Ripples of Regret

Karen surfaced with a harsh cough, spitting pool water onto the flagstones. Strands of wet hair plastered across her forehead and cheeks like yellow cords. She whipped her head back, dousing the deck, and grabbed the blue tiles with both hands. Her white capris weighed fifty pounds in the water, dragging her hips toward the deep end.

Her knuckles turned white against the edge. “You put your hands on me!” Karen screamed, her voice cracking as chlorine burned her throat. “You laid hands on an officer! You will regret touching me!”

Alicia stood six inches from the water on the dry lip. She did not take a step back. Her hands rested light on her hips while afternoon light reflected off the pool behind her. Her face remained as motionless as stone.

“When you find out who I am,” Alicia said, her voice quiet and even, “the regret will belong entirely to you.”

The words hung over the pool, flat and heavy.

Karen opened her mouth to yell another threat, but the sound died in her chest. She looked up from the water at Alicia’s posture. There was no shaking in Alicia’s hands, no darting eyes searching for an escape, no tremor of hesitation. Alicia watched her the way a senior partner watched a junior clerk spill coffee during a board meeting.

Karen’s gaze drifted past Alicia’s bare feet to the floating clipboard. The metal board bobbed upside down near the main drain, sheets of paper dissolving into white pulp around the clip. Her floral shoe floated three feet away, heel up, turning slowly in the light breeze.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Karen asked. The harsh bark in her tone vanished, replaced by an unsteady rasp.

Alicia offered no answer. She walked two paces to the side table, picked up her glass of ice water, and took a slow sip. She set the glass back down without making a sound on the glass tabletop.

Karen swallowed, pool water dripping from her chin onto her orange blouse. She had run this subdivision board for six years. Every homeowner she confronted had either apologized, made frantic excuses, or threatened legal action through neighborhood attorneys. None of them had stood in total silence with that quiet certainty.

A sudden knot tightened in Karen’s stomach. She thought of the management firm that bought out the subdivision’s contract three months ago. The board had tried to reach the majority owner four times to contest the new fee structures, but every phone call ended at an executive assistant’s desk in Chicago. The name on the corporate letterhead flashed in Karen’s memory like a flare.

Bennett.

Karen looked up again at Alicia’s expression. The cold confidence in the woman’s stance was not the posturing of an angry tenant. It was the stance of someone who owned the management firm, the vendor contracts, and the ground under their feet.

“Who are you?” Karen whispered, her fingers slipping an inch down the wet tiles.

Before Alicia could speak, heavy boots crunched against the river rock in the side passage. The sound moved fast along the wooden fence toward the open gate.