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“Did it on purpose.”
“Trying to make us look like slave drivers. Putting cement over her lawn. Giving Mr. Tiece ideas. Well, we’re not cementing our lawn, he’ll cut it every week, or my name isn’t Clara Moon Tiece!”
The three ladies snorted over their knitting.
“Seems like some sort of plot to me,” said Mrs. Coles. “Look at her backyard, a jungle, nothing in its right place.”
“Tell us about the marble game again, Clara.”
“Good grief. There he was down on his knees, both laughing. I—wait a minute. You hear something?”
It was twilight, just after supper, and the three women on Mrs. Coles’ porch right next door. “That Clock Woman’s out in her backyard again, laughing.”
“Swinging in her swing?”
“Listen. Shh!”
“I haven’t done this in years!” a man’s voice laughed. “Always wanted to, but folks think you’re crazy! Hey!”
“Who’s that?” cried Mrs. Coles.
The three women clapped their hands to their thumping chests and lurched to the far end of the porch, panicked excursioners on a sinking ship.
“Here you go!” cried Kit Random, giving a push.
And there in her backyard going up in the green leaves one way, then down and swooping up on the other, in the twilight air was a laughing man.
“Don’t that sound a bit like your Mr. Coles?” one of the ladies wondered.
“The idea!”
“Oh, Fanny.”
“The idea!”
“Oh, Fanny, go to sleep,” said Mr. Coles in bed. The room was warm and dark. She sat like a great lump of ice cream glowing in the dim room at eleven o’clock.
“Ought to be run out of town.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He punched his pillow. “It was just a backyard swing, haven’t swung in years. Big damn swing, plenty hefty to ride a man. You left me to finish the dishes so you could go out and blather with those hens, I went to toss out the garbage and there she was swinging in the swing and I said how nice it looked and she said did I want to try? So, by God, I just climbed over to pump myself up for a ride.”
“And cackling like an idiot rooster.”
“Not cackling, damn it, ‘but laughing. I wasn’t pinching her behind, was I?” He punched his pillow twice more and rolled over.
In his sleep she heard him mumble, “Best damn swing I ever swung,” which set her off into a new fit of weeping.
It remained only for Mr. Clements to jump off the cliff the next afternoon. Mrs. Clements found him blowing bubbles on Miss Kit Random’s back garden wall, discussing the formation, clarity, and coloration of same with her. Her phonograph was warbling an old tune from World War I sung by the Knickerbocker Quartet titled “The Worst Is Yet to Come.” Mrs. Clements acted out the song’s words by grabbing Mr. Clements by the ear and lugging him off.
“That woman’s yard,” said Mrs. Coles, Mrs. Clements, and Mrs. Tiece, “is, as of this hour, day, and minute, forbidden territory.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mr. Coles, Mr. Clements, and Mr. Tiece.
“You are not to say good morning or good night, Nurse, to her,” said Mrs. Coles, Mrs. Clements, and Mrs. Tiece.
“Of course not, dear,” said the husbands behind their newspapers.
“You hear me?”
