Not enough to hurt.
Enough to make the moment physical.
I stepped back immediately.
“Do not touch me.”
She laughed.
Then, with the kind of anger that comes when someone is accustomed to people yielding, she threw the parcel onto my driveway.
“There.”
The box hit pavement.
One corner split slightly.
She looked down.
CHAPTER 10
I did too.
“Happy?”
I said nothing.
She kicked the box.
Hard.
Maybe to send it back toward me.
Maybe because she was angry.
Maybe because control had become more important than the package itself.
Her heel struck the torn corner.
The outer seal ruptured.
A bright cobalt-blue cloud burst across the lower half of her orange blazer.
For one absurd second, nobody moved.
Blue powder coated her glove.
Her sleeve.
Her white blouse.
The front of the suit.
She stared at herself.
“What the hell?”
She dropped her phone.
Then began wiping frantically.
That made it worse.
The marking material smeared across both hands.
Onto the other sleeve.
Across the orange fabric.
“What did you do?”
She looked at me.
“What did you put in that box?”
“I didn’t put anything in it.”
“You assaulted me.”
I almost laughed.
“You kicked it.”
“You set a trap!”
A car engine started behind us.
An unmarked sedan pulled from the curb two houses down.
Another vehicle moved from the opposite direction.
The HOA president stopped wiping.
Two people stepped out.
The inspectors.
The female inspector showed identification.
“Ma’am, keep your hands visible.”
The HOA president stared.
Her face changed.
“What is this?”
The male inspector approached the parcel.
“Please step away from the package.”
She looked at me.
Then them.
Then the blue staining her suit.
The female inspector said:
“That parcel is part of a federal mail-theft investigation.”
The president’s mouth opened.
No sound.
The male inspector continued:
“Do not wipe or wash your hands yet.”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“You’ll have an opportunity to explain.”
“I am the HOA president.”
The female inspector’s expression did not change.
“That does not authorize removal of U.S. mail from a private residence.”
The president pointed at me with a blue-stained hand.
“He staged this.”
The inspector looked toward me.
“He cooperated with our investigation.”
That sentence landed harder than anything else.
The president’s face emptied.
A neighbor across the street had come outside.
Then another.
Phones appeared.
I hated that immediately.
The president saw them too.
Her posture changed.
For the first time since I had known her, she looked genuinely frightened.
Not annoyed.
Not offended.
Frightened.
She whispered:
“I was enforcing HOA rules.”
The female inspector answered:
“We’ve requested those rules.”
Silence.
The president’s blue-stained hands began trembling.
The male inspector photographed them.
Then the parcel.
Then the driveway.
I stood in my pajamas feeling absolutely ridiculous.
The entire confrontation lasted less than four minutes.
Online, it became mythology by dinner.
A neighbor posted a twenty-eight-second video.