Front Yard Read Online Free Page A

be lying around everywhere, as did gardening forks, shovels, hand trowels, and two-cubic-foot bags of pre-fertilized soil.
    But so far, only one week short of Memorial Day weekend, there was little to show for it. Everything seemed to be going so slowly this year. That troubled Nan, for whom bloom bursts of lilacs—both of the regular and dwarf Korean variety—ajuga, irises, and bridal wreath spirea typically marked her favorite holiday, which was by common accounting in this neck of the woods to be the first day of summer. She watched in sullen disappointment as the passing front yards slowly slid by.
    About halfway down the block on the right was the Knights’. Here was a sign of encouragement: The Knights’ dwarf Korean lilacs were leafing nicely!
    â€œI wonder how they’ll look in a week or two, after all that extreme pruning they did last year,” Nan said. “Bleeding hearts are out, but just barely. Must have been the long winter. I mean, jeez, ours just poked through the ground a week or so ago. They’re going to get all covered up by the hosta before they even get going.”
    Livia’s winter had lingered into the first week of May, and it wasn’t until late April that the ground finally thawed. The last showers of snowflakes had come in two quick, sloppy bursts just a week and a half earlier. There followed a period of cool, showery weather that had kept everyone indoors. Already it was May 19, and the temperature had just nicked 60 the previous Saturday.
    The result of all this was that Livia’s gardening season had been set back two to three weeks. Sure, the crocuses and tulips had come out a few weeks ago—bright, shiny medallions of purple, white, red, and yellow punctuating the last watery snow-scapes of the season—but not a sign of hosta. There wasn’t even any spring phlox yet.
    â€œOkay,” Nan said. “Time to go check out Waveland Circle. Let’s see what Marta Poppendauber’s up to this year, assuming she’s even started.”
    The Burdick’s three-foot-by-two-foot wooden sign stood right next to the driveway of the house on Waveland. It trumpeted the news: CONGRATS! MARTA AND HAM P., RUNNERS-UP, BURDICK’S BEST YARD CONTEST !
    â€œHmmm,” said Nan. “How come they haven’t put ours back up? We won the stupid contest.”
    George and Nan gazed into the yard that had so dazzled them last June. Everywhere, there were signs of beginning cultivation, with freshly planted annuals dotting the yard and filling numerous flowerpots—both hanging and on pedestals—of all sizes. Gardening tools and bags of fertilizer were everywhere. Clearly, here was a work of art in the making.
    A middle-aged couple stood behind their picture window watching them. They waved. George and Nan waved back to Marta and Ham Poppendauber, and pulled out of the cul-de-sac.
    â€œTime to go check on last year’s biggest loser, ” Nan said.
    About a mile to the south, Dr. Phyllis Sproot was outside, squatting over a large patch of freshly turned dirt. She was wearing a big woven-straw sun hat encircled with a black leather band that George couldn’t help but imagine emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, sunglasses with oversized lenses that made her look as if she were part praying mantis, and a bandanna knotted into strangulation tightness around her neck. She clawed violently at the ground with a hand cultivator.
    â€œScary,” Nan whispered.
    â€œYeah,” George said. “I wonder if she’s planning a big comeback this year.”
    â€œEven if she does, who cares? There won’t be another contest like last year’s to get people all riled up. And there won’t be another for four more years if my math’s correct. Burdick just said they’d have it every five years, correct? With any luck, we’ll all just quietly tend our gardens this year and everyone can keep out of the news.