Meadowbrook

Protests to save Wayside went on all summer, though without the margarita-loving student presence, they were small. Newspaper editorials in support of construction cited the growing school system and city housing numbers. Editorials in opposition invoked the importance of green spaces and healthy ecosystems. No one knew when or why, but the developer changed his plans. He decided to rename Wayside mall Meadowbrook, make the store signs beige and uniform, and build his condos just in the dell with a thin band of trees left as a barrier.

So the protests to save the dell began. It was discovered the dell was a sanctuary for a certain kind of finch, and also an ancient burial ground for the Monacan people native to the region. Jane Jacobs was invoked, but she wrote more about cities, so that was confusing. Someone proved it was one of only a few remaining habitats for an endangered tree frog. Someone else discovered that the soil they would use to fill the dell came from another state where the trees had emerald ash borer disease, raising the prospect of transporting the beetles across state lines.

On a Friday in early August, local day-care centers and summer camps protested. They arrived by foot or city school bus and made a day of it. A picture in the paper showed a little boy mournfully holding a handmade sign that read PLEASE SAVE OUR DELL while all around him children jumped and somersaulted on the sloping meadow.

Leo didn’t want to lose the dell, but everything else was just what he’d always hoped for: a beautiful name and the possibility of an enormous increase in foot traffic. He said the developer was thinking about putting a fountain in the parking lot, and the condominiums were going to be called The Aspires, which the promotional material explained as a new kind of living for an old kind of soul, aspiration combined with spire.

“Is it a retirement community?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Leo said. “But they’re using a lot of stone and wrought iron, and there’s a spire.”

“One spire.”

“That’s what the plans showed. The architect said it would be a suggestion of antiquity.”

Shear Elegance was closing, which was for the best, and a high-end shoe boutique was moving in. Someone had signed a lease for the empty storefront; Leo had heard it might be a bookstore. Mrs. Kim’s Inconvenience had reinvented itself, seemingly overnight, as an upscale country market with local produce, artisanal cheese, a coffee station, and a smile on Mrs. Kim’s face. No one knew how she’d done it—though she’d been spotted driving a red convertible VW Beetle—but everyone was glad.

All the last-ditch efforts failed and the developer broke ground, or rather, started filling in the dell, at the end of August, beating the return of the students by days. The following week, Leo got his new sign. We bought more planters for the promenade and a few for the garage as well, though I’ve told Leo that large hanging baskets over the bays would look nice. He says it’s all up to me. The petunias I planted are thriving.