Before September

By the third week of August, summer in Silverdale begins to look a little tired.

Not finished.

Summer around here does not leave politely on the first available date. It hangs around in the doorway, remembering one more thing it meant to say.

You notice these things when you spend enough afternoons sitting on an upside-down beer crate with a cup of coffee.

Which, fortunately, I do.

The mornings are still warm. By afternoon the sidewalk has turned pale in the sun, and somebody’s sprinkler down the street is watering approximately twelve percent lawn and eighty-eight percent pavement.

This has been happening since June.

I have considered mentioning it.

My wife says a man sitting on a beer crate for several hours each afternoon may not be in the strongest position to advise other people on productivity.

So the sidewalk continues to receive its water.

Late August has its own little routines.

At the beginning of summer, children ride bicycles as if they have recently escaped from somewhere. They travel in packs and abandon their bikes wherever gravity happens to win.

Now even The Minister of Speed has slowed down.

He spent most of July passing our house at speeds normally associated with aircraft. Yesterday he pushed his bicycle home instead, helmet hanging from the handlebars. He stopped beneath the pepper tree and stood there for a minute looking at absolutely nothing.

There comes a point in every summer when even children discover shade.

The gardens have changed too.

In June, everyone comes home from the garden center carrying plants and confidence.

By August, nature has replied.

There are tomatoes nobody can keep up with. Zucchini the size of canoe paddles. Basil that has either conquered the planter box or died completely.

A woman two houses down has started leaving tomatoes in a cardboard box beside her driveway with a sign saying FREE.

The box empties every afternoon.

Then somehow it is full again the next morning.

This may be the most reliable economy in California.

Around four, the street becomes quiet.

Not completely quiet. Silverdale is never completely quiet. There is always a lawn mower somewhere, a dog objecting to democracy, or somebody having a private phone conversation through the speakers of a parked car.

Yesterday May’s Mom came down the sidewalk holding both phones.

One was against her ear. The other was in front of her face.

She was telling somebody on the first phone that she was already on another call.

May’s Mom’s Dad followed ten feet behind carrying two grocery bags and the expression of a man who had been given instructions some time ago.

He stopped at my driveway.

“Warm one.”

“It is.”

“Supposed to cool down next week.”

“So they say.”

We looked down the street.

There are conversations that are improved by not becoming larger.

Then May’s Mom called him from the corner.

He lifted one grocery bag slightly, apparently to prove he still had it, and continued after her.

I went back to my coffee.

That evening my wife came outside and found me in the same place.

The coffee had gone cold. The Minister of Speed passed again, slowly this time. Somewhere a sprinkler clicked back and forth.

“Now, Marcel,” she said, “you know summer isn’t over just because you’re getting sentimental.”

“I wasn’t getting sentimental.”

She looked at me.

After forty years, my wife has learned not to waste words when a look will do.

“Observant,” I said.

“Of course.”

She went back inside.

I stayed a little longer.

The sun had dropped behind the houses, but there was still light at the tops of the trees. Across the street, the tomato box was empty again.

Tomorrow morning someone would fill it.

For now, August was still here.