"Pay Me No Mind" by Nancy Corbett
"Well, I never seen no one over there," was the answer.
"There's a couple of old gals living in 'em," said the first one.
"I go by there a couple times a day, and I never seen no one in either one of them old houses," said the one called Bob. "The houses can't be worth much. I say we buy 'em and tear 'em down. The lots is worth more than the houses at this point. Hell, Ray, we could put apartments there and be making a pretty penny."
"Who says they'll be wanting to sell?"
"Who cares what a couple o' ol' broads want or don't want? If we want to buy them lots, we can make it real easy for them to decide they want to move on down the road."
"What do you got in mind, Bob?"
"Let's just say we can make living there a lot more expensive than it is now."
Natie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her hands were trembling as she picked up her coffee cup. The trembling wasn't fear of what they might conspire to do; it was rage. She was shaking hard, and her face burned in an effort to repress her anger.
Natie's imagination raced through all the terrible things they might do to make her living on Phinney a lot more expensive, as Bob had put it. What was he thinking? Maybe they would start a fire. They'd agreed that the houses weren't the object. Fire, burglary, graffiti, rocks through windows.
She got up, legs shaking, and walked out of the restaurant without even paying for her coffee. Later, the waitress would tear up the bill without be able to recall anything about who had been sitting there.
"That's just the way they are," thought Natie. "They want something, so they take it. If I'm in their way, they just walk right over me without thinking anything of it." She wished she could cry, but the tears wouldn't come. As intense as her feelings were, she held them in. She couldn't cry because she couldn't let anything go. Not anymore. "No more," she muttered over and over to the beat of her steps. "No more. No. No more."
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