She frowned.
“You’re a strange woman.”
Then she turned away and went back to checking her pool.
She thought she had won.
She had no idea what she had just reminded me of.
That afternoon, I sat at my kitchen table thinking about something Diana had told me two summers earlier.
She had wanted to enlarge her pool.
Our HOA required written permission for exterior renovations.
At the time, she had complained bitterly about it.
“They want plans, paperwork, an application fee. Ridiculous.”
A few weeks later, I noticed her pool had suddenly become larger.
I asked if the HOA had approved the expansion.
Diana had smiled smugly.
“I never applied. I just had the work done. You’re the only person I’ve told, so keep your mouth shut.”
And I had.
Until now.
I picked up the phone.
“I’d like to report an unauthorized pool expansion,” I told the HOA representative. “It’s the property next door.”
