Chapter 12
JOSIE
I take in a deep breath and make the last, apprehensive step toward the counter. As I do so, it seems like the lights in the busy bank around me dim and that the constant chatter of the other people standing in the line goes quiet.
Yeah, it’s clear I am reaching my last chance of a future.
The teller behind the counter is an older woman. She peers at me expectedly through her dark-rimmed glasses as I approach.
Here goes...
I open my mouth and I try to explain everything... the applications... the knock-backs...
“I know I was rejected, but I just want to double-check in person,” I say at the end of my little spiel in barely more than a whimper. “You understand? Why not hope? It could have been an error. Maybe I just need to talk to a friendly face.”
The teller checks her computer. She types loudly and slowly on her keyboard. Her face is unemotive.
My heart is beating a million times an hour.
“The system has automatically denied you,” she proclaims to me, reading the screen.
My heart rate somehow increases even more.
She’s not going to give me any empathy.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I need the money,” I whisper. “I need it to get a proper divorce lawyer.”
“If the system has rejected you, then I’m afraid you are rejected,” she replies bluntly.
“Please. I need this. This is my last hope.”
The woman continues to peer at me through her glasses until she finally speaks.
“I’ll get the manager.”
Yeah, that does nothing to alleviate my heart rate.
The manager comes swiftly enough – a sweaty man in a too-tight suit. He doesn’t even acknowledge me as he slumps into the chair. He simply takes a long minute to read the computer screen with a big frown smeared across his face.
Yeah, this is really not helping.
And then he looks at me.
“You’ve been denied,” he flatly declares.
It’s all he says to me. It’s a worse sting than getting a spear thrown at you.
“I need this,” I plead with him. This is my last resort, and I am determined to leave here with at least something.
And I’m trying my best not to cry.
The manager shakes his head, hot sweat flying off onto the counter in front of me.
“It’s impossible to do anything on our end,” he mutters. “This is the extent of what we can do for you. Surely there’s another way for you to raise your funds?”
“There isn’t,” I squeak. “There’s no other way...”
“I can’t do anything for you,” the manager says. “I do apologize.”
And, with that, I know it’s the end of the road. I’ve hit the brick wall. I know when I’m defeated.
I nod at the manager and the teller.
And I leave. With nothing.
A retreat.
A failure.
“Josie...”
I’m brought back to reality by my manager. I look up. Amanda is staring at me. She nods at the waiting customer in front of me.
God, I was really, really lost in the clouds just then.
“Sorry,” I mutter to the customer. “What would you like?”
There’s a point at the menu from the customer. A transaction. Pleasantries exchanged.
And my mind remains totally blank.
“What is wrong, Josie?” Amanda asks me once we’ve handed the customer their almond croissant in her dry, sarcastic humor. “You’ve been totally out of it today. I might even have to give you disciplinary for your performance.”
The bank...
The rejection...
It’s all so... crushing.
“I’m fine,” I lie to her. “All fine.”
My manager is not taking the deception. She squints at me with her arms crossed.
But she knows there must be something really troubling me. She’s not going to push, though. She’s a good boss.
“Take a break whenever you want,” she tells me quietly. “Okay? Make sure you’re sorted out whatever it is you need to sort out.”
There is nothing I can sort out. That’s the problem.
“Thanks,” I reply. “I’ll be fine, though.”
I’m scratching my nails. Amanda walks to the back office and leaves me by myself. It’s past lunchtime and so the coffee shop is practically deserted, leaving me standing lonely at the counter with only my mind replaying the events at the bank this morning over and over and over again.
My nails are starting to bleed from the incessant scratching.
I don’t know what to feel. I’m cold. My mind is racing, but I’m not thinking straight. I feel sweat on my back...
“Good morning.”
Another customer. And I am once again brought straight back into reality.
“What can I do for you today?” I ask, looking up at the new patron.
Wait.
No.
Is it?
It takes me a moment.
Yeah, it is him.
It’s Victor standing in front of me, but he’s not himself - he’s wearing a big prosthetic nose and beard. And he’s wearing a baseball cap. It looks so ridiculous. I can’t believe it.
Is he wearing a fancy dress?
A costume?
He doesn’t look like Victor, and yet I can tell that he most certainly is.
“Victor?”
“I want to talk to you,” the man says, nearly whispering. His eyes dart suspiciously and warily around the coffee shop. His prosthetic nose juts out at me. His beard dangles low. “Alone. Properly.”
“What? Really? What are you doing all dressed up like this? Are you doing a role?”
“And I would also like an almond croissant to go, thank you.”
“Sure...”
“Meet me in the park by the statue in ten minutes,” the disguised actor says under his breath. “Okay, Josie?”
I hand him an almond croissant in a brown paper bag.
“Okay...”
And once he’s got his croissant, Victor-in-disguise immediately spins around and leaves.
Yeah... what the hell just happened?
I let myself pause for a moment, taking in a deep breath, before I step into the back office. Amanda looks up at me from the messy desk full of papers and financial documents.
“Yep?” she asks me.
“I’d like to take that break now,” I say.