Page 40 of Lone Wolf

Mia Hall, the DA who lived downstairs from Evan, and her ten-year-old son, Peter, generally provided the only bright spots at these meetings, but they’d taken a long trip back East for the winter holidays. For now, it was just Evan, deposed Hugh, righteous Lorilee, and the usual menagerie of denizens.

Evan’s chair was crammed between 17A, a girthy new resident from Charlottesville named Fred Clutterbuck, and octogenarian Ida Rosenbaum of 6G. Though Ida was cranky and senescent, next to the crone who’d poleaxed Evan with the Switch Stick yesterday she was positively in the blush of youth.

The meeting was barely underway but tempers were already running high. At the outset, Hugh scooted around the pool handing out taupe business cards on fine stock. Gold embossed lettering, raised and smooth to the touch, declared: HUGH WALTERS, HOA PRESIDENT, EMERITUS. This subtle bit of electioneering was shut down after Lorilee cited Code 17.6(a), which forbade campaigning materials within one hundred feet of an active HOA meeting.

She conducted the assembly in a stream-of-consciousness monologue while wielding Boba brazenly in a Tory Burch dog purse. At every turn, Hugh raged Lear-like against her machinations until hushed aggressively by hearing-impaired residents.

Keeping the zippered grocery bag containing his bloodstained clothes between his boots, Evan did his best to maintain a human expression on his face and not commit seppuku with his folding knife. At his side, Clutterbuck kept up a steady grumble of unsolicited one-way conversation, pinning in his belly with his forearms so his love handles wouldn’t fall over the armrest into his neighbors’ laps. He’d proudly informed Evan that he’d attended UVA in 1972, the last year before women were admitted. He’d played football there and then in the Canadian League, after which he’d run an extremely successful accountancy firm in Virginia.

Evan steadfastly refused to engage, holding what focus he could muster on the proceedings.

Lorilee gave a dramatic flourish of a throat clear before resuming: “For some people like I, empathy is a guiding light. My ‘why’ has always been service.”

Evan thought, My “why” is not being assailed by idiotic slogans. A sentiment best reserved for what Joey called his “inside voice.”

Ready for her close-up, Lorilee was in a Chanel olive-green leisurewear cocoon wrap and skyscraper-tall Jimmy Choo stilettos. Her collagen-swollen cheeks and tumescent lips were heavily makeupped. “When I ran, I pledged to encourage a kinder energy in our shared halls and—”

Hugh could no longer contain himself. “You didn’t run!” He sprang to his feet. “You manipulated the institutional mechanisms!”

“It’s not my fault you were vacationing in the Gulf Coast when the vote took place—”

“Vacationing! My brother had a life-threatening bout of fulminant colitis, you—you spin doctress!”

“As you can see,” Lorilee said, pointedly stroking Boba’s fluffy head and casting a sympathetic gaze at her predecessor, “our legacy HOA culture could use an update.”

Defeated, Hugh sank back into his lawn chair. Pulling his glasses from his flushed face, he polished the lenses with agitation.

Evan’s eye throbbed, and the chunk of ear in the ice bag was melting through his pocket. His gaze found the octagonal sign near the spa with emergency-red lettering: PERSONS HAVING CURRENTLY ACTIVE DIARRHEA OR WHO HAVE HAD ACTIVE DIARRHEA WITHIN THE PREVIOUS 14 DAYS SHALL NOT BE ALLOWED TO ENTER THE POOL WATER. Evan had seen it once before on his “welcome tour.”

He had never used the pool.

“That’s why I’m promoting a new culture based on principles of caring and openness,” Lorilee continued. “The only rule here is that there are no rules.”

That seemed to irritate the shit out of everyone.

“That’s not a rule,” Johnny Middleton said.

Fred Clutterbuck was still yammering on and elbowing Evan’s bruised rib conspiratorially, Evan gritting his teeth against the pain. Evidently Fred had had two knee replacements and still had some trouble with his Achilles tendons. He’d been a ball boy for the Braves back when they’d been in Milwaukee but had given up baseball after the selfish players’ strike of ’94 because who wanted to see millionaires who played a game for a living whine about anything?

Lorilee kept going, full steam ahead: “Which is why for my first order of business as your new HOA president, I wish to revisit birthday-celebration protocols in the social area.”

“Christ on a stick,” Ida muttered. Her violet perfume was making Evan’s nasal passages smolder.

“First of all, if you have a party, please bring enough for everyone to partake,” Lorilee said. “And contribute if asked.”

Evan wiggled a loose tooth, tasted a delicate leaking of blood.

“We’ve had lots of issues in the past about who contributed money versus who ate cake,” Lorilee continued. “You can’t just show up and get a treat if you didn’t open your clutch purse. And you must pitch in if you want your name on the b-day card.”

“What if we don’t know the celebrant well?” inquired the Honorable Pat Johnson, 12F. “Are we expected to contribute the same amount?”

Boba squirmed free of Lorilee’s designer bag and trotted around, sniffing ankles. Hugh stared at the free-range dog murderously.

“That’s an excellent question, Pat,” Lorilee said. “My personal belief at this point in time is that when we’re celebrating another trip around the sun for a fellow neighbor, we should all contribute equally. It’s part of participating in a community. Don’t you agree, Hugh?”

Undercut by his own life philosophy, Hugh nodded miserably. Evan was surprised to feel a stab of admiration for the political predator Lorilee had transformed herself into.

“But I’d like to put it to the group,” she said brightly, “because we all know: teamwork makes the dream work!”