She noticed me and waved. I waved back.
There was nothing wrong with a person being particular. As an accountant, I am particular about many things, including paper clips, appointment times, and whether somebody has attached the supporting invoice to an expense report. Sandra's particularity was simply more outward-facing than mine. She believed the neighborhood could improve if everybody accepted her suggestions, and she began offering those suggestions before she had unpacked all her boxes.
The first week, she proposed changing the neighborhood's garbage-collection arrangements, although the schedule was established by the county. The second week, she asked Mrs. Harper to cut down a shrub because it obstructed the view from Sandra's driveway. The third week, she circulated a message suggesting that the street should develop a common standard for front-door colors. Nobody voted on that proposal, partly because there was no organization authorized to take such a vote and partly because Mrs. Harper had painted her door bright yellow twenty years earlier and intended to defend it until the end of time.
I found Sandra exhausting in small doses, but not initially threatening. Her children, Olivia and Henry, were sweet, lively, and curious, and the neighborhood had become quieter since several older families moved away. When they spotted my pool through an open gate during a service visit, their reaction was exactly what one would expect. They stopped in the sidewalk, stared at the glittering blue water, and asked their mother whether people really got to have pools that big at home.
Sandra laughed. "Perhaps we'll get one someday."
Her eyes lingered on the water a little longer than theirs.
Three months after she moved in, on a June Saturday that had already grown humid by nine in the morning, Sandra knocked on my front door. I had been reviewing invoices at the kitchen table and still had a pencil tucked behind one ear. She wore a sun hat and held two lemonade cups. The children, she explained, had been talking about the pool constantly. Would I mind if they swam occasionally, with her supervising, whenever the weather was good?
I did not answer immediately. Children and swimming pools are a combination that requires thought, not because children are inherently careless, but because accidents happen quickly and responsibility does not disappear just because everyone is having fun. I asked about their swimming ability, whether Sandra would remain physically present, and whether she understood the pool's safety rules. She assured me that she did. She said they took lessons every summer and that she never allowed them near water unsupervised.
"Let me think about it," I said.
Sandra's smile tightened slightly. "Of course. I just thought it would be lovely for the children."