Allison eyed the farmers’ market, snapping a shot of the wooden sign that advertised organic apples: click; a pyramid of homemade jams, a row of herbs in clay pots: click, click. She scanned a table full of brightly colored plastic toys—interlopers amid the artisan goods. Kaye Cox, toes polished in her high-heeled sandals, was handing over her credit card in exchange for a toy car. She waved when she saw Allison.

Allison smiled and waved back, then put the camera to her eye and zoomed in on a tree: click, click, click.

Allison wanted to like Kaye Cox. There was nothing wrong with her, really. So she was a little highlighted and made up for Willard Park—those were forgivable offenses. Allison should have stopped by to welcome them with brownies when they moved in a year and a half before, only she’d been so angry with them for building a castle on their block.

She and the other neighbors might have forgiven them the sin of bad taste with time, but as the months wore on, the Coxes continued to disobey the unspoken rules of the neighborhood. They didn’t compost. They had pesticides sprayed on their grass. They didn’t join Friends of the Willard Park Children’s Library. They didn’t even recycle.

Last spring Kaye had joined the town Beautification Committee, which seemed promising, but she immediately proposed banning fruit- or vegetable-bearing plants in excess of four feet—a pointed attack on Lucy, who grew corn and sunflowers in back of the café. The Coxes were like foreign visitors who had not read up on the local customs.

Allison climbed the porch steps and opened the café’s screen door. It was cooler inside the white clapboard house; the wooden floorboards were wide, the walls painted a buttery yellow. The café smelled like the lemon candles that burned on every table. Lucy stood behind the counter blending a drink, her long gray hair in dozens of braids that spread over her shoulders like lovely silvery fish. She wore a yellow LUCY’S apron slung over an orange tank top.

The café was known for its lemon bars and carrot cake, milkshakes and espresso drinks. It earned a spot on Washingtonian magazine’s “Best Of” list every year. Lucy made sure of this. When voting season came around, she asked every customer if they had voted yet and, if they hadn’t, took them straight to the website to show them how. Town residents kept a mug on a hook since Lucy accompanied the distribution of paper cups with a lecture. Allison snapped a photo of the eclectic mug collection.

“I had an idea for your book,” Lucy shouted over the blender when it was Allison’s turn.

“Okay. Shoot.”

“An aerial shot of the town.”

“How would I do that?”

The whirring died. “A helicopter?”

“A little overbudget, I’m afraid.”