19.
C AT
I shut off the timer and then pulled the last two loaves of bread from the oven before I turned it off for the day. I had been baking since five o’clock this morning and it was almost three now. I had less than thirty minutes to get dressed and ready for the town hall meeting that Bubbie and Dodie had called for today.
So much had happened in the last few days, and I’d barely had a chance to tell Chai about any of it since he was camped out in a hotel with some criminal. I couldn’t contain my smile at that thought. Because of his past, most people would consider Chai the criminal and not the man he’d apprehended.
The original plan had been for the bail bondsman to fly to Florida and take possession of the man, but at the last minute, they’d changed their mind and decided to drive over to make it easier to transport him back to wherever it was that he belonged. So, Chai’s short reconnaissance trip had turned into him binging Netflix shows and being bored out of his mind.
When he realized that he wouldn’t be able to hand over his captive within a few hours, he moved them to a nicer hotel that was more comfortable and gave the man free reign of the second hotel room. The guy was wily, or at least thought he was, and had tried to escape twice, which just helped Chai relieve his boredom.
I glanced over at the card table where Dodie, Bubbe, and Grammy had been working on their latest craft project and shook my head again at how much fun they had together. I guess terrariums were the new thing. Between the three of them, they’d created nine to give to their friends.
Although I wondered about their intentions since they giggled like kids as they explained that they were making gifts.
All in all, hanging out with Dodie, Bubbe, and Grammy had turned into the same type of adventure as watching Chai’s nephews - albeit on a safer and more expensive scale. So far, I’d only had to pick them up from the club twice because they’d had too much to drink to safely drive home, and none of them had had any run-ins with the law since Chai had been gone.
It seemed that the older women were enjoying their carefree lifestyle, which I thought was what they all deserved since they’d all worked so hard their entire lives between their respective families and careers. I had always held my Grammy in such high regard, and since getting to know Dodie and Bubbe, I felt the same way about them. Through all of life’s ups and downs, the women had excelled in everything they set out to do and accomplished more while raising families than most people ever did. In Bubbe’s case, she even reared a second family of grandchildren who needed her.
And now, they were showering that attention and love on me and my daughters just like they did with Chai and his sisters along with their children. It was easy to get overwhelmed by too much time with everyone together, but they didn’t seem to mind when I went off by myself to find a quiet place to recharge for a while before I joined them again.
I looked over to make sure I’d turned the oven off and then stepped into the sandals I’d purchased when I went thrift shopping with Rachel and Ruth. With the girls taken care of, I didn’t have to worry about strapping them into the back seat of the golf cart Grammy had purchased for me. It was for the best because the girls would rather ride with someone else anyway since my cart had a governor on it that wouldn’t let me go faster than a damn turtle with a limp.
When I told Chai that Grammy had given me a gift with amendments, he laughed for so long that I finally hung up on him.
I couldn’t imagine what he’d do when he saw the rest of what she had done to it. My golf cart was definitely unique - and not just because of the paint job. Grammy thought she was funny, and so did everyone else, apparently, but one thing I’d learned while living here was how to play the long game while you planned retribution.
I hadn’t figured out how I’d get her back yet, but her time was coming.
Since I couldn’t travel as fast as most people, it took me a few extra minutes to get to the community center for the meeting. I found a place to park near the edge of the lot because I didn’t trust myself to drive up and down the rows without incident and then made the short trek to get to the front doors. I smiled and waved at residents I’d met since I moved here and only had to stop a few times to make small talk before I could make my excuses and get back on track.
When I walked inside, I saw Rachel on the front row, waving for me to join her, and smiled when I saw that she’d reserved a spot for me between her and Dinah. Ruth was busy on her phone on Dinah’s other side, and Hannah wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Is Hannah running late?”
“Hannah hasn’t been on time for anything in her entire life,” Ruth explained without looking up from her phone. “From what Bubbe said, she wasn’t born until almost two weeks past her due date, and nothing has changed since.”
“We’ve learned to tell her that things start an hour before they really do in the hopes that she’ll be ten minutes early instead of forty-five minutes late,” Dinah explained.
“What in the world?” I asked as I saw the small glass terrariums that were placed on the table in front of each seat up on the dais. “They made gifts for the council members?”
