his ceremonious expulsion. More than once, Maureen called for them to come inside, get something to drink, but as sexist as it was, he felt more comfortable talking outside here, away from the wives, and he laid things out in a blunter, more honest way than he would have if the women were present.
Chuck shook his head. 'What the hell have you gotten yourself into?'
'This is kind of cool in a way.' Dylan looked sheepish as all eyes turned disapprovingly toward him. 'Well, not cool maybe, but...' His voice trailed off.
'Trust me,' Barry said. 'It's not 'cool' at all if you have to live here.'
'But do you have to?' Chuck asked. 'Can't you just move back?'
'We wanted to,' he admitted.
'So what's the problem?'
He explained about the fines and the frozen assets and the very real possibility of bankruptcy. 'Besides,' he said, 'I can't let those bastards think they ran me off. I can't let them win.'
'They won't win,' Jeremy told him. 'We're here.'
Dylan grinned 'All right!' he said, pumping a fist into the air.
'Time to kick some ass!'
They went inside finally, joining the women, and talk turned to other things, personal things: work, families, lives. Both Barry and Maureen found that they were hungry for news of the outside world, happy to lose themselves in the minutiae of their friends' existence, to receive updates on the southern California lifestyle they'd given up and left behind. All seven of them crammed into the Suburban, and Barry took them on a tour of Bonita Vista and then the town of Corban , including his teapot museum office. They had a greasy and unsatisfying lunch at Dairy King-- Chuck had suggested the coffee shop, but Barry vetoed that idea, reminding them why--then did a little touristy sightseeing, taking in nearby Pinetop Lake and walking off a few calories with a short hike along the lake's nature trail.
They returned home between two and three, the hottest part of the day, and continued to catch up on gossip, moving from the living room to the upper deck and then back into the living room when the sun started to go down and the bugs came out.
Lupe suggested that they go get a pizza, but Barry said dryly that they weren't really leaving the house after dark these days, and Maureen said that she'd planned on making tacos.
'That's even better,' Lupe said.
Maureen cut tomatoes and onions, while Lupe shredded the lettuce. Danna grated cheese. Maureen sent everyone out of the kitchen while she cooked the meat and fried the tortillas, and then it was time to eat.
Talk of the association was banned at the dinner table, and to Barry it felt almost as though none of that insanity had ever happened. They were cocooned in their own little world here, safe from the harsh and twisted realities of Bonita Vista, and for the first time in a long while he went for over an hour without thinking once about the homeowners' association.
They had wine with dinner and a few beers afterward, and they noisily talked politics and celebrity scandal as they made their way down to the living room. Barry sat down on the floor, motioning for the two couples to take the couch. Maureen settled into the chair, and after looking around and ascertaining that there was no other place to sit, Dylan plopped down on the floor by the fireplace.
'So what about sleeping arrangements?' Danna asked. 'I saw only one guest room.'
'Two of you take the room,' Maureen explained. 'Two of you can sleep up here; the couch turns into a bed.' She smiled. 'Dylan? I'm afraid you're stuck with a feather mattress on the floor of my office.'
'That's okay. Can I look up porn on the Internet while the rest of you are asleep?'
Maureen heaved a throw pillow at him.
'That'll be fine.' Dylan chuckled. 'No problem.'
They'd caught each other up on almost everything, and for the first time since their friends had arrived this morning, there was a protracted silence.
'It's too quiet here,' Dylan said. 'All this nature and stuff. I find it very disturbing. Don't you have some tunes or something?' He pointed toward the television. 'You guys got cable or satellite?'
Barry reached up to the TV table and tossed him the remote. 'Go wild.
Make yourself happy.'
There was nothing decent on any of the broadcast or cable channels, so Barry read through his list of videotapes until they found one they all could agree on: Young Frankenstein.
Jeremy cleared his throat, spoke up. 'Bare? Do you have a copy of those famous C, C, and Rs ?'
'Sure. Hold on a sec.' Barry went downstairs, grabbed the massive book from Maureen's computer desk, and hurried back up, handing it to Jeremy. 'Here you go.'
While the rest of them watched the movie, Jeremy pored through the document. 'Jesus!' he'd exclaim periodically, but when anyone asked what he'd found, he waved them away.
Finally, he put the book down. The movie had ended some time ago, and they were watching a Dennis Miller rerun on HBO. 'I can't believe this is real,' he said.
'Tell me about it.'
'Did you know that homosexual couples are banned from your little Utopia here? And unmarried couples?' He looked over at Lupe. 'And minorities. Which I assume means anyone who isn't white.'
Dylan laughed. 'I guess you two won't be retiring here in bee-yoo-tee-full Utah then, huh?'
'I need to go through this with a highlighter. I'm not even halfway through it, and I can't even remember all of the craziness I read.' He shook his head. 'This is one densely shit-packed document.'
Barry grimaced. 'I'll bet you believe me now, don't your'
'I always believed you. I just didn't think they'd be so obvious about it. They're not only trying to impose their values on the membership, to legislate morality in a blatant way that no federal or local government would even attempt to do, but they're codifying shit that isn't even legal, apparently intending to use the courts' previous up holdings of homeowners' association bylaws as a shield.'
'I was hoping you'd say that. I thought so myself, but you're the lawyer, and I figured you could make an informed judgment.'
'Jesus.'
Using the remote, Dylan had been flipping through channels. 'Hey,' he said. 'What's this? Some kind of community access station?'
'BVTV,' Barry and Maureen said in unison.
On the screen, a young woman was jogging on one of the bridle trails.
The camera zoomed in on her jiggling breasts.
'BVTV?'
'Bonita Vista Television,' Barry explained. 'I guess I forgot to tell you about that. There are security cameras all over this place. They use them to videotape people and broadcast it on their station.'
'Sometimes,' Maureen added quietly, 'they tape people in their own homes.'
'My God.'
'Don't worry,' Barry said. 'I've gone over this place with a fine-tooth comb. We're safe in here.'
'In here, maybe,' Jeremy said. 'But outside this house, we all have to be on our guard, watch what we say, put on a happy face. The streets, the green belts the empty lots-it's all theirs, enemy territory.'
That cast a pall on the evening, and they broke up soon after, Maureen bringing out fresh linen to make up the sofa bed for Chuck and Danna, then taking Jeremy and Lupe to the guest bedroom. Barry pulled the feather mattress out of the closet and set it up on the office floor for Dylan, tossing him a blanket. He went into their bedroom, closed the door, took off his clothes, and got under the covers to wait for Maureen, but he was more tired than he thought because by the time she returned he was dead asleep.
Liz called during breakfast, It would have been a minor blip on the day's radar under normal circumstances, but considering the present state of affairs, it was a big deal and a cause for celebration. Maureen answered the phone and took the call, and she motioned frantically for Barry to take over the pancakes while she went downstairs to the master bedroom to talk in private.
She hadn't spoken to Liz since the meeting, and the few words they'd exchanged at that time had been
