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“Uh-uh.”

He slumped. “Okay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

We stood as close to the edge as I was comfortable with, watching a dozen gray-haired old women with canes and walkers inch their way toward the location where our missing stairs were supposed to be.

The leader shielded her eyes from the sun and spotted us. “I see him! Hurry up, ladies, Jesus, we don’t have all day. Seth! We came as soon as we heard!”

“Hi, Agnes.” He sounded slightly defeated. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you missing bunco?”

“Screw bunco, we wanted to come give you our support. We thought you were dead when you didn’t show yesterday. I said, his divorce is final today, Valentine’s Day is on Sunday—he’s offed himself.”

I choked.

Seth rubbed his forehead. “Agnes, I have not offed myself, as you can see. I’m perfectly fine. We just had a little construction issue, I’ll be back on Tuesday to help you with your trees.”

“He’s not offing himself! For what?” a second woman said, edging her walker to the front of the crowd. “Divorcing a wife who never shoulda had him to begin with—serves her right that you divorced her, she was a whore.”

Seth glanced at me with an “I told you so” look. “Okay, Dorothy? I don’t like that language, remember? We said we weren’t calling her that anymore.”

“Well, she is a whore.”

“She’s a cousin fucker is what she is,” someone volunteered.

I leaned in. “Wow, you just told them aaaaaaalllll the business,” I whispered, trying not to laugh.

“Well, in my defense, they are very good listeners with not-so-great memories? Or so I thought,” he said quietly.

I sucked air through my teeth. “Cousin fucker really stays with you . . . ,” I said.

“Who is that up there with you?” Agnes said.

“This is my neighbor, Charlotte,” Seth said.

Agnes took the glasses off her head and put them on to squint up at me. “Oh, she’s pretty.”

“She is pretty,” someone parroted.

“Have you seen his six-pack thingy yet, hon?” someone asked.

Dorothy twisted to look at her. “What thingy?”

“The muscles on his stomach.”

“When did you see that?” a tiny woman from the back asked.

“When he was lifting up Betty’s tree to put it on that shelf? His shirt went up.”

“Ohhhh, I saw that. I counted eight, though, not six.”

Seth coughed into his fist.

“Well, have you?” Dorothy asked me. “Seen it?”

“Not yet,” I called. “It’s on my list.”

“Is it?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“It is now,” I whispered back.