“Walk up there and look closer,” Rachel urged as she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my seat.
When we got closer, I saw that there was a pile of small rocks perfectly stacked next to each terrarium. I thought about it for a second and then cackled at the audacity of these women.
“Isn’t that perfect?” Rachel asked. “I wonder if it will teach them anything or just piss them off.”
“Well, the next time they want to throw rocks, they’ll have a visual of their glass houses,” I sputtered. “Those women are evil geniuses.”
“ Petty evil geniuses.”
“They spent hours on those things!”
“Like I said - petty.”
“I love them so much. Grammy has really come out of her shell since she got here. I’ve always known she was a strong and spunky lady, but I had no idea just how much fun she could be.”
“She’s a riot and fits in so perfectly.”
I heard Hannah’s voice and turned to find her sliding into the seat next to Ruth who just rolled her eyes at her flimsy excuses.
“I have never seen a funnier relationship between siblings,” I mused. “Half the time, you seem like you want to kill each other, and the other half of the time, you’re best friends.”
“That’s how things are with sisters, I guess. It varies depending on our moods, the tides, and where we are in our cycles. Sometimes things get pretty nasty, but we always pull through in the end. You fit right in with us, and I’m grateful for that. Chai hasn’t ever brought home anyone besides Dawn. We’re lucky because she fits in, too, but we had no hope he’d ever be able to find another woman who gets along with us this well.”
“It’s important to him that we have a good relationship because he loves all of you dearly.”
“We’ve always known that. Chai has been our protector since each of us was born - sometimes to an extreme, but we don’t fault him for that because he only did what needed to be done. Today, you’ll see just how protective Bubbe and Dodie are - just like your Grammy is towards you.”
“As much as I hate my ex-husband, I would have never met any of you without his bullshit. If he wasn’t rotting in prison, I might just thank him for all of this.”
“You could write him a letter. Imagine how much of a burn that would be,” Rachel said with a wicked laugh. “Talk about justice - he tried to ruin your life and gave you an entirely new one.”
“I’m happier now than he could have ever made me.”
“Imagine this. ‘Joseph, thank you for being such a fuck-up and ruining your own life. Just want you to know that my life is great, and I finally found a real man who can make me happy and be a good father to my children. Hope your friends are treating you well and using lots of lube.’ And then in closing, you could put, ‘With all the disdain in the world.’ I like that.”
“I like that too. You hit the nail on the head.”
“Wouldn’t be the first fuck-off letter I’ve penned, Cat. I’ve become a pro.”
Rachel and I had just taken our seats when a side door opened and the council walked in. They preened like royalty, and a few of them even smiled and waved at people in the crowd. Agnes wasn’t smiling, though. After spending twelve hours in jail, she didn’t have an ounce of humor left, especially since Bubbe had insisted that the police charge her with everything from trespassing to grand theft. The man with Agnes got the same charges, but he was still in jail for reasons unknown.
Odd how they wouldn’t release someone who was out on bond for a DUI quite as easily as someone without a record, wasn’t it?
I studied the people on the dais, all of whom were looking at the terrariums in front of them with expressions varying from confusion to concern, while the mayor introduced the twelve-member council and then put in a plug for his reelection campaign. By the time he was finished speaking, Dinah was already back on her phone and Ruth was yawning. Rachel reached across me and smacked Dinah on the knee and then glared at Ruth, and it reminded me so much of something a mother would do that I barked out a laugh.
Even though I tried to mask it with a cough, several people glared at me as if I’d just farted in the middle of a funeral. The thought made me giggle, which I turned into another coughing fit before I was finally able to settle down.
Finally, after the minutes from the last meeting were read, the person who had been voted as speaker of the council opened the floor for resident presentations. The first was a request for speed bumps to be put in front of the community center, and the second was someone complaining about children playing at the park across from her house too early on weekend mornings.
Then it was Bubbe’s turn to speak, so she stood up and walked toward the podium with Grammy on one side and Dodie on the other. It was obvious how well loved the women were in the community when people started clapping followed by some whistles and shouts. Bubbe, ever the wild one, looked over her shoulder and winked before she turned back to face the council and get started.
“As you can see, my friends and I created gifts for each of you to admire but also to consider. The old saying goes, ‘Don’t throw rocks if you live in a glass house.’ I can’t think of anything more fitting for the presentation I’m about to make. Buckle your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, because we’re about to get really honest with our neighbors here today.”
