Chapter 2 Jordan
Jordan
Now
Life is weird. One moment, you’re on top of the world, and the next, it all comes crashing down to leave you standing amid the debris and wondering how you ended up there.
Which is where my fiancé Sam and I find ourselves one sweltering Friday lunchtime in August, as we listen to the loan officer tell us that our dream home is suddenly and inexplicably out of reach.
“I don’t understand,” I say to the woman across the desk from us at the bank. “We were approved for the mortgage weeks ago. We’ve done what you told us and provided everything you asked for. We had the loan. It was a done deal. How can there be a problem now?”
“Your credit reports,” the loan officer replies. Her name is Joy, which I find ironic under the circumstances. “There’s an issue with—”
“No.” I cut her off sharply. “You pulled our credit when we applied. We’re good. No debt. No late payments. Both our scores are over seven hundred.” My voice rises as the shock bubbles through. “There’s nothing wrong with our credit. How can there be—”
“Jordan!” Sam shifts in his seat, places a calming hand on my arm. “Let the woman speak, or we’ll never find out what’s going on.”
I clamp my mouth shut, even though I’m far from done.
Sam pulls his hand away, runs it over his hair, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. But to me, the gesture says something else, because I know him so well. He can’t keep still when he’s stressed.
“Thank you.” Joy looks at Sam, then back to me, her face creasing with sympathy.
“I understand what you’re saying, and I agree.
Both your credit reports came back great when we ran them for the application, but it’s our policy to pull your credit again before closing on the loan to make sure nothing has changed.
It’s a formality. People don’t usually go out and run up a bunch of new debt in the middle of getting a mortgage. ”
“We didn’t,” I say. “I haven’t even put a cup of coffee on my credit card in the last eight weeks.”
“Which is great, but you aren’t the problem. It’s Sam.”
“What about him?” I ask. Sam is Black, and at the moment I can’t help wondering if that has something to do with it, because it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve faced discrimination.
Before I was one half of an interracial couple, such concerns never crossed my mind.
I wish they still didn’t, but my previous naivety has been tempered by experience.
In this case, though, it appears that the reason is more mundane.
“I told you both not to open any new accounts or increase your debt. I was very specific about that.” She turns her attention to my fiancé. “Which is why I was so surprised to see that you opened a new account right after we ran the report.”
“What the hell?” Sam glances at me, deep-brown eyes full of confusion. “I didn’t open any new accounts. I swear.” He turns his attention back to the loan officer and repeats the assertion.
Joy sighs. “That’s not what the report we ran yesterday says. Even then, we might have been able to work around it, but not with the balance you’re carrying.”
Sam’s back stiffens. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Here.” Joy pushes a sheet of paper across the table toward us.
It’s a page from Sam’s credit report. There’s a line item marked in yellow highlighter. I stare in mute disbelief. “Twenty thousand dollars? That’s not possible.”
Sam picks up the report. “I have no idea how this got on my credit. It’s obviously a mistake.”
Joy takes a deep breath. “Look, I can only go on what I see in front of me, and right now, there’s no way we can proceed.
Not until this is resolved. My advice would be to reach out to the credit bureaus.
Dispute the record. If you really didn’t open that account and put all those charges on it, then you might be a victim of identity theft. ”
“I told you already, it wasn’t me,” Sam says. “There must be something you can do.”
“There isn’t.” Joy shakes her head slowly with pursed lips. “Not until that record is off your credit report.”
“That could take months,” Sam says, sounding deflated.
“What about me?” I ask, looking for any way to salvage the situation. “My credit is fine. Can we get the loan based on that? Take Sam off the application?”
“In theory, but it wouldn’t help. We’d have to start the process all over again, and honestly, I don’t think you’d be approved on your own.”
“Why not?” I ask, even though I know what she’s going to say.
“Well, there’s the fact that you’re self-employed. And you’ve been running the business for less than eighteen months. That’s not enough time to show a steady income. And even if we did overcome that, you wouldn’t get approved for anywhere near enough.”
“But—” I want to say more. I’m just not sure what.
It doesn’t matter. Sam hammers the final nail into the coffin himself. “Jordan. We’re done here. It’s over.”
“So we just give up?”
Sam leans back in his chair. “I don’t see that we have any choice.”
I look at Joy for something . . . anything .
. . to refute his assessment, but she says nothing.
The conversation appears to be over. I stand and jerk my purse from the back of the chair, grab the laptop bag sitting at my feet, then stomp out of the cubicle, ignoring the cold, hard lump that rises in my throat.
Moments later, we’re outside on the sidewalk.
A swell of tears push from the corners of my eyes.
“Hey, it’ll be all right.” Sam touches my face, brushes the tears away. “Look, I have to get back to the office, but I’ll make some calls, talk to the credit bureaus, see if this can be fixed.”
I don’t think he’ll get anywhere—not in time to salvage our loan application, anyway—but there’s no point in stating the obvious.
Sam puts his arms around me, holds me tight. “You’ll be okay this afternoon?”
I nod and pull away, assure him that I will, which is not at all true.
He lingers, as if he senses that I’m putting on a brave face, or at least trying to.
But nothing else he can say will make me feel any better, and he’s already used up his lunch hour.
The last thing we need is more trouble, so I tell him to go, saying, “We’ll talk when you come home tonight, okay? ”
Now it’s his turn to nod. He kisses me quickly, then turns to make the short three-block walk back to the downtown office building where he works, leaving me alone and fighting back a new wave of tears.