Jackson and I said little to each other on the way over to Foster’s office. We longed for each other’s company and we were both nervous about this meeting.
The minute we hit the door to Foster’s inner sanctum I smelled trouble. For one thing Foster looked stricken. After we sat down and pleasantries were exchanged he got to it.
“Nickel, Chesapeake and Potomac felt you were a bit too much of a risk. I’m sorry.”
“Can you give me the reason for their denial?”
“You don’t have enough assets.”
“Even with Charles’s help?” Jackson had an edge to his voice.
“Yes.” Foster was struggling, but with what I didn’t yet know. “I don’t expect you or anybody to have sympathy with a banker or the bank. But let me give you a few things to think about which may put this in perspective. If a bank shows a return on assets of one and a quarter percent, that’s a banner year. Because we have the money, the public’s attitude seems to be ‘screw ’em.’ We get one bad loan application after another, and I hasten to add that your application wasn’t bad, but it was a squeaker. Bankers are by nature conservative because people are conservative when it comes to their money. Notice the distinction, ‘their money,’ yet when they go to borrow money it’s ‘the bank’s money.’ I am terribly sorry. I think you’re a good risk.”
Jackson dropped his charm. “How’s it feel being jerked around like a teller by Chesapeake and Potomac? You’re supposed to be the president of this bank.”
Foster, taken aback, sputtered.
“Jackson, I’m sure Foster did all he could.” I felt like the bottom of my stomach had fallen out. I would have thrown up except I forgot to eat breakfast that morning.
“Thank you, Nickel. I did.”
“Let me ask you one thing.” Jackson was like a dog worrying a bone. “Did they inquire into Nickel’s marital status?”
Foster became wary. “It was mentioned.”
“And if the single woman also happens to be a lesbian I imagine it’s even more of a minus, isn’t it?”
“That never came up. I absolutely promise you it never did.”
“Come off it, Foster. It didn’t have to. Anyone who isn’t married by age thirty looks suspicious these days.”
“Jack, I resent your tone of voice. I have known this girl all her life.”
He didn’t mean to be rude in calling me a girl. To Foster I was a girl, I was so much younger than he was.
“So what?” Jackson bored in on him.
“So I vouched for her character. You asked me a question and I told you the truth. I do not want you to get the idea you can sue Chesapeake and Potomac because of Nickel’s being denied a loan. Yes, being a single woman is a detriment. In the best of all possible worlds it wouldn’t be a detriment but it is today. I don’t know if she would have gotten this loan if she were a man. It was shaky as it was.”
“But she would have had a better chance.” Jack’s voice rose.
“Yes, goddammit, yes! What do you want me to do about it? These things don’t seem very important until they hurt someone you care about. I never thought about it. Hell, Jack, when I grew up there were no women in business around here except for Celeste and she was a law unto herself. I’m sorry as hell about this.”
Foster, not a man to speak from the heart, was exhausted by his efforts. He seized the handkerchief in his breast pocket and mopped his brow.
“Foster, I thank you for going to bat for me.”
“Don’t be so accommodating and nice,” Jack snarled at me.” There’s a community reinvestment act and the Clarion fits the bill. The banks, taking the money out of the community, are required by law to put a certain amount back, to stimulate the local economy. I’ll find an angle because the Clarion belongs to you!”
Foster’s voice was heavy. “You can slice it any way you want to, Jack. Chesapeake and Potomac isn’t going to give her the cash. They don’t care what goes on in Runnymede. They’ll do the minimum to comply with the reinvestment act.”
“That’s what we’re fighting,” I said. “That’s why we don’t want the Thurston Group or Mid-Atlantic Holding Shares to get the Clarion, because once the paper slips out of the control of the community it no longer serves the community as effectively.”
“I understand,” Foster said.
“You sure do, because if you really ran Runnymede Bank and Trust, the Clarion would be Nickel’s. We’re being devoured by corporate giants who don’t see our faces, hear our voices, or pass us in the streets. People have got to fight back.” Jack stood up.
