By the Book Read Free

happy is simply a bad habit we’ve learned.
    It’s time to unlearn a bad habit. Break it. Replace it with the practice of having it your way and getting what you want. ...
    No one seemed to notice she was thirty minutes late getting back from lunch. She hurried across the lobby to her desk, put her purse in the bottom drawer, and picked up her pen to look busy.
    She had a clear view of most of the bank from her seat—the tellers in their booths, the drive-by window behind them, the glassed-in offices of the bank officers. She, Vi, and Delores Shoot were lined up a few feet from the front windows in small, low-walled cubicles to show the community that customer service was a high priority at Quincey First Federal Bank.
    Quincey, Indiana, was a just-right place to live. Ellen had always thought so anyway. Not too small or intrusive. Not too big or impersonal. There were plenty of strangers in town, people she’d never seen before, to keep life interesting. People she recognized but didn’t know, to keep it comfortable. There were acquaintances she could stop and talk to in the street, to keep it friendly. And since she’d grown up there, she had friends and family there too.
    It was an unpretentious, middle-class American town, homespun and humble, and if she sometimes found it a bit boring and repetitive, she almost always assumed responsibility for her discontent. She had her faults, but shirking responsibility wasn’t one of them. There were days when she felt responsible for everything—the weather, the national deficit, the lives of her customers. ...
    Mostly she checked on checks for people. “I can’t believe I forgot to write down the amount,” they’d say. “Now I have checks bouncing all over town.” Frequently she’d pull up on her computer the balance of a savings account or trust fund or the maturity date of a specific money market CD. “We’re planning a trip to Jamaica for our anniversary,” someone would tell her. “I’m getting so excited and nervous. I just need to make sure we have enough money saved and that nothing goes wrong.” On occasion she was forced to call a customer about insufficient funds. “I got the notices in the mail,” would come a sad voice. “But my husband is still out of work, and since I got laid off it’s been hard for us. I have three children. They have to eat. I have to keep them warm. Can’t we work something out?”
    How could anyone not respond to someone else’s embarrassments? Their concerns and worries? Their desperation?
    Today her phone was unusually quiet. The people of Quincey were coping. Her sigh was one of relief and gratification, fringed with a bit of boredom.
    You got used to working in a fishbowl, she mused, glancing out the large display window. Being on exhibit all day, it became second nature to keep your hands as far from your nose as possible, to sit with your knees together, and to adjust your bra straps and panty hose in the ladies’ room only.
    The world passed by that big window all day long, and one hardly considered it. She suspected it was the same from the other side as well. Who paid any attention to people working in the window of a bank when they were busy living their own lives?
    Ellen took a good hard look out the smudge-free glass. The camera shop was directly across the street from her desk, its windows shiny clean. Poster enlargements of a boy with his dog, a blushing bride, and a stream in the woods took up most of the space above a small display of cameras, cases, and tripods.
    What was he doing in there? she wondered, leaning back in her chair, her pen bumping rhythmically against her upper lip. Developing film? Unpacking new stock? Flexing his muscles?
    Then, as if in answer to her reflections, he appeared in the glass doorway. Resting his hands on the push bar, he looked up the street and down, then directly across into her cubicle.
    Her heart stopped and she sat perfectly still. He looked straight into her eyes,