Homebody by Orson Scott Card Page A

matter, it wasn’t going to be a beauty contest. Don was the only one with the answer to their bet and while he didn’t expect a war to start, he had a feeling that he was about to get himself roped into a lot of unwelcome conversations later. Oh well, couldn’t be helped. His mother would come back and haunt him if he wasn’t polite to old ladies.
    Directing himself to Miz Evvie, Don shook his head sadly and said, “You made yourself a bad bet, ma’am. I own the place, or I will as soon as we close.”
    Evvie turned to Judy and pounded the rake into the grass a couple of times. “Damn all! Damn upon damn!”
    At which Miz Judy seemed to take great offense. “Don’t you go swearin’ at me like some cheap hillbilly whore!”
    “Gladys told you, didn’t she!” said Evvie. “You’re a cheater!”
    “I never said Gladys didn’t tell me, now, did I?”
    “It ain’t sportin’ to bet on a sure thing!”
    “I don’t know what you mean by sportin’,” murmured Miz Judy. “I’m having fun!”
    They were so caught up in their argument that they seemed to have forgotten all about Don. Maybe they wouldn’t be such bad neighbors after all—not if they did all their talking to each other. Don touched his forehead in farewell and made his way back to the pickup.
    The Black & Decker Workmate wasn’t all that heavy, really. He routinely carried loads of lumber or masonry much heavier and more awkward. What made it weigh so much was that he carried with it all the days and weeks and months of work that lay ahead. Sometimes that bench seemed like his best friend; he knew just how to use it, how it held things for him. And, like a best friend, sometimes he hated looking at it so bad he wanted to throw it out a window. Carrying it in meant the job was really going to happen and it made him tired.
    He brought it into the north parlor and set it up in the middle of the room where the overhead light would shine down over his left shoulder as he worked. He leaned on the bench and surveyed his new quarters. The jumble of furniture would be gone in a day or so. The room was the largest space he’d had to work in since he started doing old houses. The bare floor brought the warmth of wood to the room. Out the frontwindow he could see the carpet lying between the sidewalk and the street and it looked like progress to him.
    The door leading to the entry hall stood ajar but because of a slight angle in the hanging it had creaked half shut every time he passed through it, so it still blocked his view of the front door. That was going to be a constant annoyance, having to open and close that door or walk around it all the time. So Don took out a screwdriver and popped the pins out of the cheap hinges. It was a sure thing this door wasn’t part of the original house—no doubt this space had been an arch when the house was first built, and the door was installed only when the place was cut up into apartments. As soon as the door was off the hinges the place looked better. The space flowed better.
    Don carried the door out to the sidewalk and laid it down on the carpet. Before, it had been just a carpet lying by the street. Now, with a door lying on it, it had become a junkpile. On another street the neighbors might have objected, but here it meant that somebody was taking trash out of the derelict house. That had to be a welcome sight to the neighbors.
    He was about to go back in when a Sable pulled up at the curb right in front of the new junkpile. It was Cindy Claybourne. She got out of the car in a smooth motion that Don found attractive precisely because it did not seem designed to make men watch her do it. It was more like she’dbeen bounced out of the car and hit the ground walking.
    “I’m glad I caught you here!” she said. “Hard to get in touch with somebody who’s got no phone.”
    “Not really,” said Don. “I’ll be here, mostly.”
    “That’s what I thought.” She glanced at the door and the roll of