"The HOA board approved this. Our attorneys reviewed all of this. The CC&Rs—" The deputy's voice was even. "Ma'am, this order is from the county. You'll need to cease operations immediately.
Any legal disputes regarding the underlying deed are a matter for the courts." He was not unkind. He was not loud. He simply was not moving. Karen's eyes went to the two board members standing near the pavilion entrance.
One of them started walking toward her. She shook her head once, a sharp, small movement, and he stopped. She made a phone call. Her attorney picked up. I couldn't hear the words, only the rhythm of the conversation from 40 feet away.
Karen's voice was controlled for the first two sentences. Then something shifted. She turned away from the deputy, turned away from the guests, turned so that her back was to the resort she had built. Later, from someone who spoke to her attorney's parallegal, I learned what was said. Her attorney had told her, "Karen, I advised you 14 months ago that the title on that parcel had to be formally cleared before you broke ground.
You told me to keep my opinions to myself." She hung up. She stood in the driveway with the enforcement order in both hands and her attorney's words sitting somewhere she couldn't put them down. The bride came through the pavilion entrance at 10:24 a.m. She was in her gown, bouquet in hand. She had been told by the events coordinator there was a small administrative issue, the phrase people use when they don't have a better one ready.
She walked toward the entrance the way you walk towards something you don't want to understand yet. She saw the sheriff's vehicles. She saw Karen's face. She stopped. Karen had to turn around.
Had to look at her. Had to say it. I didn't hear the words. I watched the bride go still. Then I watched her fiancé appear behind her. one hand going to her shoulder and I watched him look from Karen to the deputy to the notice the deputy was now affixing to the resort entrance gate red and white county posting closed pending legal action and I watched his face understand it before his mind was ready to the guests on the lawn had their phones out the photographer had stopped adjusting her tripod and was standing perfectly still near the water's edge camera at her side the band still unloading from the service van had gone quiet the caterers were looking at each other across the tops of their trays.
The events coordinator was on her phone visibly shaking, turning in a slow circle the way people do when they have 12 calls to make and no idea which one to start with. Near the lake, two men in business casual investors, I would later confirm who had come to watch the first event, were standing together, not speaking. One of them raised his phone and photographed the county notice on the gate. Then he photographed the sheriff's vehicles. Then he put his phone in his pocket and looked at his partner with the expression of a man revising a very large number downward.