Norm cleared his throat. "Debra, I think in fairness we should probably have the Architectural Review Committee actually look at the camera before we—"
"I'm the Architectural Review Committee, Norm."
"Right. I know. That's sort of my point. Given that you're the—given that you've filed the—" He tapped his pen on his teeth. "It's a little bit of a conflict."
"Are you saying you don't believe me?"
The room went still again. Norm looked like a man who had stepped onto ice and heard it crack. "No," he said. "No, Debra, of course not. I'm just saying procedure."
"Procedure," Debra said. "I was sitting in my bathtub, Norm."
The amendment passed two to zero, with Norm abstaining. Kayleigh Mott voted yes without looking up from her laptop. The fine for noncompliance was set at one hundred dollars a day, beginning ten days after notice, and the notice was handed to me at the end of the meeting, in a manila envelope, by Debra herself. She walked it over to me while people were stacking chairs. Up close her eyes were red-rimmed and her makeup was very carefully done over the top of something that looked like real exhaustion. Her hand was shaking as she held out the envelope.
"I don't want to do this," she said, quietly enough that only I could hear. "I want you to know that. Just take them down, Leland. Take them down and give us the box and it all goes away. Nobody has to call anybody."
"Call who?"