He was glad to be away from her, if only for a moment, and he took a deep cleansing breath, only now realizing how tense her unwanted attention had made him. He moved his chair back, away from hers to give himself some space. He wished there was another real estate agency in Corban , but he was stuck. Doris was the only game in town.
She returned with a manila file folder, closed the door behind her, and sat down in her chair, scooting it forward until they were again right next to each other.
"Do you have any idea what we could sell it for?" he asked. "We'll let it go for the same price we paid if we have to, but if we could make a profit, that would be even better."
"I'm sorry," she said brightly. "You can't sell your house."
"What?"
"Your homeowners' association has invoked a bylaw that allows it to freeze assets--in this case your house and property--should you be involved in any disagreement or dispute with the association. Apparently, you have refused to pay numerous fines and charges levied against you."
"They can't do that!"
"They've done it. I have a note attached here to your file."
"What if I don't acknowledge that? What if we sell it anyway?"
She laughed. "Oh, sugar! It's in the agreement you signed."
"What agreement?"
"Why, your homeowners' association agreement." She sorted through the sheaf of papers. "Hold on. I have it right here."
She handed him a legal-sized sheet of densely packed type. Buried in the reams of contracts and documents they'd signed when initially buying the house was an agreement to abide by all of the bylaws, rules, regulations, covenants, conditions, and restrictions of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association. Barry read through the carefully written legalese. They had effectively ceded to the association rights and powers that no sane or halfway intelligent person would ever grant anyone else. How could he and Maureen have signed such a thing? He didn't remember the document at all and couldn't imagine he would put his signature on an agreement without reading it, but there it was in black and white.
"Here," she said, "I'll make you a Xerox."
He nodded, acting calmer than he felt. "Thank you."
Five minutes later, he was outside, holding his copy, blinking in the hot August sun. If before he'd felt paranoid about living in Bonita Vista, now he felt positively trapped. There was no way out. They were doomed to remain here unless they caved in and forked over money for the excessive and unjust fines imposed by the association. He drove back to Bonita Vista distressed, unhappy, and filled with a bleak resignation.
At the gate, the guard smirked at him, as if knowing exactly what had occurred.
He parked the Suburban in the driveway and sat for a moment. He sighed heavily. Maybe they should pay off their fines. Such a thought would have been inconceivable even an hour ago, but principles no longer seemed quite so important. If they could pay off their fines and then sell the house at a profit, they might emerge from this mess at least no worse off than when they started.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the vehicle, walking over to check the mail before going back inside the house. In the mailbox, in addition to bills and a horror newsletter, was a homeowners'
association form ordering them to trim and/or replace all dead Manzanita bushes on their property or face a stiff fine of up to five hundred dollars for each day the problem was not rectified.
Something snapped within him.
"Fuck!" he yelled. "Fuck! Fuck!" He tore up the notice, ripping the sheet into ever-smaller pieces. They were the ones who put in those dead manzanitas ! They had purposely replaced Maureen's plants with sick and dying bushes and now they were blaming the two of them for the manzanitas' unacceptable condition, using it as a pretense for imposing even more unwarranted fines. "Fuck!"
"Barry?"
He must have been yelling louder than he thought, because Maureen was on the porch steps looking worriedly in his direction.
"They're fining us for the dead manzanitas !" he shouted. "Those fuckers ripped out our plants and charged us for it, replaced them with dead bushes, and charged us for it, now they're fining us five hundred fucking dollars a day!"
She walked over to him, took his hands. "Don't worry.
We're getting out. We don't have to put up with this lunacy anymore."
"No, we're not."
"We're not what?"
"Getting out. Doris said they have some type of lien on our house. We can't sell it or rent it out or do anything with it until we pay off the money we supposedly owe the association."
Maureen paled. "You're kidding."
"No. We're stuck here until we pay the fines. Unless we want to just bail and take a loss on this place, leave it here and let the fines pile up."
"We can't afford that. I mean, we could afford it-barely--but it would be financially irresponsible and self destructive." The accountant in her had kicked in. "The fines would pile up. And all of this would go on our credit record."
"I'm not paying them a dime," he said.
"I know how you feel, but--"
"I would have!" he shouted, in case someone was listening in. "But I'll be damned if I'll let those monkey dicks pull this kind of stunt."
"Then what are we going to do?"
"Nothing. We're staying right here and we're not paying a fucking dime. Let the fines accumulate!" he yelled. "We don't care!"
"What if they try to collect?" Her voice lowered. "What if they send volunteers?"
"Bring 'em on!" Barry shouted out as loud as he could. "You hear me, assholes? Bring 'emon!"
The next morning, the manzanita bushes were gone, replaced with an assortment of thorny, rough-looking shrubs. A notification form stated that the deteriorated condition of their property was unacceptable and that voluntary entreaties had been ignored at this address in the past, so the association had taken upon itself the job of bringing the yard up to code. A bill for both the plants and the labor would be sent to them within two working days.
His anger had faded, and in its place was a familiar sense of hopelessness. He'd been seesawing between those emotions far too often lately, and he had no rational explanation for it. Was it this place doing it to him? He could not dismiss the possibility. He recalled a theory he'd once read about the Superstition Mountains in Arizona.
Prospectors looking for the Lost Dutchman invariably went crazy searching for the mythical mine, becoming paranoid and murderous.
According to this hypothesis, the mountains were magnetic and it affected the brains of anyone who stayed within their borders for too long. Maybe something like that was happening here.
Maybe not.
Days passed, and Barry felt as though they were not only under siege but isolated and completely alone. Neighbors waved to them on the street when they walked; Mike and Tina came over with a list of all the anti-association people they could remember from Ray's parties and stayed for dinner; they played a pickup game of tennis with another couple they met on the court. But everything seemed false and superficial. He and Maureen were putting on public faces that masked the real feelings underneath, and he had the sneaking suspicion that everyone else was doing the same.
Maureen at least was keeping busy, doing work for her California clients, but he himself was lost. Although he'd made token efforts, he had not yet started writing again. Not even a short story. Each time he broke out his pen and notebook and sat down to write, he drew a blank.
Maybe he could sue the association for loss of wages due to pain and suffering.
A week after his trip to the real estate office, they were eating lunch on the deck and the painters showed up. He didn't know who they were at first, assumed they were some type of inspector sent by the association to snoop around their yard. He intended to ignore their existence the same way he ignored the endless stream of fines and notices, but when the four men unrolled a massive plastic dropcloth on the driveway, quickly pulled paint guns out of the back of the truck, turned on a compressor, and started spraying the front of the house, he threw down his sandwich. "That's it!" He pulled open the sliding glass door and ran downstairs and outside. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. "This is my house!"