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He nods conspiratorially. “Right. Well, good for you. Good-looking boy like you oughta have a girl on his arm.”
“Thank you, Danny.”
I drive away, still smiling, and head to my first client’s house. According to the little info sheet Best Pool Cleaners gives me, she’s seventy-two and widowed for three years. I feel a touch of empathy at that. I know how hard it is to lose a loved one.
Mrs. Winslow lives on the opposite side of Autumn Downs. The homes here are older, but no less grand for that. Still, their aesthetic is more muted than the bright, ostentatiousness of the newer homes, and I appreciate that.
Mrs. Winslow opens the door, and she is beautiful. Not in a Vivian Chase kind of way, obviously, but in a grandmotherly kind of way. She isn’t dolled up with bad plastic surgery and worse makeup like so many of the women here, and she doesn’t wear clothing that emphasizes how desperately she’s trying to look younger. She looks beautiful the way old women used to look beautiful, with a classic, matronly and dignified appearance.
God, I’m all poetic today. It’s amazing what a good night with a good woman will do.
“Good morning, Mrs. Winslow. I’m Nathan Harlow from Best Pool Cleaners.”
“Well, good morning, young man! Don’t you look handsome! And what a nice smile! Come on in, I’ve just finished making coffee.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mrs. Winslow. I appreciate it, but I have a full schedule today—”
“Nonsense. You can spare ten minutes to keep an old woman company. Besides, I only have a very small pool. I don’t really use it. It shouldn’t take very long.”
She leads me into a house that's decorated the way a grandmother would decorate her house. There are a lot of pictures, ceramic figurines, and houseplants, both real and fake. The kitchen is full of decorative salt shakers, oven mitts, jars of sugar, flour, pasta, spices—anything you can think of. The living room—which is where she leads me—contains a couch, an upholstered chair, and a coffee table made of hardwood that looks as old as Mrs. Winslow. The couch and chair have throw rugs and throw pillows arranged in perfect symmetry, and the coffee table sits on a rug that is just this side of threadbare. About the only thing in the house that look modern is the tv, which is a seventy-five-inch Sony that probably cost close to five thousand dollars.
“Have a seat anywhere you like,” she says. “I’ll be right back with the coffee. How do you take it?”
“Black is fine, thank you.”
“Very manly of you. That’s good.”
That seems like an odd thing to say, but considering everything else that’s happened in this neighborhood, it actually ranks as one of the more normal things people have done.
When she leaves, I look nervously out the window at the pool. I do have a full schedule, so aside from the fact that I want to get to Vivian as fast as I possibly can, I really can’t spend a lot of time socializing.
Fortunately, the pool is indeed very small. It looks out of place in this house, let alone a neighborhood like Autumn Downs. It's the old-fashioned peanut shape, maybe fifteen feet long and eight to ten feet wide. Shallow too. It's filled with leaves, but the vacuum can get that taken care of quickly. I can finish it in twenty to thirty minutes.
Mrs. Winslow returns with the coffee. Mine is served in a brown and tan mug shaped like a honeypot. It’s cute. I decide I like Mrs. Winslow.
“So you’ve been here for three days now?” she asks.
“Today is my fourth day.”
“Ah. How do you like it so far?”
I weigh my answer carefully. “It’s… interesting.”
She laughs. “That’s certainly one way to put it. Tell me, who of our lovely cast of characters have you met so far?”
“Um… quite a few. I think I’ve had about thirty clients. By the end of the week, I’ll be up to ninety.”
“Well, that’s wonderful! You must be earning a lot of money. Are you going to school?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Where?”
“Cal State Long Beach.”
“Wonderful! That’s an excellent school. My husband used to teach there. They have a wonderful transfer program with UCLA. You should keep that in mind if you consider a graduate degree.” She looks over her glasses at me. “And you should. You seem a smart boy.”
“I’m thinking about it,” I say.
