by Donna Hruska

Writing Class – Approximately 1800 Words

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Here she comes again.

John Haffner peered over the seat of his lawn mower. Through the garage door and across the expanse of green lawns he could see Isabella Whitfield pushing the baby stroller down her driveway and into the street. Even at that distance, the slim legs beneath the short yellow skirt were noticeable.

Brigham Whitfield is an old fool!

John snorted, making the last carburetor adjustment and tossing the wrench on the work bench. He smoothed back the white hair that had fallen into his face and put his cap back on, adjusting it so that his bald spot was covered in back. The motor caught this time. He backed the mower out of the garage and with a lurch started crisscrossing his lawn. He cut diagonally this time. The last time he had cut lengthwise, the time before, across.

As he mowed, he watched her progress down the street. Two small children had run out of the house next to hers. She bent over the stroller to talk to them.

The old duffer. You’d think he’d catch on. He might have been a smart lawyer in his day, but like they say, there’s no fool…

John swung the mower around the olive tree, making a mental note that the bottom branch probably should come off.

The sun was beating down hard. He stopped at the top of the slope, lifted his cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

She started down the street again.

Well, Sake. You couldn’t much blame old man Whitfield for getting married again. If he was dumb enough to marry a young woman who looked like that, that was his look-out.

She had stopped again, this time to talk to Margery Adams who was kneeling on her driveway, weeding her myrtle. John lurched into gear and resumed his crisscrossing. Personally, the real shocker had been when she turned up pregnant, not once, but twice in the first two years. “Irresponsible.” That’s what John had said to Trixie. A man in his sixties ought to be planning his retirement, not siring children. It had provided the neighborhood with cocktail party gossip for a while, but the Whitfields lived so quietly, no one had remarked on it much lately—that is, until this last one.

The lawnmower sputtered as he thumped across the sidewalk, choked a couple of times and died. Damned sidewalk, anyway. He couldn’t see why they had put it in his block and not the next. The people at that end of the street could have afforded the assessment a lot easier than he could. He climbed off and set the carburetor before giving a hard tug on the starter rope. Nothing.

“Good morning, Mister Haffner.”

He looked up to find Isabella smiling at him.

“You’re working hard.”

He nodded.

“Any nibbles on your house yet?”

“Nothing definite,” he answered, standing up.

“I hear you’re going to Florida when you sell…one of those retirement communities.”

“Yeah, Leisure Lagoon,” he answered, levelly. “That’s Trixie’s idea. Says she wants to live where it’s peaceful and quiet for a change—no kids running through her flower beds, that sort of thing.”

Her smile was warm. “I can’t blame her for that. I hope our boys haven’t been in your yard.”

“No, not that I know of.”

“How does it feel to be a man of leisure now?”

“Oh, it’s fine, fine. They wanted me to stay on at the plant, but I told them no. Forty-five years is long enough.”

He wiped the perspiration with his sleeve again.

“I think you’re smart. I wish Brigham would retire. I don’t think he ever will, though. He says it keeps him young.”

John felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” he said, eyeing the baby in the stroller. “It must.”

She flushed slightly.

“You certainly shouldn’t have any trouble selling.” She looked around the lawn. “The way you’ve been keeping this place up lately…”

“Yeah,” he said. “It doesn’t do to let a place go.” He was still watching the baby, who was blowing bubbles down her chin.

“This one’s a girl, huh?”

“Yes,” she smiled, bending over to wipe the baby’s face. “Finally. I like boys, but every mother should have a girl.” A soft perfume floated up from her bent head.

“Oh, is that right?” His voice tremored slightly.

She glanced up at him, puzzled.

“I’ve never been a mother,” he added. The heat was unbearable now. He could feel the perspiration trickling down his chest.

Isabella straightened up, tossing her dark blond hair back. There was a red tinge to it in the sunlight.

John felt a tightness in his chest. The heat. He took a deep breath.

Isabella was watching him. She started to walk on. John stopped her with a hand over hers.

“So this is the newest one.” He bent over the stroller, untied the baby’s tight bonnet, and pushed it back.

“Mr. Haffner?” Isabella’s eyes were wary now.

“Just trying to see if this one’s got all that black hair like the others had.” He straightened and looked directly at her. “It must seem strange with a baby in the house again. How old is the youngest boy—five, six?”

“Five.” Her voice was cold now.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought…”

“Just what are you getting at, Mr. Haffner?”

“Listen,” he said, leaning toward her confidentially. The pain in his chest was crushing now. “You may fool the rest of these old biddies around here, but I’ve been around a time or two. Not that I blame you. Your husband’s pushing seventy. You’re entitled to a little fun.” He winked at her as if he were joking.

She pulled her hand away from his.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

He leaned toward her. “Come on, honey. You can tell me. Who is it?”

“You,” she said coldly, “are a nasty old man.”

A car approached quietly from down the street. Long, low and yellow, it slipped to a stop beside them.

“Darling,” Brigham Whitfield leaned from the driver’s seat, the sleeves of his gold sport jacket showing just a sliver of deeper gold cuffs underneath. “I’m leaving now.”

“Yes, Brigham,” she walked over to the car. “Can I expect you for dinner?”

“Of course…but late.” [handwritten note appears here]

Isabella reached into the car and took his outstretched hand in a move that was more a caress than a parting gesture. Brigham blew her the slightest kiss, nodded to John, and put the car in gear with a tanned and vigorous hand.

Isabella stood watching as he drove off. Her smile was back in place as she turned to John and the baby stroller. There was a look about her that he’d seen somewhere before. Trixie. A long time ago.

“Good-day, Mr. Haffner.” She pushed the stroller on down the sidewalk.

The baby gurgled and blew bubbles.

John walked up the slope to the house. He felt short of breath. Those bushes at the side of the house could stand to be trimmed again.

He hung his cap on a peg over the workbench and went in through the garage door.

“John?” Trixie called after him as he passed her in the kitchen.

“John, you look pale. A man your age has no business working in that hot sun. You don’t have to keep that lawn neat enough to eat off of, you know.”

He walked on into the bathroom and washed his face.

She followed him to the bathroom door.

“It’s not like you’ve got to go to work or anything. You’ve got all week to do it. You should take it easy.”

He kept splashing the cold water in his face, over and over, until finally, he leaned against the basin and watched the drops fall from his chin and nose. They trickled slowly down the sides of the sink and into the drain.

“Trixie…you know, I didn’t want to retire.”

Trixie stared at him, a puzzled frown working at her brows.

She wiped her hands on her apron.

“Nonsense!” She turned back toward the kitchen. “Wasn’t that Isabella Whitfield you were talking to out there? She certainly looks happy, doesn’t she?”

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