Chapter 8
8
Kayla
Meg agrees to let me off early from the café so I can rush home to get the house in order before Gabe drops by. I don’t tell her why I need to rush home, of course. I don’t need any more advice about my love life, or lack thereof. I just tell her that my mom needs me, and she understands. Meg is a great boss—and friend.
What I told her is true, of course: if Gabe is right that the bank messed up the foreclosure procedure, then meeting him really will help my mom.
Assuming he doesn’t kill me, of course. I’m ignoring a lot of red flags to go through with this. I can’t forget that he took advantage of Allison at that party. And now, eight years later, he’s suggested meeting me alone at my house at night on a rather vague pretense.
Okay, so meeting him alone at my house at night was my idea. I didn’t want to involve other people because I’m embarrassed by our predicament. I didn’t want to meet him in public because I don’t want rumors to fly. I couldn’t meet him during the day because I work all the time. I know, of course, that these are not good reasons to compromise my safety. But my stupid brain cannot convince my stupid body that I really am compromising my safety. My stupid body is quivering with excitement at the idea of being alone with a very attractive man in about half an hour.
Half an hour! As usual, the house looks like it was ransacked by raccoons. With my schedule and my mom’s physical limitations, it’s next to impossible to keep up with household chores. I scramble around the living room, collecting abandoned water glasses, stacking Mom’s library books (surprisingly steamy romances, which I sometimes let myself peek into), stowing shoes and jackets in the hall closet. I attack the kitchen next, overloading our tiny dishwasher and angling countertop canisters to hide our mousetraps. Extraneous papers get stuffed into the spare room, which is also where I keep all of our important documents. It’s stacked practically to the ceiling with my mom’s old artwork and the art supplies she’s collected over the years. We both use this room for storage now.
I debated how much to tell Mom about what’s happening here tonight. She’s at water aerobics at the YMCA, as it happens. Most of the other women in the class are twenty or thirty years her senior, but her rheumatoid arthritis makes her move like a much older person.
In the end I told her nothing. Which makes me feel guilty, but I already feel guilty for taking on debt of my own and for leaving her to go to college. I’m hoping that if Gabe can help us save the house, I will at least feel marginally better.
At 8:55, I pace the front hall, waiting for him. I steal a glance at myself in the hall mirror. I’m a hot mess, predictably—all sweaty and rumpled, like a woman who served sandwiches for three hours, then frantically cleaned the house. I try to neaten my ponytail, but give it up as a lost cause. Besides, it’s not like this is a date . I have no plan to latch onto Gabe like he’s my knight in shining armor. And I’ll never make the mistake my mom did. She believed my dad when he told her he’d support her painting career. And what happened? He walked out on her. I have a few memories of her trying to paint when I was a kid, but she gave it up entirely not long after he left.
I take a deep, shaky breath and remind myself not to expect too much from Gabe Wilson.
The doorbell rings at exactly 9:01. I open it to find Gabe standing on the doorstep in a long greatcoat and the suit he was wearing earlier. His hair is neatly combed, and he’s got a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. He looks good. He smells good. I smell like french fries, and I can feel my hair sticking to my neck. My pulse starts to race.
“You can come inside if you want,” I say, then instantly flush. Oh God, that didn’t sound like a double entendre, did it? Surely not. Surely it was a totally neutral statement made by a person who is not the least bit attracted to the man on her doorstep.
He nods courteously at me, then steps inside. His manner is noticeably reserved.
“Leg feeling better?” I ask, attempting to regain my composure.
“Much, thanks,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “I really do need to watch where I’m going.” He seems to relax a bit, allowing me a glimpse of the boy I once knew, which flusters me again.
I take his coat, mostly as an excuse to turn away from him, then fumble in the closet for a free hanger for what seems like an hour. I should have known that I can’t handle this. Every fantasy I’ve ever had about him is rushing to the front of my mind. As I guiltily throw my mother’s Carhartt overalls into the back of the closet to make room for his coat, I catch a whiff of his subtle, but probably very expensive cologne. It smells like… wood smoke? A pine forest? I have a sudden image of him in plaid, sleeves rolled up, splitting wood. Nora Roberts would be pleased.
When I turn back to him, I see that he’s examining one of my mother’s paintings that hangs in the living room. It’s a large portrait in oils of a pioneer woman with a weathered face and a child on her hip.
“This is amazing,” he says. “It reminds me of someone. Is it an original?”
“Mm-hm,” I say, walking over to stand next to him. “My mother painted it. She used a photograph of her mother and herself as a child as reference.”
“It’s quite striking,” he says. “Your mother is very talented.”
I feel a swell of pride.
“Yes, she is,” I say. “It’s such a shame that she never had an art career. We might not be in this situation then.”
He turns to me, and we make eye contact for a moment. A shiver runs through me. I’m tall, for a woman, but Gabe is taller. This close, I can see the amber flecks in his brown eyes, and the beginning of stubble along his jawline. He must have put in a long day. I can’t help but feel touched that he seems to genuinely admire my mom’s art. He had never been a snob, though, and maybe he isn’t now.
