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“Evie, honey, can you walk over to Poppa Dub’s house and ask for the stapler gun?”
“Sure, Mama.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” Evie scampers down the street while Paige climbs down, but only enough to sit on the rail. She rests there casually, like she’s got all the time in the world. “What can I do for you, neighbor? Are you here to measure the height of my grass to make sure I’m in compliance with your rigid sense of right and wrong?”
This is going well. I give her a cool stare. “Are you putting up more lights?”
She leans forward, her eyes snapping. “So many more lights.”
“But the city ordinan—”
“I know the city ordinance. The code guy very helpfully cited it on my warning.”
“Then why are you still decorating?”
“Because it annoys you,” she says. “You’re entitled. I don’t like it.”
“How does this help?” I wave at the reel of lights so I have an excuse to look away from her. I’m not sure whether the cool late-afternoon air or her temper is putting the color in her cheeks, but it’s distractingly pretty. “It won’t make the ordinance any less relevant.”
“Correct,” she says. “But it might make you less relevant.”
“What does that even mean?” I expected her to be annoyed while she tookdownher decorations, not while she put upmore.
“I deal with men like you regularly,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been in service industry jobs that I have to listen to so many condescending . . . know-it-alls”—her pause tells me this wasn’t her first word choice—“but you can’t get me fired from this house, so I’m going to give you a big, giant clue: I won’t be pushed around on my property, and every time you try, I’ll push back harder.” She stabs a finger at the reel of lights to make her point.
“I have the law on my side,” I remind her.
“No. You have a city ordinance on your side, an ordinance with no teeth. I can’t be jailed for starting Christmas a week early. The code enforcement officer doesn’t have time to actually do the enforcement before decorating can officially begin.” Her lips twitch, like she knows something I don’t. “And if you think I’m going to let my daughter watch a Scrooge bully me out of going all out for our first Christmas in our own home, tell me where to take out a billboard to clear that up right now. Becauseno.”
I have never heard anyone say such a definitive no. There aren’t any hard sounds in the word, yet she still makes it sound like she’s spit out a curse full of jagged consonants. I step back and try not to flinch when I realize I’ve literally ceded ground, but her narrowed eyes show me she didn’t miss it.
I’ve heard Scrooge before, but . . . “I’m not bullying you.” I don’t like that label at all.
“You’re harassing me.”
I take three more very quick steps backward. I’ve never been accused of harassment either. “I’m not. I’m attempting to keep the peace on our street. I warned you that it was quiet. I was trying to help you understand the culture of this neighborhood.”
She hops down from the railing and stalks over to me, hands on her hips, somehow staring down at me even though I’ve got at least six inches on her. Her finger comes up and waggles disconcertingly close to my face.
“Look, Scrooge or Grinch or Captain HOA or whatever your supervillain alter ego is. You better get right with the Spirit of Christmas because I’ve heard that smack comes back to haunt you. At the very least, you better stay out ofourSpirit of Christmas, because I will do anything to make my kid happy, including a completely unreasonable holiday display. But pushing me to Clark Griswold levels? That’s you. I have more boxes of this stuff in my shed, and I’m not afraid to unpack them.”
Now it’s my turn to fight a twitch of my lips, but I can’t help it. “Did you say ‘smack’ comes back to haunt me?”
She scowls. “You learn to watch your swears when you’ve got a kid listening.”
“I see.” And my slight amusement fades as I do. “I understand your wish to give her a memorable Christmas, but is it worth alienating all your neighbors to start before Thanksgiving?”
She lifts her chin. “You’re the only one I see standing in my yard whining about it. In fact”—she reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out her phone—“let’s test your theory and see how much they care.”
She opens Facebook and mumbles “Creekville community page,” as she taps. She’s quiet for a few seconds, her fingers busy, before she gives me a grim smile and puts the phone away. “I’ve just invited the whole town to check out the best light display in Creekville next weekend. You know,afterit’s legal.”
It is a stunning escalation. “I lobbed a water balloon, and you’re firing back with a tank.”
“Bet.”
I frown. “I don’t want to bet.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you spend time around college kids? ‘Bet’ means ‘you better believe that’s what I did.’” She takes a step toward me. “And I’ll do it every time. You arenotruining this for Evie.”
