Clay Hollister, 58, retired smokejumper turned part-time firewood hauler, had only shown up to the neighborhood block party for the free craft IPA. He’d spent the last three weeks ranting to his buddies at the VFW about the HOA’s $120 fine for leaving a cord of oak stacked on his curb, so the last person he expected to lock eyes with across the folding hot dog table was Mara Jensen, 54, the new HOA president who’d signed the notice. He turned to slip away, beer sloshing over the edge of the flimsy plastic cup onto his scuffed work boots, but she waved, already weaving through the crowd of screaming kids and gossiping retirees to get to him.
She was wearing a faded sage linen sundress, no jewelry, a smudge of charcoal streaked across her left forearm where she’d been tending the grill. He caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen and charred onion when she stopped a foot away, closer than most people got to him these days, and propped one hand on her hip. “You’re the guy who left 10 posts in the HOA Facebook group calling me a power-hungry tyrant, right?” she said, grinning, so he couldn’t tell if she was mad. He shifted his weight, his bad knee twinging from standing too long, and grunted an acknowledgment. She laughed, a low, rough sound that didn’t match the stuffy HOA letterhead he’d crumpled up and thrown in his wood stove last week. “For the record, I tried to waive that fine. I knew that wood was for Jim, the vet down the street who can’t afford to heat his house in the winter. You never answered my email asking for confirmation, so the board made me issue it.”