The three men painting the windowless section of the front wall with a coat of brown ignored him completely. But the oldest man, a bald fellow applying masking tape to the windows, looked over as he approached. "We've been hired to repaint this residence," he said.
"The work order's in my truck. You want to see it?"
"I don't give a damn about your work order!" Barry yelled. "This is my house and I don't want it painted! Now you stop where you are and make that section the same color it was!"
"Can't do it, Mac." The old man continued taping up the window. "I
got a work order from your homeowners' association. You got a beef, take it up with them. But the way I understand it is they asked you to change the color and conform, you wouldn't do it, so they called us."
"I don't believe this shit!"
"I'm sorry," the old man said. "But, like I said, you gotta take it up with them. They're the ones paying the bill." He gave Barry a sympathetic look. "That's why I wouldn't live in no neighborhood with a homeowners' association."
Who were these men? Were they from Corban ? They had to be. After his experience at the coffee shop, and especially after the rally, he'd assumed that the townspeople were of one mind and were all antagonistic toward Bonita Vista. But he realized that there was a whole class of workers whose livings were intertwined with the gated community and whose livelihoods depended on it.
Economics made strange bedfellows.
Again, he thought that everyone Bonita Vista touched was somehow corrupted.
"I don't want my house painted," Barry said, and this time it sounded more like a plea than a demand.
"Sorry," the old man said again. "Nothing I can do. I got my work order."
They slept that night with all of the windows closed, but the house still smelled like paint.
The next day, they received a Request for Reimbursement from the homeowners' association for the amount owed the painters: five thousand dollars.
He was sitting on the deck, staring drunkenly at the sunset, when Maureen quietly slid open the door and sat down next to him. In her hand was a stack of pink association forms and a computer printout.
"I've been adding up all of our fines and charges," she said.
"And?"
"It's almost a hundred thousand dollars."
He practically spit out his beer. "What?"
"I know. I couldn't believe it either. But it's over twenty five thousand for the initial landscaping--"
"Twenty-five--"
"Let me finish." She ran down a list of overcharged services and exorbitant fines.
"Well, we're not paying them anything."
"They'll take our house."
"We're going to owe more than the house is worth!"
Maureen's eyes widened. "That's their plan," she said wonderingly.
"That's exactly what they want. They want to take our home and drive us into bankruptcy. Jesus, why didn't I see it before?" She looked at him. "The fines? Okay, they might be settled by taking the house. But the work? The painting, the landscaping, materials, and labor? Those involve tradespeople who have to be paid. Do you honestly think that the association is going to let us off the hook for those charges? Hell no. They'll take us to court, and we'll lose because the work was done, the services were provided, and we owe" She took a deep breath. "They're going to ruin us."
"Should've listened to Greg Davidson," Barry said. "Hey, maybe I could volunteer to work it off."
"Don't even joke about that," Maureen scolded him.
She was right. It wasn't very funny. He wished he had something else to say, wished he had some sort of plan to get them out from under this, but he didn't, and he drank his beer and stared out at the sunset in silence.
She couldn't take it any more.
Liz stared at the phone in her hand for a long while, then took a deep breath, and dialed the number of Jasper Calhoun A chill passed through her as the old man answered. "Hello, Elizabeth."
How had he known it was her? Caller ID, she told herself. A lot of people had it these days. There was nothing unusual or mysterious about it. Still, she thought of his odd face with its unnatural complexion, and the cold within her grew.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
Even after all that had happened, she had too much pride to beg. She refused to give Calhoun the satisfaction of pleading for mercy. But they'd broken her. For all her tough talk and firm intentions, she had not been able to hold up under the constant onslaught. Maureen and Tina and Audrey and Moira could say they supported her and offer her friendship and hope, but they weren't with her at night.
They weren't there in the house when the bad things happened.
Last night had been the last straw.
She'd heard voices calling her from outside, seen lights shining on various windows even through the drapes, and she turned on the television to distract her. What she saw took her breath away and caused her to fall back onto the couch.
On BVTV, for all to see, was the death of Ray.
It was a re-enactment. She knew that. But, damn it, the man looked a lot like her husband, and she watched as he slipped in the shower and hit his head on the hard porcelain. He lay there for a few moments, head bleeding, then got groggily to his feet and staggered out of the bathroom to the kitchen, where he attempted to pick up the phone. The show was depicting the association's version of events, the story they wanted everyone to believe, and though Liz knew it wasn't true, she wanted to believe it, too.
She could believe it, she decided.
She just wanted all this to stop.
The man who looked like Ray stumbled onto the deck, then fell over the railing to the hard ground below, his already bleeding head landing sickeningly atop an irregularly shaped rock. The camera cut to a scene inside the house where Liz saw herself--her real self, not an impersonator-sobbing on the couch.
She let out an anguished cry, unable to endure this cruel indignity, a whole host of hurtful emotions churning within her. Immediately, the scene switched to a live feed, and she saw and heard herself wailing in real time.
She shut off the television, ran into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, and hid under the covers, pulling in arms and legs and head so no part of her was exposed. There might be a camera in this room, too, but it wouldn't be able to capture her. The camera could focus on her blanket and bedspread all night as far as she was concerned. They would not get another shot of her.
She was filled with bleak despair and a crushing sense of loss. She replayed in her mind the scenes she'd just witnessed on TV. Ray's re-enacted death had been filmed here, at her home, and she wondered when and how that had occurred. She'd left the house only briefly and infrequently since the funeral, and it was impossible for them to have staged such elaborate setups in those brief snatches of time.
At night, she thought. They filmed it at night. That's what she'd heard. That's what the noises were.
But filming those scenes only accounted for some of the noises. What else was going on? What else were they doing here?
She felt even more violated than she had before. Having her suspicions confirmed, knowing with certainty that others had been in her house, gave her not only a feeling of powerlessness but hopelessness. She did not know how much longer she could put up with this. She did not know how much longer she could survive this constant barrage.