The silence between us fills and expands. His whole bearing is so different that I find myself mourning the goofy boy I knew in school. Against all my better judgment, I want to reach out and caress that stubbly cheek to soothe the hurt I see in his eyes. Finally Gabe looks away. “About your situation,” he says, taking in the rest of the room. “Did you find the documents?”
I nod.
“They’re on the kitchen table. I didn’t know what you might need, so I just gathered everything together.”
“Perfect,” he says. “Let’s get to work.”
I lead the way into the kitchen, ask him if he’d like anything to drink, then panic slightly. We have milk that’s probably expired, my mom’s Folgers, and a bottle of Bloody Mary mix that’s older than both of us. And my tea, of course. I’m relieved when he simply asks for a glass of water, then turns his attention immediately to the papers.
“I’m looking for the current loan balance…” he says, leafing through the stacks.
He’s taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves now, and I can’t help but notice his strong forearms. He looks more than capable of swinging an ax. I force my attention back to the matter at hand.
“I think it’s here,” I say, picking up a more recent mailing from the bank.
“Yes. Excellent.” His tone is all business. He keeps his eyes on the papers in front of him, clearly avoiding touching or looking at me more than necessary.
He reaches into his leather satchel and pulls out a laptop. He starts a new document and records the outstanding loan balance, almost $30,000. The sum seems completely insurmountable. He also records the loan origination date. Then he sorts through the rest of the papers slowly, reading the first page of each letter carefully.
I’m not sure what to do with myself while he works. I want to help him but don’t know how. I shuffle around behind him, looking over his shoulder from time to time while I pretend to tidy things up, even though I did a pretty good job of that before he came over.
“Johnson,” he says, quietly but firmly. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.” He pulls out the chair next to him, glancing at me briefly without making eye contact.
Where did this authoritative voice come from? Why do I respond to it like he’s an English sea captain rescuing me from dastardly pirates? As I ease into the chair, I have a sudden flashback to the Gabe I remember from high school. We were studying together for a calculus test after school one day, sitting at one of the tables in the lunchroom. He reached for an eraser and knocked his bottle of Coke all over my notes and lap, responding with a surprisingly high-pitched yelp. I laughed so hard that I spilled my Diet Sprite all over his notes.
“Johnson!” he’d squeaked. “You got my natural log all sticky!”
“Your calculus jokes are getting kind of derivative,” I quipped, frantically trying to sop up soda with blank pieces of notebook paper. “Don’t boys keep a box of tissues handy for this kind of thing?”
A lunch lady tossed us a handful of napkins with a glare. Gabe lowered his voice as he brushed off his pants. “Girls know about the tissues?”
“We know about the socks, too,” I whispered back. Gabe blushed and ran a wet hand through his hair, making it stick up adorably. I worried that I’d embarrassed him, but then he looked back up at me with his infectious best-friend grin.
“Let me buy you another one,” he said, gesturing towards my Sprite.
“I’ll buy it myself,” I replied.
“Johnson. I insist. I spilled first.”
“It’s fine.” He let it go until we got to the vending machine, where he playfully snatched the dollar out of my hand, easily keeping it out of my reach. We tussled briefly, laughing and bickering, until he pinned me to the wall. Our laughter slowly faded as we stared into each other’s eyes, our faces inches apart. We were both breathing hard, my breasts rising and falling to brush against his heaving rib cage. This is it , this is it , I thought frantically, my heart hammering so fast that I wondered if he could feel it through his skin. He tightened his grip on my wrists slightly and began to move his hips towards mine. My own hips tilted up instinctively to meet him. He was the cutest boy I’d ever seen, and deliciously funny and smart. I wanted more than anything for him to kiss me, but was terrified of giving myself to someone as completely as I wanted to give myself to him. In a high school cafeteria, no less.
“Let me go,” I whispered. I was still half-smiling, but he understood my tone and released me immediately.
“Sorry,” he said seriously. “I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay,” I said, smiling more broadly now. “It’s just that I’m not quite ready to multiply.”
“Sure, I get it,” he replied with a grin. “You should do that on your own timetable.”
I’d laughed at that, pleased to feel the tension ease somewhat, though I would torture myself later thinking about what might have happened if I’d been brave enough to let it.
“Can I buy you a drink first?” he asked, handing me back my dollar.
“Sure,” I’d consented. We were goofing around again, but I knew that helping me meant something to him, and thought, in that moment, that I could let him do that , at least.
I risk a glance at present-day Gabe. Does he ever joke like that now? I remember what he said about not being a lawyer and the rumors I’d heard about a bad break-up. I squeeze my hands between my knees to resist giving in to another urge to reach out and touch him.
