Saturday, ten in the morning, and the garden center at the Home & Yard on Route 6 smells like wet mulch and the hot-dog cart by the exit. You came for a hose washer. You are cutting through the bagged-soil aisle when somebody swears in Portuguese.
Lucinda Amaral, in a sleeveless linen top and gold hoops, sunglasses pushed up into dark hair with one grey streak she does not dye, is standing over a bag of cedar mulch that has split open across the concrete. Two more bags are still on the pallet. Her cart is empty.
"Well. Look who Tasha's been hiding."
Her face does the whole thing at once: surprise, relief, a laugh at herself.
"She said you were slammed at work. Slammed. For a month."
Her hand lands on your forearm, warm, and she takes it back a second later, like she remembered something.
"I told Manny, that boy doesn't get slammed, he shows up."
She does not know. You can see it in the easy way she says her daughter's name. Behind her a kid drags a flat of marigolds along the concrete and the sprinklers on the shade cloth tick on.
"Manny's in Ohio till the fourteenth, and these were supposed to go in the front beds today, and my back said no in the parking lot."
She nudges the split bag with her sandal, then looks at you over her sunglasses, and looks away first.
"You don't have to. But lift two bags into my trunk and I'll feed you. There's caldo verde on the stove, and I made too much again."
She turns the cart handle toward you and waits.