“Oh, yeah, I am sorry about this. I’ll cut it out before a customer walks in, I promise.”
“Well, obviously, that’s what I came over here to say.” I was smiling. “It’s okay, Aria.”
That made her burst into a whole new bout of tears. I guess it wasn’t okay, whatever it was. Completely unsure of what to do, I told her, “Take a paid hour off. Walk around if you need to, take a break.”
“I can’t,” she said between sniffs. “Mrs. Brian won’t be here until noon and Kevin is sick. I’m the only teller on duty right now.”
“That’s okay, just take some time. I’ll man the booth,” I heard myself say.
She looked perplexed, but that made the crying slow down significantly. “What? You can do that?”
“The thing about owning the company, Aria, is that I can do whatever I damn well please.”
I must have come across strong, because her expression turned into that of slight fear. I tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, expecting to feel her muscles relax; instead, I felt them tense.
“It’s okay. Just go for a little bit. It’s not a request.”
“Alright, alright,” she said, starting to sniff again. “I’ll just take a walk around the block and be back soon.” She pointed towards her face. “No more of this after that. I promise.”
The minute she walked out, I felt myself get angry. What the fuck was I doing? Teller in my own bank? To get into a girl’s pants. She better be worth it when I finally made it in there. I was working way too hard for this otherwise.
I even wanted to punch the young guy who had just materialized in front of me.
“I need to deposit a check,” he said.
I pointed towards the front exit. “There’s the ATM machine. They take checks these days. And by these days, I mean the past 10 years.”
He looked terrified and strutted out. I was lucky I was the CEO of the company and never had to work customer service.
---
When Aria returned a half-hour later, her makeup was freshly painted on, with no trace of the crying fiasco on her face.
“Thank you so much, and I am so sorry!” she exclaimed.
She should be. It was the worst half hour of my goddamn life.
“Don’t worry about it! But if you really feel that bad, you can make it up to me by telling me what’s bothering you.”
I wasn’t sure I cared for the answer, but that seemed like the right thing to say.
She scrunched her nose like she wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but eventually said, “My request for a loan got turned down. My mother recently had heart surgery, and without insurance she owes the hospital 60,000 dollars. She can’t apply for a loan herself because my family is still recovering from a bankruptcy.”
Well, that was easy enough. I could take care of that right away. I didn’t want to make it so easy, though.
“Who was the loan officer you spoke to?”
“Wilson. I don’t know his full name.”
“I will talk to him.” I chose my words very carefully, making sure not to make any promises I couldn’t keep. Or didn’t want to keep, more like.
Her face visibly changed colors and her eyes widened. “You can do that?”
“What did I say about owning the company?”
She jumped, and for a second it looked like she was going to hug me but changed her mind.
“Oh my God, thank you so, so much! You can get him to approve the loan!”