Page 27 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Cynthia glances at Lorraine, whose eyes widen. She hopes Lorraine doesn’t think she’s railroaded her.
‘Oh, I – ’ Lorraine starts, then stops as Barb stares at her. ‘I’m, um, happy to be here.’
‘As are we all,’ Barb says.
‘Enough chatting. Let’s make a start, girls,’ Shirl announces. She pulls gloves from her pants pocket and puts them on. ‘Cyn, you’re with me. Lorrie, you’re with Barb. Lizzie, you can float. All right, let’s get on with it.’
Lorraine looks like she’s panicking, so Cynthia smiles in an effort to be reassuring, puts on her own gloves and gestures to Lorraine to do the same.
‘What am I meant to do?’ Lorraine whispers.
‘Whatever Barb tells you,’ says Cynthia. ‘Don’t worry – it’ll be more fun than you think.’
With an expression of dismay, Lorraine nevertheless does as Shirl tells her and an hour goes past before Cynthia even thinks to check on her. When she does, she finds Lorraine with dirt on her knees, a grin and her hat pushed back.
‘How are you going?’ she asks.
‘Great! I like weeds!’
Cynthia glances at Barb, who raises her eyebrows.
‘Really? What’s so good about them?’
‘I mean, I like pulling them out.’ Lorraine brings a gloved hand to her cheek and rubs, leaving dirt behind. ‘There’s this really satisfying thing that happens when you yank and the whole lot comes out.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ Lorraine squints up at her because the sun is behind Cynthia’s head.
‘I can’t say I’ve experienced it too often because I’m not as successful at weed pulling as you are.’ She smiles mischievously. ‘And obviously that means you’ll have to come back and do the weeding that I’m just not capable of.’
Lorraine wags her head from side to side. ‘We’ll see.’
Another glance at Barb yields more raised eyebrows.
‘She’s a natural,’ Barb murmurs.
‘A natural woman,’ Lorraine snorts. ‘Sorry – I like the song.’
Cynthia smiles and brushes the dirt off Lorraine’s cheek. ‘I’ll leave you to it, natural woman.’
She keeps smiling as she heads back to Shirl, who is chatting to Elizabeth about native grasses while Elizabeth’s eyes glaze over.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lorrainepauses and pushes her hair back with her forearm. Even though winter is on its way the days are still warm enough for her to sweat. They’re not in Elizabeth’s garden today, which Lorraine was surprised about, except Shirl said they need to let it ‘rest’ for a while. Or maybe it’s Elizabeth who needs to rest, because she’s not here today. They’re in Von’s garden – Lorraine was tickled pink when she found out she’d get to see Von again after all these years.
Last weekend, after they’d weeded Elizabeth’s garden for hours, Lorraine could have wrung herself out. When she got home Mike took one look at her, grinned and said, ‘My very own wet T-shirt contestant, eh?’ She’d wanted to chastise him but it was kind of funny, and at least he didn’t say anything about her dirty knees. Shirl had been right: the shorts were a bad idea. And Cynthia had been right too, in that Lorraine enjoyed the gardening, and the company of the others, so she’s decided to return. Just to see if she still likes it.
‘So Mike and I were, you know …’ Lorraine says to Cynthia, who’s working beside her.
‘No,’ Cynthia says, leaning further into the garden bed to pick up some leaf litter. ‘I don’t know.’
Lorraine sits back on her haunches and glances over each shoulder. ‘You know.’
Cynthia too sits back and raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh.In flagrante delicto?’
‘In what-now?’
