"Well," she said, tapping her pen against the clipboard, "the rules were updated. It is in the community standards, section on vehicles and curb appeal. A luxury sports car parked in a driveway for more than twenty-four hours constitutes a display, and displays require prior board approval."
"Prior board approval for my daughter to park her car at my house?" I said. I could hear how it sounded, and I did not like how it sounded.
"I am afraid so," Carol said. "I am here as a courtesy, Tom, before this becomes a formal matter. If the vehicle remains, a fine will be issued. I would hate for that to happen, especially with your record as a resident in good standing."
She said it kindly, the way a person says something unkind while smiling. I stood there with my broom in my hand, feeling like a man who had walked into a room and found the furniture rearranged. Rachel came out onto the porch then, with a coffee mug in her hand, and she looked from me to Carol and back again.
"Morning," Rachel said, polite and easy. "Can I help with something?"
Carol turned to her, and her smile came back, brighter and thinner. "You must be Rachel. What a lovely car. I was just explaining to your father about the association's vehicle display rule."
Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Vehicle display rule?" she said. "I parked in a driveway, not a showroom."
Carol laughed, a short sound. "Well, dear, the effect is much the same, I'm afraid. The board is quite clear on this."
Rachel looked at me, and I saw the amusement in her eyes, and also something else, a carefulness, like she was deciding whether this woman was serious. "With respect," Rachel said, "I drive this car every day. It's my car. It's registered in my name. It's not on display. It's just parked."
"I understand how it may seem that way," Carol said, "but the rule is the rule, and I am obliged to enforce it evenly. I will leave you both with a written notice, and I trust you will take care of it promptly."
She tore a sheet from her clipboard and handed it to me. It was a form, printed on association letterhead, with my address filled in and a box checked beside a phrase I had never seen before: "Luxury vehicle display, driveway, in violation of community standards." At the bottom, in Carol's neat handwriting, was a note: "Vehicle to be removed within 48 hours or fine to follow." She smiled again, nodded at both of us, and walked back down the driveway with her clipboard held close, her shoes clicking on the pavement.
Rachel and I stood on the porch and watched her go. Then Rachel laughed, a real laugh, the kind that comes from surprise more than humour. "Dad," she said, "is she serious?"
"I believe she is," I said, looking at the paper in my hand. "Though I cannot for the life of me tell you why."
Rachel took the paper, read it, and handed it back. "A display rule," she said. "For a parked car. Dad, that's not a rule. That's someone making something up because she doesn't like the car."
"Maybe," I said. "But she is the president, and she has a form, and forms have a way of turning into fines if you ignore them."
We went inside, and I put the notice on the kitchen table, and we looked at it over coffee, the way you look at a strange insect that has wandered into your house. Rachel was not worried. She was amused, mostly, and a little annoyed, the way you get annoyed when someone tries to tell you how to live in your father's driveway. "Don't worry about it, Dad," she said. "I'll move it into the garage tonight if it makes her happy. Or I won't. It's a car, not a billboard."
I nodded, but something about the visit sat wrong with me. Carol had been too smooth, too ready with her answer, too vague about who had complained. And the phrase on the form, "luxury vehicle display," sounded like something invented on the spot and then written down quickly, before anyone could ask to see where it came from. I have seen that kind of confidence before, in people who are used to not being questioned. It usually means they are counting on you not to check.
So after Rachel went out for a walk with Helen's dog, which Helen had pressed upon her with great enthusiasm, I did what I should have done years ago when I stopped going to board meetings. I went to find the real rules. I keep a copy of the community covenants, conditions, and restrictions in a binder in my study, the one I was given when I bought the house, along with the amendments that have come through the mail over the years. I pulled it out, dust and all, and I sat at the kitchen table and went through it page by page. Vehicles. Parking. Driveways. Curb appeal. I read every section that could possibly have anything to do with a car in a driveway. There was a rule about commercial vehicles, and a rule about boats and trailers, and a rule about inoperable vehicles left for more than thirty days, and a rule about parking on the street overnight. There was nothing, not one word, about luxury vehicles, or displays, or sports cars, or prior board approval for a visitor's car. Nothing at all.