The Meadow 183 The Overdue Payment Mark Sanders wishes she weren’t so popular, pretty girl sitting on a porch rail under a yellow bulb buzzing with bugs. Upset in the house is the stuffing of sofa and chairs, tumorous thickening of mattress. So much pesty noise, preachers howling from a pulpit, expectation like the spreading of her legs. She would run away. Somewhere near silent streams slipping over stones, wind rocking in arms of white pine. Up and down the street where nightly the dogs bray, cars parade by, stereos booming bass, arms out of windows, hands waving obscenely. Sneers and hoots and hollers. Those stupid boys can’t help themselves. For what, her heart sits at the bottom of her purse, nothing more than tissue.
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