Cole Bennett, 56, leans against a splintered picnic table at the neighborhood summer beer garden, scowling into his pilsner. A former wildland firefighter who now runs a one-man firewood delivery outfit outside Boise, he’d sworn off all HOA-sponsored events three months prior, when the board forced him to take down the custom cedar firewood rack he’d built with his late wife for their 20th anniversary, then hit him with a $125 fine. His best friend Mike had dragged him out tonight, swearing the craft beer vendor was a guy they’d fought fires with back in 2012, but Cole’s already debating bailing before anyone recognizes him and starts lecturing him about “curb appeal.” His work boots are caked with pine sap, his cut-off gray fire service hoodie has a hole at the elbow, and he’s easily the only person in the park not wearing khaki shorts and an embroidered polo.
He spots her ten feet away before he can make a run for the exit. Clara Voss, 54, HOA president, the woman he’d yelled at for ten minutes straight during the violation hearing, is leaning against the adjacent table, no blazer, no clipboard, just a pale blue linen shirt unbuttoned at the collar, white denim cutoffs, and scuffed white sneakers, holding a hazy IPA and laughing as a toddler shoves a handful of cotton candy in her face. Sun freckles dust the bridge of her nose, and there’s a thin silver scar wrapping around her left wrist he’d never noticed during the stuffy board meetings, where she’d always sat behind a table, face set in a neutral bureaucratic scowl.