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of those--what youngsters so blithely call 'a senior moment.' I thank you for your cordial assistance."
    "A genuine pleasure," she said, and she seemed to mean it.
    At the cash register, I counted out exact change and told her I didn't need a bag. I also remarked that I had not noticed her working there before.
    "I started last month," she said, "and I'm just part-time."
    "Well, I hope to solicit your sartorial discretion in the future."
    "What a charming thing to say."
    "Likewise," I told her. "There is a dearth of compliments in the world these days."
    She expressed her agreement and handed me my new suit, neatly folded, along with the sales receipt. Then she said, "It's always nice when the last customer leaves me smiling. Thank you for that." I glanced at the large school clock on the wall; it was nearly a quarter past five. Almost any other clerk would have rushed me out by now.
    She locked the front door behind me and waved through the glass as I settled myself on the red-hot vinyl upholstery of my car. Whatever refreshment I'd gleaned from my earlier swim was moot. All the way home, I kept the windows wide open and drove as fast as I dared along the country roads. (Daring, yes that's me! I thought, laughing at the image of myself all decked out in oversize magenta pineapples.)
    As I approached my driveway, I was chagrined to see the bunch of balloons tied to the much larger mailbox now adjacent to mine, the one that blared elves & fairies (purple letters, sans serif, lowercase). I groaned. "Now it begins," I muttered. In two hours, the place would be crawling with E & F's eager-beaver parents. I'd rented the movie Cape Fear (I was on a Mitchum kick) and planned to watch it, with my dinner, in front of a fan in Poppy's dressing room. Never mind the heat up there; no one would spy on me.
    The second thing I saw was the dark-skinned fellow who showed up at Mistress Lorelei's every so often to tend to her flowers and shrubs. In recent years, master shyster Tommy Loud (a grade-school classmate of Trudy's) had expanded his snow-and-tree-removal business by importing a literal truckload of foreign workers to mow lawns, build showy walls, and maintain swimming pools (another distressing new trend). Generally, they were dropped off by the half dozen, along with an armada of high-powered mowers, blowers, and trimmers. You could hear their work a mile away: a plague of locusts on steroids.
    But this fellow arrived solo, worked hard, and then seemed to vanish as if into thin air. Once in a while, I'd nodded to him through the trees. He had nodded back.
    Now he paced at the foot of Lorelei's driveway, looking at his watch and wiping the sweat from his face with a gray rag. He appeared agitated, and I could hardly blame him. Thanks to Lorelei's passion for keeping nature at bay, the foot of her driveway--paved, of course--was bathed in late August sun.
    I parked my car by the house and walked back. "Hello!" I called out. "Need anything there?"
    He looked startled to be addressed, and I wished that I had some language other than poofy French at my service.
    "Sir," he said, and he bobbed his head.
    For a moment, we stared at each other in perplexed silence. Then he said, "I have been waiting for the truck nearly an hour. Could I ... telephone?" His accent was strong, yet all I could tell was that it wasn't French.
    "Of course," I said. "Come on over."
    "Thank you." He made a great fuss of wiping his feet at the front door.
    "Oh just come on in," I said. "I'm the world's worst housekeeper."
    He entered and gazed slowly around. I pointed to the phone. Still he paused, looking at his hands, which were covered with Mistress Lorelei's high-class topsoil. He held a large rumpled paper bag.
    "Listen," I said. "Come wash up and get a drink. You look like a fugitive from the Foreign Legion."
    Insistently, I beckoned him toward the kitchen, where I poured him a glass of Clover's mint lemonade while he washed his hands at the sink.
    "I thank