3
The next morning, in the News Shop, Parker Ives introduced Patrick to
Wilson. "Willy, you and Patrick get started on the Van Slyke house." He
rubbed his forehead. "She's intense about her roses; better cover them.
The lilacs, too. I'll be around later with more primer."
"Ya, Boss. Let's go, Patrick." Wilson was short and muscular, balding, with a thick black mustache and a glass eye. He drove at top speed up the mountain, stopping several miles from town in the driveway of a white Colonial. Purple lilacs leaned out from each side of the front door; rose bushes extended to the ends of the house. They covered the roses with drop cloths and tied a tarpaulin around each lilac. A woman wearing linen slacks and a cafe-au-lait blouse appeared at the corner of the house. Her hair was blonde, short, and well cut.
"Good morning. Is Parker here?"
"He will be, later," Wilson said. She nodded and drove away in a station wagon, tires crunching on gravel.
They worked on ladders, scraping a section and then priming it.
"Willy—is every woman in Woodstock good looking?" Patrick asked.
"Depends how long you look," Wilson said. Parker drove in, and Wilson jumped from the fourth rung of his ladder. "Break time." They walked over to Parker's aging blue Mercedes.
"How you doing, Patrick?"
"He's having a little trouble with the pace," Willy said sitting down, placing his coffee on the grass.
"Up yours," said Patrick.