Chapter 11 - An Offer With Conditions
Todd Mullen, the HOA treasurer, met me at a cafe near the school. He spoke softly and stirred his coffee long after the sugar disappeared.
"Denise says you'd rather make a public spectacle than cooperate," he said.
"I submitted an application. I answered every notice. I requested a hearing. Which part isn't cooperation?"
"The stripes don't help."
"I know that now. They made a point, but they also made everything personal."
Todd set down his spoon. He said the board might close both complaints if I removed the color, withdrew my challenge, and agreed not to circulate association records without first checking with management.
"Those are records I was allowed to inspect," I said.
"They're worried people will misread them."
"Then explain them. Don't ask me to stop reading."
He rubbed his forehead. "I'm trying to find a way everybody can go home."
I believed him. I also heard the cost hidden in the offer. Once I withdrew, the green-appearance sentence would remain ready for the next homeowner. Denise could make the same demand in September.
"Would you vote to clarify the standard?" I asked.
"If somebody brought a reasonable proposal, yes."
"Then let's do that. I'll remove the temporary color as it fades, and the board can review the actual design. But I won't agree that my request for records was wrong."
He didn't promise anything. That evening he sent a note confirming our conversation without endorsing either side. It was careful and more useful than Denise's phone offers.
Emma and I walked around the block after dinner. We passed a neat artificial lawn, a rock garden, and one patch of natural grass as brown as ours had been. I asked her what she'd like in our permanent yard.
"A place to sit without roasting," she said. "And flowers that don't have to be rescued every afternoon."
"I can work with that."
We stopped beneath Otis's palo verde tree. He was fixing a drip emitter with arthritic hands and greeted us as though our lawn hadn't become neighborhood entertainment.
"The hearing's Thursday," he said.
"I'm trying not to give a speech."
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"Good. Ask them to make a decision they can defend six months from now. That's harder than winning an argument tonight."
I repeated his advice all the way home. By Thursday, I had cut my statement from six pages to two.
