Glenn heard the high-pitched whine of a car in reverse, backing up the drive. Only the newsboy and occasional workmen backed in like that. It was 0700 Friday, half an hour before the tree folks were due: he had two towering pines that badly needed thinning and shaping. He planned to stay home all day to be sure things went right.
He stepped to the door: a mildly battered, dusty station wagon sat in the drive, pulled far back behind the shrubbery, in the shade. Unloading it was a young, solidly-built black woman, her head and shoulders buried in the rear of the car, her butt in the air. She was dressed very loggerish - battered steel-toed tall work shoes, coarse canvas pants, a teeshirt under a thick Kevlar vest. She didn't notice him at first: Glenn watched silently as a stream of gear piled up beside her on the pavement – several ropes, a loop of karabiners and pulleys, a wicked looking set of well used climbing irons with very long spurs, two chain-saws and a fuel can. Then came Kevlar chaps, Kevlar gloves – modern personal armor, the worker's defense against power-saws.
She quit tossing out equipment, backed herself out of the car, spotted him, stood up grinning – she was as tall as he, and reasonably close to as heavy, obviously well-muscled. She held out her hand. "You the homeowner, Doctor Jones? Doctor Glenn Jones, like it says on the work order? Wouldn't want to cut the wrong tree, you know! I'm Nicole, from Urban and Regional Pruning Service."
She reached into the passenger's seat, pulled out a magnetic company sign, held it up. She grinned at him again. "Now, Doctor Glenn-the-Homeowner, would YOU put this sign on your personal car? Even while using the car for company business? Some logo, eh? Of course, I'm supposed to stick it on when I'm on duty like now, but phooey! Make your daughter tell her friends 'Mommy works for URPS!' and see what kind of static you get."
She flashed him a fine grin, a soul-singer wide mouth and strong brilliant-white teeth each standing just barely free from its neighbors. Her face was quite pretty, very slightly prognathous, beautiful smooth deep-chocolate skin that lightened up just enough across her aquiline nose and high cheekbones to show a couple of freckles. Hair carefully done in intricate corn rows, a lot of work. Age? Indeterminate, he thought - probably early thirties, certainly not a youngster. She exuded an overall sense of extreme competence and strength.
Glenn grinned at her and said "That's me, the official homeowner. Call me Glenn, please. You're early. Surely you're not going to go up alone?"
She shook her head: "Nope, no way do I go solo up a tree. Too easy to be suddenly dead that way. My partner – Kelly - will be here shortly. We'll do the job, curb the slash for the chippers tomorrow. I left home a bit earlier than absolutely necessary, I guess."
Glenn nodded, then asked with his own grin "Is that partner of yours a Kelly with a Y-chromosome, or a double-X?"
She laughed, seemed delighted: "You a biologist, too?"
Glenn shrugged a 'yes'.
"Well, it's Kelly with a Y, but not too much testosterone poisoning. He's a good guy – a little absentminded sometimes, but he seldom forgets to show up on time."
They strolled back to the two trees: she studied them intently, they discussed in detail what should be done.
Just as they finished they heard another car drive in, complete with an odd rattle. "That's Kelly's jalopy with its loose front bumper bracket." They walked back to the drive, met Kelly. He was already halfway geared-up. In five minutes both were fully accoutered in slings and harnesses, standing at the base of the first tree.
Nicole paused as Kelly got his rope over a low branch and swarmed up the tree first.
She muttered aloud, for Glenn's hearing, "That man's Y-chromosome is in high gear this morning. Probably because you're here. Normally he'd insist on 'ladies first', the clown!"
As she flicked her own rope upwards to catch a branch, she asked "What kind of a biologist be you?"
Glenn replied "Ecologist. Global scale, process oriented, blue water plankton is my specialty. Central Pacific and the Antarctic – particularly krill."
The rope caught. She snake-wiggled it into place, snapped items together, tugging and testing. "Now that's way cool! No pun intended, you know, Antarctic and all that. You a professor at the U?" He nodded. She continued: "I got my masters in urban forestry there, finished three years ago. All my life as a kid I used to be nutso for climbing trees – now because of that little piece of paper, they pay me a lot of money to do it! Crazy world, isn't it?"
Glenn was startled – his office, for oddball reasons, had been for a decade in the Forestry building that housed her degree program - and he knew all the Forestry program's faculty quite well. He rattled off some names as she left the ground.
She answered over her shoulder, eyes fixed on her upwards path: "Yep. I know them all. You and I, we must have passed one another in the hall a few dozen times! Crazy world, like I said. Here I go – if you're going to hang around, we'll be taking a break every hour or two, we could talk about krill if you're not busy – trees aren't nearly as sexy a topic ecologically. Maybe equally sexy politically, though."
It was an astute observation, Glenn thought. Then she was twenty feet or more above him, and her chain saw came to raucous life.
With the whole day free ahead of him, Glenn had decided on catch-up yard work. It was already warm; he changed to mid-thigh tennis shorts and a thin work tee-shirt. Raking and hoeing, in half an hour he was thoroughly sweaty. Another half- hour and the saws quit for more than a few seconds: he stopped work, strolled to the back to find them both sitting beneath the first tree, a pile of branches off to one side.
Today's forecast was for high 80s and the humidity was already near 100%. Nicole and Kelly were both soaked with sweat – much wetter than he - and things were not going to get better before late evening. But one didn't dare do their line of work without the full complement of heavy protective clothing and gear – they'd just have to sweat. They had their water bottles out: he sat down with them, and for their few minutes' rest they regaled one another with tales of research at sea, and various tall-tree adventures. Glenn had done a lot of tree-climbing as an undergrad, banding juvenile hawks and owls – his stories about that work cemented them into a comfortable informal threesome because he clearly understood their job completely.
Then they were headed back up the tree, still a long way from being done with #1. Glenn promised fresh-made ice-cold lemonade during their next break – and if he didn't show automatically when they took the break, then they were to come find him.
Break number two involved more tales, and a decision that Nicole would move to tree #2, to get it started, because it was even bigger and messier than the first. They thought, now that they were into the job, that they might finish about three or three-thirty.
Meanwhile, Nicole and Glenn were deep into biologist-speak, so Kelly volunteered to set her ropes. He busied himself doing so, then clambered back up into his own tree. Nicole stood, swung herself easily up the first rope to about 30 feet while Glenn watched. She shifted her load and prepared to transfer her weight onto the second Kelly-set rope.
