I sat back in my chair and let that settle. It was one thing to suspect Carol had made a rule up. It was another to see the proof in black and white, in the binder I had kept since I moved in. I felt a slow heat rise in my chest, not quite anger, but the cousin of anger, the feeling you get when somebody tries to put something over on you and expects you to nod along.
I called Alice Thornton. Alice is fifty-five, retired school registrar, and she serves as board secretary, which means she keeps the minutes and the records, and she does it with the care of a woman who alphabetised her spice rack before it was fashionable. She is a quiet woman, careful with her words, and she has always struck me as honest in a way that does not need announcing. If anyone would know whether a rule existed, it would be Alice.
"Alice," I said when she answered, "it's Tom Harrigan. I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time."
"Not at all, Tom," she said. "What can I do for you?"
I explained what had happened, Carol's visit, the notice, the phrase "luxury vehicle display," and I asked her, as plainly as I could, whether the board had ever adopted such a rule.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, a pause that told me more than a quick answer would have. "Tom," Alice said, slowly, "I keep the minutes for every board meeting. I keep them in duplicate, at home and at the clubhouse, because I learned a long time ago that records have a way of going missing when they become inconvenient. I do not recall any vote on a vehicle display rule. I do not recall any discussion of one. If such a rule had been adopted, it would be in the minutes, and it would have been sent to every homeowner as an amendment."
"So there is no such rule?" I said.
"There is no such rule that I know of," Alice said. "And I would know."
"Would you mind checking?" I asked. "Just to be sure."
"I will check tonight," she said. "And Tom, keep that notice. Keep everything she gives you in writing. That is good advice in general, but it is especially good advice here."
I thanked her, and I hung up, and I sat at the table for a while with the binder open in front of me and the notice beside it. The afternoon light came through the kitchen window and fell across both papers, and they did not agree with each other, and only one of them was real.
When Rachel came back, I told her what I had found, and what Alice had said. Rachel listened, and her amusement faded a little, replaced by a thoughtful look I recognised. It was the look she gets when she is running a business problem through her mind, turning it over, seeing the angles.
"So she invented a rule," Rachel said. "And she put it on association letterhead, and she handed it to you like it was real."
"That appears to be the case," I said.
Rachel shook her head. "Dad, that's not just annoying. That's something else. If she'll invent a rule for a car, what else will she invent?"
I did not have an answer for that. I did not like the question, either, because it opened a door I had not wanted to open. I had lived on this street for eleven years, and I had thought I knew how it worked. Now I was wondering what else I had missed while I was not going to meetings, while I was sweeping oak leaves and drinking coffee and assuming the people in charge were doing their jobs honestly.
That evening, Rachel moved the car into the garage, not because she believed Carol was right, but because she did not want me to worry, and because she said it was no trouble. "It's just for tonight, Dad," she said. "We'll sort it out tomorrow. I'm not going to let a made-up rule ruin your week, or mine."
I appreciated that, but it bothered me too, because a person should not have to hide her own car in a garage to keep the peace on her father's street. I said so, and Rachel shrugged, and said, "Peace is worth a little garage space, Dad. For tonight."
We had supper, and we talked about other things, about her company, about the fire-station reunion coming up in the spring, about whether the oak tree needed trimming before hurricane season. It was a pleasant evening, and I almost managed to put Carol's visit out of my mind. Almost. But the notice stayed on the kitchen table, folded in half, like an uninvited guest who had not yet left the house.