He’s typing on his laptop now, querying a legal database. I watch as he inputs search strings that include a kind of shorthand involving $s and &s that I don’t fully understand. I can tell that he’s looking up case law related to mortgages, though.
Now he seems to have found what he’s been looking for. He turns to me, his eyes alive with enthusiasm. My heart gives a tentative little leap.
“Have you gotten anything else from the bank about the mortgage? It might have come as a certified letter.”
I think for a minute.
“Besides the Notice of Default? No, I don’t think so.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says. “The bank should have sent your mother something called a ‘preforeclosure breach letter’ before the NoD. They probably would have sent it by certified mail. The fact that they didn’t means that someone at the bank messed up.”
“But what does that mean?”
“Well, a lot of states require by law that banks give borrowers an opportunity to refinance their loans before foreclosure. Missouri doesn’t, but Bank of Kentwood’s policies” – he swivels around his laptop to show me the website – “hold it to that standard. The bank isn’t breaking the law in your case, but it’s a bad look. They don’t seem to have a good reason to deny you this option.”
My built-in skepticism prevents me from fully accepting this good news. Something’s got to give, right?
“Well,” I start, “so, what? We bring their attention to their error and they let us refinance? It can’t really be that simple, can it?”
“It still won’t be exactly simple. It could be that the bank sent the letter with the regular mail and it got lost. They could claim that your mother got it and, by ignoring it, chose not to act on the opportunity to refinance. We’ll also want to check the post office’s records to make sure that she didn’t sign for something without you knowing about it. And they could still choose to not approve a new loan. But you guys aren’t that deep in the hole, all things considered. My hunch is that if we point out the error, they’ll feel pressured to resolve this in your favor.”
“Well, that would be great,” I say, trying not to jump around the kitchen squealing. It would be incredible if he were right.
“You also should have received a notice of your right to request mediation,” he continues. “That means that a court-approved mediator would work with you and a representative from the bank to find an alternative to foreclosure.”
“I don’t remember getting anything like that, either,” I reply.
“No, you probably didn’t. The next thing to do,” he explains, “is to get a copy of all of the bank’s records concerning your mom’s loan. They’re required to give her access to everything. If they don’t have a receipt for the letter there, it was never sent in a legal sense—even if it really was.”
Grown-up Gabe is serious, calm, composed. His professional demeanor makes him seem like a totally different person from the boy I once knew. I find myself trusting his expertise the same way I trust Dr. Lim’s. He would make a great lawyer, I think to myself fleetingly. Why isn’t he one?
“I can bring her by the bank tomorrow before work,” I say.
“Good,” he replies, clicking his laptop shut. “Once you’ve gotten that information, I can draft a letter that asserts your mother’s rights. Bank of Kentwood really ought to rectify this, if they want to maintain their reputation.”
Our meeting is clearly over. As Gabe begins packing up, I feel a rush of gratitude. I hardly know what to say to him. Even if he’s technically not an attorney, he’s the only person who’s been able to give me even a tiny glimmer of hope about this entire situation. At the same time, I’m kicking myself for not noticing the bank’s mistake myself. I’m an educated woman, fully capable of reading a website. But I’ve also grown up in an environment where most people feel totally powerless against large institutions like the bank. The thought that one of them could mess up didn’t even cross my mind.
“Thanks,” I stammer, “I never would have known this was a possibility if it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “There’s a long way to go. You have to go through mediation, and the bank still has to approve your mom for refinancing.”
I nod. “So will you come back tomorrow to see the bank records?”
“I will if you want me to.”
There’s a moment of silence as he looks me squarely in the eyes. I feel like he’s asking me to let him back into my life. I shift uncomfortably in my chair and our knees touch under the table, sending shock waves through me. He doesn’t move away.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask hoarsely. He breaks eye contact.
“The bank made a mistake. I can’t in good conscience let that stand.” He slowly buckles his bag closed, apparently waiting for me to make the next move.
I want to take him to bed. I want to peel back the layers—the professional calm, the suit, the tie—until I find my lovable old friend. But that’s impossible.
I’ve got to get him out of here. We’re sitting much too close together. We’re too alone in this house, on this remote country road. I feel like eighteen-year-old Kayla, pinned against a wall and loving it, even though present-day Gabe is keeping his hands to himself. I remind myself that I shouldn’t necessarily trust him. What’s worse, I definitely shouldn’t trust myself around him. I stand up abruptly.
“Well, thanks for your help,” I say, businesslike. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tomorrow, my mom will be here, and maybe I’ll unearth that bottle of Bloody Mary mix to smash over his head if need be.
“Okay,” he says, ignoring my change in tone. “I’ll be in touch if I think of anything else.”
I close the front door behind him and lean against it as I hear the Lincoln Navigator start up in the driveway. I need to stay in control here, both for my mom’s sake and mine. My eyes flick over to the painting of the pioneer woman that Gabe admired before.
She’s smart and strong, I think to myself. She knows better than to trust a man.
And so do I.