TWENTY-FOUR Lifeline
A t the end of that week, Roman and I sat in the loan manager’s office at the Bluster Community Credit Union.
I’d opened accounts at BCCU within a few days of arriving in town, and I’d thus made my first loan application here—and gotten my first rejection.
But I’d applied online, and Roman thought doing it the old-fashioned way, face to face with a loan officer, had a better chance for success. He thought you should force people to look at you when they gave you bad news.
It was a decent philosophy, but if this attempt turned out to be successful, I figured it would be Roman cosigning that tipped the scale, not the loan manager’s guilt.
The loan manager was a woman about my age, maybe a few years older. She had that ‘bank-employee’ look about her—you know, dressed in a sort of mall version of a power suit, this one in a merlot-hued poly blend. Under it was a silk or faux-silk pussy-bow blouse in an abstract pattern aggressively color-matched to the suit. Flesh-tone stockings and sensible black pumps with a two-inch block heel. Dyed blonde hair in a bun at the back of her head, perfectly applied makeup, and burgundy nail polish. Accessorized with sedate but noticeable gold earrings, watch and her wedding rings. Bank employee.
Her name was Cheryl Jenkins-Conway. She wasn’t a native, so I didn’t know her. But she’d married Walter Conway, who’d been three years ahead of me at Bendixen. The Conway family owned the Windswept Winery, a vineyard in the hills just east of Bluster.
Married to a Conway, loan manager at the credit union, it didn’t matter that she wasn’t a native. Cheryl Jenkins-Conway was an Important Person in Bluster now. After two decades away, I was the outsider in this office, and I felt it. Roman and Cheryl spent the first ten minutes or so of our meeting in friendly small talk, most of which I didn’t understand. I listened and smiled that vaguely pleasant smile we women plaster on our faces when we’re excluded from something but trying to look like we’re not.
Eventually they transitioned to the business portion of our agenda, and Cheryl took my information and tapped around on her desktop computer until my accounts came up. She had the monitor turned so we couldn’t see the screen.
“Okay,” she said, “I see that you applied a few days back and were declined.”
“That’s right,” I said. “There wasn’t a reason given—it said I could contact the credit union for more information.” I hadn’t done so, because it didn’t really matter why they wouldn’t give me money.
“Yes ...” Cheryl said, sounding distracted as she read the screen. “Online, it’s an automated process. That’s why the turnaround is so fast. If an application is within certain parameters, it’s approved, if not, it’s declined.”
Roman nudged me. “See? Online apps are impersonal.”
I gave him a look but didn’t reply. This was not the time for ‘I told you so.’
“Your accounts here look solid,” Cheryl said, still distracted. “Your credit burden is small.”
“I don’t use credit if I can help it.”
“That’s actually one of the issues: credit history. It’s good credit, in terms of payment history, but there’s not much history overall, especially for someone of your age.”
And here’s another place where my marriage to Micah had swallowed me whole in ways I’d never realized. He was in charge of the money. Every major purchase we made hit his credit, not mine—though my salary went into the joint accounts. Our savings and checking accounts were joint (the ones I’d known about, at least), but not our credit cards.
I’d liked that—my credit card never had a big balance, it was always sitting there, mostly empty, ready for an emergency. It had never occurred to me that not using it would hurt my credit. I have no idea if it had ever occurred to Micah—or, if it had, if he’d been trying to keep me dependent on him.
No. I couldn’t think that. Our marriage had been good. We’d loved each other, and we’d felt that. He’d fucked up a lot of financial shit, but I could not believe he’d done any of it with the intention to hurt or compromise me. I had to believe that he would be horrified by the mess he’d left behind.
Besides, one good thing about my name never being attached to the house was that the foreclosure hadn’t hit my credit.
Cheryl was still talking, so I wrenched my attention back to the present. “Another problem is collateral. You’re listing the property as collateral for the loan to fix it up—that’s appropriate, of course. But a Zestimate is not a good source for value. We need an actual appraisal. Wait—” She moved to another screen and frowned. “You own the property outright?”
