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added her own contribution to the gardening canons: the coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend! By her own calculation, arrived at after months of arduous study, and by virtue of her own special inspiration, a garden to be considered truly hallowed needed to be 71 percent coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend. She reckoned her gardens to have now reached their optimal composition of 87 percent yuccas and coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend. She leavened that with a smattering of roses, and four beds given over completely to dahlias. There was no need to go further.
    Dr. Sproot realized such practices defied the conventional wisdom. They were at odds with the popular practices of the time. But that was what genius did! Those touched by genius took the knowledge available to them, ingested it, churned it around with their special enzymes, then ejected it as a moist, rich manure the likes of which had never been seen, and which sat there, steaming, for the common rabble to behold and admire.
    Now, with Mort, that bozo of a husband, thankfully gone, and a generous life insurance benefit having come her way, Dr. Sproot was able to cut in half her work hours as the expert in high-priced Parisian perfumes at Cloud’s department store, and devote more time to perfecting her gardening craft. Who knew what even more stunning wonders she could create if she could ditch that rotten day job altogether.
    As Dr. Sproot mulled over this injustice, she realized that she was getting her introduction to another one. How magnificent, but how awful! What she and Marta were walking through reared up everywhere as a threat to her gardening hegemony. The depressing fact of the matter was there was a magical symmetry to the Fremonts’ yard, a wonderful blending of styles, structures, and the short and tall and monochromatic and polychromatic that gave it a magnificence she had to acknowledge.
    She and Marta continued on up the slope—clearly interlopers at this point—to examine the gardens. Here were all manner of pedestrian flora sprouting everywhere in an explosion of riotous colors. It was really quite remarkable, and it irritated her to be upstaged in such a manner by . . . by parvenus.
    What especially bothered her was what Marta had told her after a little arm-twisting and a few veiled threats: that there was a big contest on the horizon, a contest to determine the royalty of gardening in Livia. She wanted in the worst way to win it. She deserved to win it! She was the one who had worked the hardest, at the books as well as the soil. She was the one who had her Ph.D., knew to the hour when to deadhead her finished blooms, and had taken it all so much further by pioneering the concept of yucca and coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock domination. Now, here was this!
    â€œOoooh, how pretty,” Marta cooed. She and Dr. Sproot bent over to study a bed of alyssum that had just bloomed in a small rock garden and was spreading among the crevices between the carefully placed stones. A simple thing easily nurtured. But so lovely! And so well placed to appear as if it sprang naturally from between the rocks! Dr. Sproot wandered on, absorbed in her study.
    How had they gained such skill? She had quizzed others who had seen their gardens, and Marta, who knew people who were friends of people who were close to the Fremonts.
    â€œThey’re just beginners with beginner’s luck,” Marta assured her. “As you say, they have no pedigree and no formal knowledge. It’s like the time Ham and I went bowling after we hadn’t been bowling for twenty-five years. I rolled two strikes in a row to start off, then it was downhill from there. Beginner’s luck.”
    Marta said Dr. Sproot’s own stature, her membership in the right clubs, and the path she had blazed across the new frontier of gardening would surely be good for something, maybe even first prize. And first prize would be rightfully hers! She wouldn’t stand for second place.