Bentley Little - The Association

"You had a falling out," the older woman said intuitively .

"Yeah, kind of."

"Consider her uninvited."

"But that's not fair. You've known Audrey a lot longer than you've known me."

"I trust you," Liz said.

It was a vote of confidence that made her feel happy and privileged.

"What time do you want us there?" she asked.

A wry chuckle. "Whenever's convenient for you. I'm certainly not going anywhere. I'll be here all day."

"One o'clock?"

"One o'clock would be fine."

Maureen walked back upstairs and saw that Barry had given Danna and Lupe the two pancakes that had been cooking and now had two others on the frying pan. He greeted her with a quizzical raising of eyebrows.

"Liz," she explained.

"Everything's okay, isn't it?"

"Yeah. She invited me over this afternoon." Maureen's glance took in Lupe and Danna. "All three of us. Seems she's feeling better."

"A friend of yours?" Danna asked, sipping orange juice.

"One of our only friends up here. Her husband was the one who was killed."

"Oh."

Barry nodded. "She's one of us."

"Their house has a really spectacular view," Maureen couldn't help adding. "It's worth a trip up there just to see that."

Barry handed her the spatula, relinquishing his role as cook. "So you think she's okay?"

"I think so. I hope so." There was a pause. "She disinvited Audrey, but I think Tina's going to be there."

"Are you okay with that?"

"I don't know. We'll see." The seven of them spent the morning walking the neighborhood, Barry and Maureen pointing out the pool and community center as well as the home of the association president.

Chuck brought along his palm corder videotaping everything they saw, zooming in on the president's house in particular and recording it in detail. "We need to find out where the other board members live," he said. "Then we tape their houses and go over everything with a fine-tooth comb, make sure they're not breaking even minor rules. Any infraction and we'll nail their asses to the wall, sue them for singling out some people and not others."

Maureen laughed. "I'm glad you guys are here."

"Seven heads are better than two."

After a lunch of sandwiches and salad, Maureen charged Barry with cleaning the dishes and went downstairs to comb her hair and put on some lipstick.

"You sure you want us to go?" Danna asked. "We could just stay here ..."

"It'll be fun. And we won't stay too long. Don't worry."

"But we're going to walk again?"

"This is like a spa vacation," Lupe told her. "Sun and exercise.

We'll return home to California tanned and fit."

"That's one way to look at it."

They kissed their husbands good-bye, Barry told Maureen to say hello for him, and they started off. All three were breathing heavily by the time they reached the crest of the hill, where Tina was waiting, standing in the intermittent shadows of Liz's willow tree in a vain effort to stay out of the hot sun. "I saw you walking up," she said.

Maureen wasn't sure how she felt about seeing Tina again. At the annual meeting, she'd been right there with the crowd, part of it, putting the lie to everything she'd ever said regarding the association. And Tina hadn't said a thing when she and Barry had been ejected from the building.

Still, she was here, being friendly, making overtures, and it was clear that she was ready to stand by Liz in her hour of need. That should count for something.

Maybe she'd just been caught up in the moment.

Maureen nodded hello. "Have you seen Liz yet?"

"I thought we could all go in together."

"Kind of scary, isn't it?"

"It was a surprise when she called," Tina admitted. "And she sounded perfectly normal, like she's back to her old self again."

"I thought so, too."

"She seemed okay at the meeting, too, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her and she disappeared right afterward ..." Tina trailed off, obviously feeling awkward. She cleared her throat and smiled a greeting at Lupe and Danna. "Hello."

"I'm sorry. Where are my manners?" Maureen introduced her friends.

"Tina, this is Lupe Mullens and Danna Carlin, our friends from California. And this is Tina Stew art."

There were greetings all around, and Maureen was about to suggest that they go in and see Liz when their hostess came out herself to meet them. It was a surprise to see Liz out of doors after hiding so long in the house, but it was a welcome surprise, and Maureen impulsively rushed over and threw her arms around the other woman, hugging her tightly. "I'm glad you're back," she whispered.

Liz laughed. "I didn't go that far."

Introductions were repeated.

"Let's go inside before we melt," Liz said. "I've made some Red Zinger iced tea. Or there's wine if anyone is so inclined." She paused. "I'm a little off wine myself at the moment."

Maureen's surprise must have shown on her face.

"I'll tell you all about it when we get inside."

The interior of the house looked exactly the same as it always had.

Maureen wasn't sure what she'd expected, but ordinarily after the death of a spouse mementos were hidden or highlighted, objects and photos with special meaning either put away so as not to cause pain or moved to places of respect in order to honor the deceased. There'd been no need for that here.

Liz poured iced tea for all of them, and she did indeed tell them why she was not drinking wine these days. She described the hell into which she'd descended, dealing with the anguish of her husband's unexpected death and then with the escalating harassment of the homeowners' association that kept her from working through her grief in any sort of natural way. She'd get drunk to numb the pain, to shut out not only the memories of Ray's gruesome demise but the voices and noises she heard at night, and it was only in the past few days that she'd been able to pull herself out of despair.

The rest of them were silent after that, and Maureen reached over and grabbed her friend's hand, squeezing tightly.

Liz looked from Tina to Maureen. "You two have been great. Audrey and Moira, too. I know I didn't act like it, but it meant a lot to me each time you stopped by or called, and knowing you were there for me helped give me the strength to climb out of that hole I'd dug myself into."

Danna looked embarrassed, but Lupe was smiling sympathetically.

Liz wiped her tearing eyes. "Enough of this self-pity," she said.

"Catch me up on gossip and current events. I want to know what's going on out there."

Tina was full of news about which neighbor was feuding with whom, about men and women who'd lost or changed jobs, about a new house that was being built over on Fir Street, but as it always did, the talk naturally shifted back again to the association, and it was Tina who brought up Bonita Vista's ever-deteriorating relationship with the town of Corban . Maureen was surprised when the other woman placed the blame squarely on the board, and she couldn't help recalling Tina at the annual meeting, her hand enthusiastically shooting into the air to support Jasper Calhoun's edicts and approve the revised C, C, and Rs .

Actions spoke louder than words, as the saying went, and while Tina might speak out against the association with them here in private, she was not divorced from it, not separate from it, she was a part of it.

And she supported its actions.

Maybe this was all part of some plot, Maureen reasoned, maybe the only reason Tina was here was to spy, to listen to what they said and report back on it. Hell, maybe she was even wearing a wire.

Or maybe the association's hidden cameras were recording all this for posterity.

Maureen knew she was being as paranoid as she'd accused Barry and Ray of being, but she knew also that her feelings were totally justified.