“Yes—and I don’t have time to get an appraisal. I need the money fast.”
She turned to me with surprise. “Right—because of the property-tax issue, right?” I nodded, and she continued, “But you’re still doing renovations, yes?”
Again, I nodded.
“May I ask why you applied for a personal loan rather than home equity?”
I was beginning to think my financial IQ was not on the downhill side of the bell curve. “I don’t need nearly as much money as the property is worth. And I don’t want a mortgage—I don’t want to risk the property. Isn’t that what a home equity loan is? A second mortgage?”
I could feel Roman looking at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze. I didn’t want to see anything like judgment in his expression.
Cheryl was looking judgey enough for everyone. “But you’ve listed the property as collateral in your applic—you know what? It doesn’t matter. Let’s start from scratch, shall we? A home-equity loan won’t put the property at any more risk than the loan you applied for.”
“Do I still need a cosigner?” I asked, hoping I could avoid putting Roman on the hook.
“You might get a better rate with Roman cosigning, and we might not need to wait for an appraisal, but let’s run it without first and see where we are. We can work with the tax assessment to get a ballpark appraisal and get the process rolling.”
WHERE WE WERE: AN APPROVED home equity ‘line of credit’ that would cover the negotiated property tax amount of about half the original bill (I’d accomplished that task earlier in the week) and possibly get Cottage 12 repaired. Roman had to cosign to get it done, and I hated that, but the relief for having a way to save the property overwhelmed my misgivings about getting him tangled up in my messy finances.
The approval was effective immediately; when we left the credit union, I had a new credit card in my wallet as well as a cashier’s check for the property tax payment. A lifeline of credit. We went directly to the Del Norte County Treasurer, and I got right with the tax gods of California.
That PAID IN FULL receipt in my bag was like a talisman.
Right outside the office entrance, Roman swept me into his arms, lifted me off my feet, and kissed me breathless. I laughed and flung my arms around his neck, and we hugged there, blocking the door until our need for that connection was sated.
As soon as I settled in the passenger seat of his truck, I texted Wyatt: GOT THE LOAN!! PAID THE TAXES!! WE’RE OKAY!!
He wrote back in seconds: LETS GOOOOOOO! LOVE YOU MOM!
LOVE YOU BACK , I returned, then added, Have fun tonight—but not too much haha.
Haha. Not too much. Just the right amount. Pinky swear.
“We should celebrate,” Roman said as he put his electric truck in gear and I put my phone in my bag.
“We were already celebrating, I thought,” I reminded him with a smirk. It was the first Friday of the new school year: Bonfire Night. Wyatt would be with his new friends on the beach, and then they’d all crash at Catherine’s and get a big breakfast in the morning.
There would be booze on the beach, a lot of it, and weed, also a lot, and yeah, I was worried. It was the first time my little chick was jumping out of the nest. But he had a good head on his shoulders. Even if he did partake, there would be adults keeping an eye out, and Catherine’s was two short blocks from the beach. He’d be okay. I could trust the town to take care of my kid.
And thanks be to Bonfire Night, because Roman and I had the night to ourselves for the first time. Tonight I wouldn’t have to leave his warm bed and his warmer arms to get dressed and return to the Sea-Mist. I could wake up with him in the morning. We could have our first morning sex.
“Yes,” Roman answered and picked up my hand to kiss it, “we are already celebrating. But now we need champagne to do it. Let’s stop by the market—I need to run in and grab the filets I set aside for us, anyway.”
We were cooking in, even for a celebratory dinner. We both enjoyed cooking, and we’d decided it was more romantic to make a meal together than to sit in a restaurant with an audience.
“Okay, sounds good. Let’s get strawberries for the champagne, too.”
Roman grinned his beautiful, warm, wholehearted grin. “I like the way you think.”