Chapter 23 #3
It’s not even Margaret.
It’s Beth Millbrook from the credit union.
And because of where my head has been, it’s the last thing I expect.
Any other time in my life, and it would have been the only thing on my mind.
“...Appreciate your patience. I wanted to get back to you before the weekend,” Beth is saying.
I shake my head to clear it. “Th-thanks, Beth. appreciate it.”
“Is now a bad time?”
“No… No, it’s fine.”
“Okay. Good…” Beth’s pause tells me the news isn’t ideal. “If you secured the USDA Farm Ownership loan, based on where you are with your existing notes, we could still offer you a secured line of credit for $100,000 at 9.49% for a term of up to eighty-four months.”
Beth breaks it down for me, even though I’ve crunched the numbers myself a dozen times already.
My chances of qualifying for a USDA loan to buy out Uncle Paul are good. I have plenty of experience. My credit history is sound. I don’t have any outstanding federal loans.
Technically, I could borrow that much. That’s not the problem.
The problem is that the math doesn’t add up.
With the USDA money alone, it’s not like I’d be adding anything substantive to our production value. Buying out Uncle Paul doesn’t increase my yield at all.
It just keeps it the same. While saddling me with hundreds of thousands in debt.
Which might work, if I can launch the distillery successfully. But nothing in that USDA loan would cover the cost of commercially expanding that enterprise.
And we’re just managing to stay afloat as it is. Sure, I wouldn’t have to pay Paul his cut of the dividends, but that doesn’t balance out the debt I’d be taking on.
Before Paul dropped his bomb, my plan had been to steadily scale up the distillery without over-extending myself.
With interest rates where they are, the loan to buy out Uncle Paul by itself would see me paying about two grand a month for the next thirty years—paying back Uncle Sam more than $700K in the meantime, counting interest. Add on this secured line of credit so I could grow the distillery, and for the first seven years, I’d be paying another $1600 a month.
Almost four grand a month on new debts with fuck all to show for it in the short term.
Shit.
We already run a lean operation. There aren’t many places where I could cut expenses. Even if I stopped paying myself, with one bad year, I’d default.
And then we’d lose everything.
Sure, if I let Paul sell his share to Steadman Farms, the cut in production would slowly choke Olivier Family Farms anyway, but at least Pop would keep his home.
If I borrow all this money and can’t manage to tread water, our creditors take everything.
I shut my eyes and drag in a slow inhale.
“Thanks for calling, Beth,” I croak. “I need to take some time to think things over.”
“It’s a lot to think about,” Beth says sympathetically. “And, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re a young man… It’s a lot to take on.”
I don’t tell her that I don’t often feel like a young man.
Except when I’m with Hattie.
Who’s somehow in fucking San Diego and won’t return my calls.
I’m thanking Beth Millbrook for her time when Margaret calls back.
“Margaret, is she—”
“Beck.” She says my name with a kind of practiced calm that does anything but calm me. “I’ve spoken to Hattie. She’s fine. She’s safe. And everything is fine.”
“Where is she? Why hasn’t she—”
“L-let me try to explain.” I hear her draw a breath. “Hattie doesn’t want you to worry. She—”
“Too late for that.”
“She… she understands that now, and she wants you to know she’s very sorry for upsetting you.”
My heart is thudding hard inside my chest. Cold rushes over me. “Why can’t she tell me that? What the hell is—”
“Beck—Beck, just listen for a few minutes, okay? I’ll try to explain as best I can without going against Hattie’s wishes.”
Going against Hattie’s wishes?
My thudding heart drops to my knees. When my words come out, they sound shrink-wrapped. “Is it me? Does she—did I do something wrong?”
“No. No. Nothing like that, Beck,” Margaret says vehemently. “But she’s not ready to talk to you right now.”
“Not ready?” I’m surprised I can even get the words out. My face feels numb. She’ll tell her sister this, but not me. Even after days of radio silence, it’s stunning how much this hurts.
How humiliating it is.
“Why?”
“Beck. Listen to me.” Her voice lowers, and it’s the hush that grabs my attention. She’s confiding. “She’s not ready to talk to you right now because she doesn’t want you to know where she is.”
“But she’s in San Diego, isn’t she?”
Margaret hesitates for just a second. “She is.”
I don’t get it. “So…”
Another pause. “She doesn’t want you to know… specifically… where she is.”
My first panicked thought is that she’s with someone else.
Because I could see why she wouldn’t want me to know that.
Yet I know to my bones this isn’t true. Hattie would not do that to me.
Still, where could she be that she wouldn’t want me to know about?
I don’t know everything about her, but it sure isn’t something like rehab. That’s the last place she’d be.
But maybe—
“You said she’s okay. Margaret, did… did she try to hurt herse—”
“No. Nothing like that!" she nearly shouts. “Beck, God, I’m sorry she’s making this so hard on you. For the record, I tried to convince her to call you and talk to you herself. I swear. She’s… just… Hattie.”
While I’m grateful Margaret tried to get Hattie to reach out, it also sucks that I’d need anyone to appeal to my girlfriend on my behalf.
I mean, less than a week ago, she told me she loved me.
And she knows I love her.
I want to be patient and give Hattie whatever she needs, but this isn’t how you treat your partner.
I take a slow breath and remind myself that maybe Hattie doesn’t know that. This is her first relationship. And even if it weren’t, she sees the world her own way.
“I need to be patient,” I mutter.
“That would probably help,” Margaret says gently. “She’s… she’s going to be gone for a while, Beck.”
My patience crumbles. “How long?”
Her voice gets small. “About a month?”
“And she’s not going to talk to me that whole time?” There’s nothing small about my voice.
“Beck, I-I don’t know. She just said she’s not ready to talk to you now.”
It sinks in that I’m not worried about Hattie anymore.
Theoretically, that’s great. She’s safe and people who love her know where she is.
I’m just not one of them.
Yes, I’m relieved and grateful.
But I don’t get a chance to even enjoy those emotions.
Because I’m so stupid pissed.