"Pay Me No Mind" by Nancy Corbett

How many generations had lived in the two houses? How many renovations had they endured? Surely there hadn't originally been plumbing or electricity. These things had been added and then probably upgraded 20 or 30 years later. Was there a record anywhere of all the people who had lived and died in the houses? She was filled with wonder at the idea of all the things that had happened within those walls, things known and things private.

On the short winter days, Natie had many hours to gaze at the dim light reflecting through the upstairs windows of the house across the street. She could see vague shapes like furniture and what seemed to be an outline of a figure sitting at the window. The figure never moved, so she decided after some time that it was a trick her eyes were playing with the diffused light and her hungry imagination. At her age, it was time to put away such silly notions. She had to remind herself that she was middle-aged.

Middle age had slunk into her midst like a cat who knows its about to take a trip to the vet. Somehow it managed to hide while in plain site. When had it arrived? Widening hips, sheepish breasts. Her breasts used to look everyone right in the eye. In her twenties, that's the way it was.   Her face hadn't been bad either. She'd been quick to smile. Now her smile never reached her eyes. She had been lovely rather than sexy. But men had wanted her, oh yes. She hadn't had any trouble getting a man's attention, even if they didn't usually take her seriously. They never just blew her off like they do now. When did it change?  She moved through the weeks, every day essentially like the last, moving through the work days from weekend to weekend in a steady rhythm. At the end of most days, if you were to ask her with whom she had spoken, really spoken, she would have to say no one. She did her job, they left her alone. A joke at the lunch counter, a compliment about someone's new hair style in the women's room. A brief explanation about why she liked white grape juice to someone in the checkout line at the supermarket. That was as personal as it got.

Twenty years ago, life had been exciting. Everyone liked to invite her to parties. She often had parties herself, filling her apartment with interesting people. They never did anything special. Just drank, smoked some weed. Someone always got too drunk. Someone always left something behind. Those were reckless days when wit and ideas filled the room with electric energy. The ideas thrown around with such ease bordered on magical. It seemed as though all she and her friends had to do was think of something to make it possible.

Now that she had the experience of 47 years behind her, she really had some ideas. But it had become so difficult to get anyone's attention that she had become mute. All those years of connecting the dots, she didn't realize that the lines were fading as she went along. The doorbell and the phone only rang when someone wanted to sell her something. She never even bothered to answer anymore.

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