Turn 6 of 16

Hold a sidewalk committee meeting to complain about the hendersons. You five talk like Karen’s about the problems with the all young or colored people in the neighborhood. The hendersons come up and you five decide that it’s time to confront them. You walk to the house and see the wife who’s black answer. The complaints start immediately about character. Soon, she’s yelling just like you.

The committee convenes on the sidewalk between numbers 11 and 14, five identical women arranged in a loose half-circle like a jury that has already voted. 'This neighborhood has gone downhill,' Daisy declares, and the others nod in the same rhythm. 'It's all these young people moving in. No respect. No standards.' 'And nobody who looks like they belong here anymore,' the mail carrier adds darkly, and Mrs. Jones says, 'Exactly. It used to be decent folks on this street,' and the baby on the teen mom's hip gurgles agreement or hunger — no one asks which. Karen stands at the center of it, and something at the edge of her mind keeps snagging — five bobs, five lists, five identical sandals slapping the pavement. Six complaints filed. Five converts. The arithmetic is right there. But the hedge is four inches over the line, and the arithmetic can wait. 'Well, WELL.' Mr. Henderson comes out from behind the hedge itself, trimmer still in hand, and his wife appears at his shoulder — a Black woman in her forties, gardening gloves, a look of pure disbelief. 'Is there a problem here?' 'There certainly is,' all five say, in one voice. 'That hedge is FOUR INCHES over the property line. We have MEASUREMENTS. We have a LIST. And frankly, people like you moving in and letting it grow — it's the attitude of the whole street these days.' 'People like—you have got to be KIDDING me,' Mrs. Henderson says, gloves coming off finger by finger, and then she yells, and the yell is the fatal key: 'I have lived here EIGHT YEARS. It's a HEDGE. Do you people have NOTHING better to do on a SATURDAY?' The change takes her mid-word, gloves dropping to the walk. Her body thickens and settles into its early fifties, lines carving themselves around her furious mouth. Her hair straightens and lightens in a slow wave, black retreating to ash blonde, and swings into the blunt jaw-length bob — the sixth copy. Her gardening clothes run into a long sleeve lavender v neck and white capris; sandals replace her sneakers; dark sunglasses rise onto her face and stay. '—and ANOTHER thing,' she says in the shared voice, 'that trimmer is TOO LOUD before noon. I will be filing.' Six identical women stand before the offending hedge, six lists rustling, and Karen feels the arithmetic tap her on the shoulder again, harder this time.