Turn 3 of 5

Start with the Hendersons' hedge and draft the complaint. you write the complaint prefectly detailing all the problems. you sign it and then the new karen signs it. you walk over to the Hendersons house to hand the complaint over. A 30 year old black women answers the door in her baggy clothes. you and karen say that her outfit isnt good for the neighborhood.

The complaint takes eleven minutes and is, Karen privately believes, the finest document she has ever produced. Karen supplies the covenant citations, Karen supplies the phrasing, and together they draft a formal grievance of such density that the hedge itself would wilt if it could read. Each numbered violation gets its own paragraph. The word 'pattern' appears four times. They both sign at the bottom — two identical signatures, two identical names, Karen and Karen — and Karen makes a photocopy 'for our records,' because there is no longer a meaningful distinction between her records and anyone else's. The Hendersons' house is at 114, and the hedge in question runs along its left flank like a green wall with ambitions. Karen rings the bell twice, which is the correct number of times, and then a third for principle. The door opens on a woman in her thirties, barefoot, wearing an oversized gray hoodie and sweatpants gathered at the ankle. She has a phone in one hand and the wary look of someone who was having a perfectly normal Tuesday thirty seconds ago. 'Uh, hi? Can I help you ladies?' 'You can,' Karen says, holding up the complaint. 'This is a formal grievance regarding the hedge at your western property line, four inches over the line per the survey stakes, which I have photographed. But there is a secondary matter.' 'There is,' Karen says, drawing herself up beside her, sunglasses flashing in the overcast. 'Your outfit. Honestly. Baggy clothes like that are not good for the neighborhood. It sets a tone. This is a family community.' 'It's my own living room,' the woman says. 'That's exactly the attitude we're documenting,' Karen says, and pulls out the pen. The woman's mouth opens to argue — and something catches at her hairline, a faint lightening, like frost forming in fast motion.