Nine of the twelve council members were already red in the face and looked completely disgruntled by the obvious meaning of the gifts the women had made, but three of the council members were just grinning. They were clearly the ones with nothing to hide.
“When I moved into this community, I fell in love with all of the amenities and the sense of fellowship I found. As all of you are aware, my grandson was sent to prison and served seven years. I wanted nothing more than for him to rejoin his family here, but that created a crazy amount of drama. Rules had been created to keep him from joining our community, and for the longest time, I accepted that as something I couldn’t change. However, with a little bit of research, I’ve found that if my grandson can’t live here because of his past, then that means there are a lot of residents who need to sell their homes and find somewhere else to live.”
Bubbe stepped aside, and Dodie cleared her throat as she put her readers on and lifted the paper she’d been holding.
One by one, she listed the names of each council member and announced the skeletons they had in their closets including well-known crimes they had committed but never been prosecuted for. Dodie brought up everything from unpermitted modifications to their homes, previous convictions of petty crimes, and even a few prison sentences for themselves or people who currently lived with them.
There was a lot of whispering, and it only got louder when Dodie turned around and addressed the crowd as she flipped to the next page.
“I’ve got five more pages here that list the criminal records of each person listed in the community directory and everyone who lives in their home. If my point hasn’t been made by talking about the council members' dirty secrets, I’m more than willing to start listing out everyone else’s now.”
The whispers turned into a dull roar and the council speaker’s gavel finally broke because he’d been banging it so forcefully. The nearly riotous throng of residents didn’t calm until Grammy stepped up and ordered everyone to be quiet in her firm attorney voice. Amazingly, everyone did.
I had always been proud of Grammy’s accomplishments, but I had never more proud than I was when she listed out the statutes explaining that what was applicable to one person in the HOA was applicable to everyone and gave examples of court cases where residents were forced to sell their homes at a loss because they were no longer allowed to live in their community.
I was shocked when the side door burst open and Fish’s nephews came rushing through, each holding a stack of business cards. They scattered around the room and handed each person a card. It took everything I had not to laugh when I looked down and found they’d handed me a business card from the realty company that Bubbe and Dodie still owned.
Once they were done, they ran out the back door, whooping and hollering, probably off to wreak havoc on the neighborhood since the majority of the adults were clearly occupied.
“And now, because of these special circumstances, I’d like to present an amended HOA agreement that specifies convictions that will not be accepted and relieves the members who have prior convictions that don’t fall under those statutes of any culpability or the need to vacate their residence.” When the crowd started to get loud again, Grammy put her hand up for silence. “And I’d like to propose that we hold special midterm elections to replace the HOA board members who were elected under false pretenses and have lived in the shadows while judging those in the light.”
The same nine people who had been red-faced earlier were sputtering and shouting, all sense of decorum gone now that Grammy had thrown down the gauntlet to the cheers and clapping of the crowd behind her. I wasn’t sure if they were happy that their own skeletons hadn’t been rattled or that there might finally be some new blood in the community leader positions. It didn’t matter either way.
From the reaction of the crowd, I could tell that the document Grammy had presented would soon become the new agreement, which meant that Chai could live inside the house with us rather than staying on his boat just so he didn’t cause any problems for Grammy or Bubbe.
“If you think this is awesome, you should have seen what happened when Aunt Dodie and Bubbe went after the school board,” Rachel whispered as she reached over and squeezed my hand. “Now Chai can finally call the house that holds the people he loves home.”
“I wish he could have been here to see them in action.”
Dinah grinned before she said, “Since he’s not, he’ll just have to be happy with the live stream I set up on the community Facebook page.”
“That’s why you’ve been on your phone this whole time?” Rachel asked.
“One of us is going to have to take the diabolical crown from Bubbe someday, and I wanted to put myself in the running,” Dinah explained with an amused smile. “I learned from the best.”
“We’re still learning,” I mused as I watched the three elderly ladies go back to their seats amid the uproar they’d caused. “And I’m proud to be a student because those ladies have lots to teach us.”
I wasn’t sure which sister said it, but I completely agreed when I heard, “And that’s terrifying.”