Till four years ago.

Cartons of silver, paintings, even formal gowns, shipped off like… vegetables.

When she'd first been hired, Mildred had been afraid to touch any of the missus's treasures, fearful of marring something. Even back then she could recognize quality.

The missus, just a girl back then, but so wise, had put her at ease. This is a home, dear, not a museum.

And a fine home she'd made for him.

Light wound its way through the branches of the ancient twisted sycamore on the breakfast patio, filtering through the kitchen window and settling on Mildred's recalcitrant hands.

Gnarled as badly as the tree. But the sycamore sprouted green every year. If only people merited autumn renewal…

Mildred shook her head and stared at the floor, in need of mopping. Such an expanse. Such a big room… not that the last girl had been any use. What was her name- Rosa, Rosita. Three months on the job and fooling with one of the gardener's boys. Mildred had been forced to call the agency yet again.

Hello, Mr. Sanchez.

Hello, Miss Board. And what can I do for you today?

Cheerful, he was, and why not? Another commission.

Mildred set up three interviews with “ladies,'' then the missus told her.

Do we really need someone else, Mildred? Just you and me, all we really use is the kitchen and our rooms.

Fighting to sound gay, but biting back tears. Mildred understood. She'd packed the silver and the paintings and the evening gowns.

So this is what it had come to. All those years, the missus putting up with him and look how him had left her.

That temper of his. No doubt, it had hastened his death. High blood pressure, the stroke, and him only a young man. Leaving the missus alone like that, poor dove, though he had provided for her in a financial way- one couldn't fault him there.

Or so Mildred had thought. Then, four years ago, the change.

Rooms purged and locked.

No more Mexican girls.

The gardening crew cut from every day to twice a week, then once. Then one skinny youth attempting to cover two acres with rapidly diminishing success. Gardens were like children, requiring a hawk eye lest they go delinquent.

The missus's garden, once a glory, had become a sad, shaggy thing, lawns spotted and burnt and incompletely mowed, untrimmed hedges swelling uncouthly, trees burdened with dead branches, flower beds whiskered with weeds, the fishpond drained.

Mildred tried her best, but her hands defied her.

Did the missus realize? She rarely ventured out anymore. Perhaps that was why. Not wanting to see.

Or perhaps she just didn't care. Not because of the… financial issue.

Because Mildred was forced to admit that the missus had changed a long time ago.

The terrible weekend in Lake Arrowhead. Then him. Tragedy upon tragedy. Not that the missus had ever complained. Perhaps it would've been better if she had…

The German railway clock over the left-hand freezer chimed. Something else those nasal-voiced Sotheby's people had rejected. Not that Mildred could blame them, hideous it was. And grossly inaccurate. Nine o'clock on its face meant eight fifty-three. In seven minutes, Mildred would be at the missus's bedroom door knocking gently. Hearing “Please come in, dear'' from the other side of the molded mahogany. Entering, she'd set the tray on a bureau, prop the missus while chattering encouragingly, fluff the mountain of pillows, fetch the wicker bed table, set it carefully over the missus's comforter, and arrange the service precisely. Silver-plate toast rack filled with triangles of extra-thin wheat bread, browned lightly, the coffee, freshly ground African blend from that little shop on Huntington Boulevard- one needed some luxury for heaven's sake! Decaffeinated now, but accompanied by real cream, thick enough to clot for the scones; what a job it was finding that! The golden marmalade that Mildred still made by hand, using fine white cane sugar and the few sour oranges she managed to find out back in the orchard.

The sour orange tree was dying, but it managed to produce a bit of lovely fruit. One thing California was good for was fruit. Mildred still loved to stroll the orchard and pick, pretending the ground wasn't hardpacked and lumpy, pretending the herbs were green and fresh, not the tangle of straw thatching the borders.

Pretending she was a girl back in England, out in the Yorkshire country. Shutting out the fact that on certain days- most days- one could hear the Pasadena freeway.

Fruit and weather. Those were the only things to recommend California. Despite living most of her life in San Marino, Mildred considered the place barbaric.

Horrid things in the newspaper. When she deemed them too horrid, she didn't bring the paper up with the missus's breakfast.

The missus never asked about it. The missus never read much anymore, except for those romance paperbacks and art magazines.

The missus never did much at all.

Nothing wrong with her, the doctors claimed, but what did they know? The woman was sixty-six but had suffered centuries' worth of tragedy.

The railway clock said 8:56 and Mildred had only three minutes to cross the kitchen to the creaky rear elevator that rose up to the missus's bedroom on the third floor.

She picked a fine yellow rose from the three without mildew on the thorny grandiflora bush out back. She'd snipped at dawn, trimmed the stems, and placed the flowers in sugar water. Now she laid the blossom next to the covered platter of shirred eggs. The missus rarely ate the eggs, but one tried.

Lifting the tray, she walked speedily, steadily.

The kitchen didn't look too awful, all things considered.

“Very good,'' Mildred said, to no one in particular.

28

I sneak out of the park and go down Los Feliz, staying as far from the light as I can. No one walking up here, just cars whizzing by. Los Feliz ends and Western starts and now the junkies and prosties take over. I turn right on Franklin because it's darker, all apartment buildings; I don't want to be on the Boulevard.

Not too many people out tonight, and the ones who are don't seem to notice me. Then I see a couple of Mexicans hanging around a corner, in the shadow of an old brick building. Probably doing a drug deal. I cross the street and they look at me, but they don't say anything. A block later, a skinny prostie with spiky white hair and bright blue T-shirt and shorts comes out of an apartment carrying a tiny purse. She spots me and her eyes get wild and she says, “Hey, boy,” in a drunk voice and wiggles her finger. She's short, just a kid, doesn't look that much older than me. “Fuck and suck, thirty,” she says, and when I keep walking, she says, “Fuck you, faggot.”

For the next few blocks I don't see anyone, then another prostie, older, fatter, who pays no attention to me, just stands around smoking and watching cars. Then three tall black guys wearing baseball caps and baggy pants come out of the shadows, see me, look at each other. I hear them say something and I cross the street again, trying to seem relaxed. I hear laughter and footsteps and I look back and see one of them chasing me, almost reaching me. I speed up and run, and he does too. His legs are long and he's got his hand up, like to grab me. I run across the street and a car's coming and it has to move to the side not to hit me. The driver honks and yells, “Fucking idiot!” and I'm still running, but the black guy isn't.

I think I hear someone laughing. Probably a game for him. If I had a gun…

I walk for a long time. At Cahuenga, there's more light and the entrance to the Hollywood Bowl, a long curvy road that climbs up. I'm not going up there. Too much like the park; I don't want anything to do with parks.