SeoulFood Sneak Peek
Six angry letters glare at me, like a bright red sign of the fucking times.
D.E.N.I.E.D.
Denied.
Surrounded by an equally red rectangle.
“Again?” I stammer to Nancy, the loan officer I’ve come to know intimately over the past year. “Why was I denied this time?”
“I’m sorry, Jina,” Nancy drawls, adjusting her cat-eye glasses. The woman’s whole aesthetic is a blast from the 1950s past. “It’s the same reason as last time. And the time before that. And the several more times before that.” Her brows pinch. “You need more capital.”
A cynical laugh cackles out of me. “Isn’t that the whole point of a business loan? To get more capital?”
“Yes, but the bank needs to see that you can afford the payments, including interest. Flex Factory just isn’t at that level yet. You can barely pay salaries, rent, and the utilities as is.”
“Jeez, Nance,” I mutter, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Tell me how you really feel.”
Nancy sighs. “Come on now, we’ve been over this. It isn’t personal.” Certainly feels personal. She taps a finger on her fancy-shmancy, leather-clad desk, thinking. “Didn’t you say you have an investor? Your brother, right? Can he—”
“Absolutely not,” I snap, unwarranted to poor Nancy. “I… Sorry. Didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” My leg starts to wiggle, frustrated gears a-whirling. Moving my hands with each sentence, ticking off a mental list, I say more for myself, “The reason I need this loan is to buy my brother out. In order to get the loan, I need more money. To get more money, I need more customers. But I can’t afford the things I need to attract more customers without the loan.” My eyes flick to Nancy’s. “Excuse my French, but it’s a total fucking catch twenty-two.”
She must register my pure desperation, because her face softens with pity. I fucking hate pity. “Jina, you just need more time and patience. Businesses take a while to turn a profit. Some even take years.”
“I don’t have years, Nancy,” I say, my wiggling leg turning into a full-blown, anxious jiggle.
“And why is that?”
That’s none of your fucking business, I bite back, holding my tongue.
Yes, I know what I said—that I know her intimately—but we’re definitely not at the let me know your deepest thoughts and secrets level. She’s a loan officer for heaven’s sake.
Fuck, I need friends.
“Look,” I say instead, shamelessly pleading at this point, “is there anything I can do to be approved for a loan in a shorter amount of time? Months, not years.”
Nancy adjusts her glasses again, gray eyes darting to my left hand. “Are you single?”
I blink. “I beg your pardon?”
“Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Partner? Significant other?”
“What— No. I don’t have a boyfriend. But what does that have to do with anything?” I ask, rearing all the way back. Because what the hell?
She clears her throat, placing folded, manicured hands on her desk, red polish matching perfectly with the six letters deciding my fate. “Because there’s one way you could probably get the loan...relatively soon.”
A pause, then contemplation settles on her face.
And more anxiety-driven leg jiggling settles on me. “Well Jesus, Nancy, don’t make me beg.”
“A husband,” she rushes out.
Can I rear back any farther? “A...husband?”
“Yes, Jina.” Leaning back in her chair, she adds casually, like she didn’t just drop the bomb of the century, “A sure-fire way to get a loan is to get married.”
“Get...married?” I repeat again, devolving back a few hundred thousand years into my cave woman ancestor.
Jina want loan. Jina need man.
Fucking hell.
Nancy professionally smiles, nodding and sitting straighter. “Exactly.”
All I manage to say is a drawn out, “Sooo…”
“So, you got anyone in mind?”
To be continued...