I glared back, refusing to enter this game. Even when I went against Katy, somehow I never came out the victor. It took a few years, but I’d learned to let her sputter and complain to wear herself out before I made my move.
“Everyone, get in the car.” I pointed back to the parking lot where my red Tesla was parked on the corner.
Katy didn’t budge, and her new friend shot her attention back and forth between the two of us as if we were snakes ready to lash out and she didn’t want to be caught. It was a decent fear. While annoying that Katy brought another unsuspecting person into her fold, I enjoyed knowing she didn’t pick morons.
“I just live down the road, on top of the plant shop, so I’ll walk home.”
The plant shop? The one my cousin was building right next to? Wonderful. Katy’s recent choice of friends made more sense in the moment.
“I said everybody get in the car,” I enunciated my words and slowed them so both women would understand. We weren’t playing a game.
Katy stomped her foot but then turned on a heel and paraded herself to my vehicle, stopping on the driver side.
“The day I let you drive my car, Katy, is the day they put me in the ground.”
Her eyes narrowed even further, and I wondered if she could see out of them since her eyelids were so close to being shut. “I can arrange it sooner than you imagine.”
I squeezed past Katy, sliding into the driver side, and watched as she stomped back to her side.
Plant girl saw herself into the back seat and thankfully her mouth stayed quiet. She probably sensed the tension between Katy and me. The nursery sat only a few streets away, and I pulled over to the side of the road to drop her off, lowering my window as she crossed the street.
“Make better choices,” I yelled out after her as she walked over the yellow line in the middle of the street. I didn’t expect it to do much good, but a man had to try. For the town.
“You are such an asshole,” Katy said slapping my shoulder twice for good measure.
I peeled away from the curve, squealing my tires, and then slammed on the brakes at the corner of Main Street and Bayside. Katy’s house was too close to downtown and yet still too far away. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to ring her neck in the car or get away from her as fast as possible.
The rest of the thirty-two-second drive happened in silence as I clenched my teeth together. My Tesla came to a quick stop at the side of the road in front of her home and I locked the doors, waiting until she registered the audible click.
“Yeah, I’m the asshole. I give you cheaper rent than anyone else in the city. I make sure your shit is taken care of every single month. I told you not to worry about this situation, that I had it handled. But you broke into a school building. What is wrong with you?”
“You do not give me cheaper rent,” she said grasping onto the least important part of my sentence.
“Katy, you live across the street from the Atlantic Ocean.” True she didn’t have anywhere near the view I did, but people would still kill for her house. My aggravation bubbled over and I said more than I should have. “I could rent it for three times what I charge you a month. Do you honestly think anyone else in this town pays six hundred dollars a month in rent?”
I had homes five blocks into the city where I charged more than that a month, and they weren’t anywhere close to her beachside location or size.
She shook her head, still refusing to listen. In her defense I’d never been as truthful with Katy as I was in that moment. “But it’s only a two-bedroom one bath.”
“Those are the shit made-up excuses we told your grandmother to get her to continue living there. You think I let you keep the same rent for fun? Like there hasn’t been inflation on housing prices in the last twenty years? You think I do this for everyone?”
My family bought the house from Katy’s grandmother when times were tight and she needed the extra help before losing it to back mortgage payments. Part of the agreement included reduced rent, but I never agreed to keep it that way for the next tenant.
I said things I shouldn’t have, but the words kept coming. I couldn’t stop myself. Years of built-up frustration and anger decided at that moment to unleash.
“A Kensington would never give a Kadish a break.”
I rolled my eyes so hard the optic nerve in the back of them actually hurt. “I don’t only give you breaks. Do you not pay attention? I’m also giving your friends in this damn town a break.” If my father knew the things I’d done for Katy and her friends over the years, he’d have a heart attack. “What do you think a corner lot cafe with a kitchen setup would run for in this town?” I lowered Anessa’s rent the month after she gave Katy a job. Told her it was for the bad drywall job in the kitchen.
“How would I know? I’m not the megalomaniac real estate investor.”
“A hell of a lot more than I charge Anessa. I have your yard landscaped every spring and fall.”
Katy’s mouth dropped open in anger. It was one of her easiest expressions to read. “You charged me two hundred dollars for that. I can rake my yard for free.”
“No, you can’t because you’re too busy picking up extra hours at the bakery so you can pay your bills. And I paid them a thousand dollars to do that landscaping work, but only charged you two hundred because I knew if I didn’t make you pay something then you’d pitch a fit. Don’t even get me started on the bed-and-breakfast.”
“What about the B and B?”
