Look, I'll be direct. The neighborhood association has standards about gatherings, the noise, the cars, the smoke. She said smoke the way people say mold. I'm going to need you to start wrapping this up. Ma'am, it's 1:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday.
Regina said coming up beside her husband. Regina Freeman in the sunlight was almost unfair. Tall and serene and dropped dead. Beautiful. And Lindsay's jaw tightened at the sight of her the way it had tightened at the lawn.
The music is at neighbor volume. The cars are parked legally. You are welcome to stay and you are welcome to go home. Those are the two options. Lindsay blinked.
She was not used to beautiful standing on the other side of an argument. Cute, she said. Real cute. You should know I have the mayor's cell number. Tell him to bring a chair, said Mama Ernestine from the table without looking up from her dominoes.
And the whole yard laughed. And that was the moment Lindsay Whitley declared war. The next hour was surveillance from her porch. Lindsay held her phone up with a decibel app open, walking the fence line like an inspector, announcing numbers to Todd. She photographed license plates, every single one, crouching slightly as if the church van was a getaway vehicle.
She measured with an actual tape measure the distance from Levi's smoker to her fence. And Todd wrote the number on a legal pad. And they nodded at each other like scientists. "Baby, get the tape measure in the shot," she directed. "Evidence has to be thorough.
You're so good at this," Todd said and kissed her temple and filmed her measuring. Between measurements, Lindsay worked the neighborhood text chain like a switchboard operator. "Is everyone seeing what's happening on Dogwood?" She typed, "Thumbs flying. Cars everywhere. Smoke.
This is a property values issue. People." A crony from the culde-sac sent back three siren emojis in solidarity. Most of the street left her on red. And the actual president of the neighborhood association, "A retired school teacher of 30 years," replied with one sentence. A birthday party is not a violation.
Lindsay, which Lindsay screenshotted and filed in neighborhood standards under the label obstruction. At 140, she tried the city's non-emergency line, listed the smoke, the base, the cars, and the quantity of guests in that order, and was told by a board clerk that a Saturday afternoon barbecue on private property was not a code violation. Anywhere in America. She hung up on him mid-sentence. Unbelievable, she told Todd.
The system is broken. You're the only one holding this street together. Baby, Todd said. At 2:00 came the second approach. And this one didn't bother smiling.