Goodnight June: A Novel Read Free Page A

had a
thing
come up.”
    “A
female
thing?”
    “No, no,” I say, making an annoyed face.
Men.
“Nothing like that.” I snap back into work mode—all business. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m here now. It won’t happen again.”
    Arthur’s eyes narrow. “What in the world are you wearing?”
    For the first time, I realize what I must look like after spending the past eight hours at the hospital. Disheveled hair. Smeared eye makeup. I quickly pull my wool peacoat tighter around my neck when I realize I’m still wearing the light blue hospital gown. “I came from home, didn’t have time to, er, change,” I say.
    Arthur shrugs. “OK. Anyway, let’s get to work.”
    We sit down at the conference room table, and he lays out a stack of file folders. “Every single one of them in default,” he says. “Who are we going after first?”
    I lean in and pick up the folder on top labeled SAMANTHA ’S KNITTING ROOM . I’ve long stopped feeling sorry for small business owners who can’t make ends meet. At first it was hard, cracking down on mom-and-pop shops. And I’ll never forget my first assignment. I cried when I delivered foreclosure papers to a café in New Orleans that had been in business since the turn of the century. It was one of those old venues with intricate wrought-iron railings and a green-and-white-striped awning. Beloved by everyone in the city, of course. When I walked in the door, I was greeted by the owner, an old woman. The café had been her father’s. It was a New Orleans tradition. John F. Kennedy had eaten lunch there in 1959. On the wall were signed photographs of Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong. She brought me coffee and a plate of sugar-dusted beignets. My hands trembled when I handed her the envelope that would shutter her family’s pride and joy forever.
    It got easier after that. In time, I learned to handle each case with the precision of a surgeon. In and out. No emotion. My guiding tenet: It’s business, not personal. I don’t care how cute, quaint, or beloved your business is. I don’t care if the Pope was born there or if your father got down on one knee and proposed to your mother in the storefront window. The fact of the matter is, if you can’t pay your bills, the bank—well,
I
will repossess and sell off your assets. It’s that simple.
    I like to think that Arthur chose me to mentor because he saw a certain spark, a skill that I had that no other junior banker did. But no, I know that when Arthur saw me, he simply saw clay. I didn’t have a life outside of work. I was devoted to my job. I was malleable.
    He helped me hone my skills in banking. Everyone called him “the ax man,” because he had no qualms about closing an underperforming business and auctioning off prized possessions. He didn’t even bat an eye in the face of distressed clients. He only saw the bottom line. And he trained me to see that too. He shaped me into his ax woman, and together we became the bank’s highest-performing department. We cut the fat. We got results.
    Of course, not all cases require a personal visit. Usually we can get the papers signed from afar. Usually people cooperate. But some don’t. Some let the letters stack up on their desks and ignore our phone calls simply because they want to delay the inevitable. It’s hard facing your failure. I get that. But that’s life.
    I hold up the folder for Samantha’s Knitting Room and thumb through the papers inside. Samantha, who, I see from the original loan application, was born the same year I was, 1970, is seven months behind on her payments. I review the contact log, and see that she’s ignored our department’s calls and letters.
    “Looks like someone needs to pay Miss Samantha a visit,” Arthur says. His eyes light up the way a detective’s might when he has someone in his sights and knows he’ll be cuffing them soon.
    “Yeah,” I say vacantly. My fingers are tingling again, and my head feels heavy, like a