weekend hung heavy on
her hands, and while she flew into a flurry of spring-cleaning, as
if inspired by the sight of her now weed-less garden, the fact was
that she had hated weekends for quite some time.
    Her work schedule was
jam-packed but when had it ever been any other way? It was her only
defense. Working brought a busy mind. It blanked out her
loneliness. Like anything else, she tended to throw herself into
it. Plus there were the monthly Thursday lunches with a bunch of
other judicial types, some prosecutors and one or two of the
Mayor’s cronies always showed up. Another time-waster, one
calculated to make you think you knew people, almost as if you had
friends or that some exiting, absolutely scrumptious man would come along and
scoop you up.
    Unspoken communication was
key—it might help her a lot. At first she thought of music. She
could just have things playing, soft, romantic, suggestive things, when he was
around. Her mind wasn’t good at that sort of thing, song titles,
the names of bands, but she could at least think on it. This was
her first real opportunity in quite some time.
    Scent now. That would bear some
thinking about. Food, yes, attention to the gentleman—that was very
much a yes. She could do all of that…she would give the man a beer
or two on a really hot day…that might help to break