“I don’t know what to do.” Foster wiped his forehead again.
“Jack, come on.” I tugged at Jack’s arm. “Foster, no hard feelings on my part.”
As we dragged ourselves across the Square I dreaded telling the gang. Right now my life was a potato chip in the maw of big corporations. Yesterday I’d gotten a call from my local insurance company, Richards, Hilton, and Richards, telling me they’d referred my Jeep claim to the wrong company, Maryland Accident Protection. The claim belonged to the giant firm of First Eagle Insurance. The Eagle lady called and grilled me. Christ, you would have thought I’d had the Jeep stolen on purpose. She hinted darkly that I shouldn’t have authorized any repairs, but of course I was doing what the Maryland Accident Protection claim adjuster told me to do. In the meantime, Eagle had two decades of insurance payments from me and not one claim until now. What was the difference if it was Eagle or Chesapeake and Potomac? They were out to screw me. To them we existed as walking pocket-books to be emptied. I felt very hateful at that moment.
Jackson left me at the Clarion steps. He was as downcast as I was.
“Nickel, don’t give up. There’s got to be a way.”
“I don’t know, honey. Let me digest this first and then if we have room for a legal fight, I’ll think about it. I figure the minute you commit a problem to the judicial system you just tripled it.”
“I can’t fault you there.” He kissed me on the cheek, a social kiss but it burned my cheek.
I walked straight into Charles’s office and told him everything. I said if he was going to sell, he might as well give it to Diz Rife because better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, not that Diz himself was a devil. As I left he picked up the phone. Can’t blame Charles. He has to look out for himself.
As I walked to my desk Lolly whimpered. She could read my mood like a weathercaster.
“The worst?” Michelle asked.
I nodded.
John rose. “This is as good a time as any. I’m quitting. I took a job with National Geographic. Guess I’ll tell Charles.” He squared off in front of me. “Nick, I give you credit for trying. Maybe it’s time for you to move on too.” He lightly rapped on the door to Charles’s office and went in.
Roger broke a pencil.
“Hey, it’s not a funeral. Charles will fight for your jobs.”
“We wanted you to have it,” Michelle said.
Within minutes the news spread through the plant. Arnie and Hans came out to verify the story. Arnie, speechless, walked back to the printing press. I followed him. When I reached the big press, quiet because we’d run off the paper for the day, Arnie had his hands smacked against the feed. He was crying.
I tiptoed over to him and put my arm around him. “They say all good things must come to an end.”
He sobbed. “They’ll junk my baby. They’ll fire us.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I patted the sleeping machine. I loved her too. “I reckon they will.”
“You’ll be okay,” he said.
“You go, I go. A bunch of goddamned computers and a pay raise aren’t enough for me. This is the paper. We’re the paper.”
He wiped his eyes and I wiped mine. I noticed that Hans was misty-eyed, too, and the other guys in the back stood dumbfounded with misery.
“Hey, let’s go smoke Isaac’s cigar.” Why I thought of this I still don’t know.
We trooped back into the editorial room. I opened my drawer, grabbed the little penknife my dad had given me when I was in sixth grade. I cut off the end of the cigar and lit her up. We passed it around like a peace pipe. Even Michelle took a puff.
Then Arnie produced a full bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. I don’t drink but I took a pull. We cried and drank and smoked and sang and one by one we crept away. John outdrank everyone. Two drinks and I was a basket case. Roger hiccupped. Michelle drank Hans under the table, to everyone’s surprise. Even Charles got snookered.
I stumbled over to bingo that night. If Lolly and Pewter hadn’t been with me I’m not sure I would have found my way to Saint Rose’s. I bought a card, sat down next to Mr. Pierre, who sniffed the air suspiciously, and Mother tells me that my head hit the card. Somebody got me home. I don’t remember a thing although Mother said that even Peepbean was sympathetic when I moaned before I passed out that the loan was denied. Imagine that, Peepbean being sympathetic.