“I wasn’t. My cameras record the street.”
Beverly turned toward me.
“This is exactly the hostility I’ve been dealing with since you moved here.”
I laughed once.
I had lived in Cedar Glen for seven years.
Beverly had been president for eleven months.
Before her election, my relationship with the HOA had been boring, which is probably the best compliment an HOA can receive. I paid dues, submitted applications when necessary, and mostly forgot the board existed.
Then Beverly won an election almost nobody thought mattered.
Within months, she started treating Cedar Glen like a stage set she personally owned.
Garbage cans visible after six became “community blight.” Basketball hoops needed to be “visually minimized.” One family on Birch Court received three letters because their porch swing was teal rather than one of the approved neutral colors, despite the fact that no approved color list existed.
Beverly’s favorite phrase was property values.
Everything she disliked threatened them.
Children’s bikes.
Garden flags.
Work vans.
Native flowers.
My trees.
The first time she complained about them, she told me they made my house look “wooded.”
“They’re trees,” I had said.
“They interrupt the sightline.”
“To what?”
“The neighborhood.”
I looked past her at three hundred nearly identical roofs.
“I can still see it.”
She did not laugh.
Two weeks later, she emailed asking whether the trees had been approved.
I forwarded the architectural approval, planting map, and Green Streets paperwork.
She replied with one word.
Received.
That was the last communication I heard about the trees.
Until I came home to stumps.
I called the city’s environmental services office.
Beverly rolled her eyes.
“Now what are you doing?”
“Finding out what happens when someone destroys city-supported plantings.”
“They’re your trees.”
“Yes.”
“Then this is an HOA issue.”
“We’ll see.”
After two transfers, I reached a field coordinator named Nolan Price. I gave him the project number stamped on the aluminum tag.
There was a pause.
“How many were removed?”
“Eleven.”
“Removed as in transplanted?”
“Cut at the base.”
Another pause.
“Do not grind the stumps.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Do not allow anyone to alter the planting strip. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
Beverly heard enough to understand the tone.
Her shoulders stiffened.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re wasting city resources because the HOA corrected your landscaping.”
I looked at the stumps.
“No. I’m letting the city decide whether you corrected anything.”
The landscaping crew began unloading branches they had already placed on the trailer.
Beverly snapped at them.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving everything until this gets sorted.”
“You were hired to remove debris.”
“We were hired to remove trees you represented as HOA-controlled landscaping.”
Her face changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
So did Maria.
The crew leader pulled a folded work order from his truck and handed it to me.
At the top sat the Cedar Glen HOA logo.
Below it was my address.
Under Owner/Authorized Representative was a signature.
Beverly Crane.
I read it twice.
Then looked at her.