South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [67]
Madeline left the bank in shock. She’d gone in for a loan. She had the apartment for collateral, and while the mortgage wasn’t completely paid off, there was a lot of equity in it, and she had good credit. The repairs to Paul’s truck were going to cost almost five thousand dollars, and if she didn’t get a loan she’d have to pretty much empty out her savings account, which was the money from Emmy’s insurance policy, all the money she had in the world. That was a terrifying thought. She counted on that savings: she made the mortgage payments with it, paid the property taxes, the Utilities, and insurance. She hardly made enough with Gladys to do more than put gas in the car; the savings account had been a big piece of embarking on this adventure.
But the bank turned her down. There was a problem with her credit.
“But there is no problem with my credit.”
“You’ve been late on your payments two months in a row.” The loan officer consulted her computer screen. “Last year you had some problems too.”
“But I just forgot to mail the bills, that’s all. And last year—Emmy died last year. It was a bad time. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the money. I did catch it all Up.”
“I Understand. But that tends to make it look as if there’s some ongoing issue.”
“No! There’s no issue. No one is more reliable than me, believe me. I mean, even when I go off the rails, I go just, like, barely off the tracks.” Madeline made a train going barely off the tracks motion, sliding one hand just a fraction away from the other. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them in her lap. “I’m just saying, I’m so conscientious that I can’t even go wrong really properly. And I need this money.” She pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying any more.
The woman cleared her throat and looked down at a notepad she had in front of her. “It looks like there was some problem on this mortgage awhile back, too.”
“No. When?”
“Back about five years ago?”
Madeline began shaking her head, ready to explain. “Emmy was sick. She was so sick, she’d had another remission and I couldn’t take all the best shifts at my job, and there were so many expenses with the medicines and treatments, and she couldn’t work. She really never could work again, those last four years, not steadily. It took Us awhile to get things straightened around. But that was so long ago.”
“It casts some doubt on your record.”
“But Emmy is dead,” Madeline protested, knowing that this defense made no sense, no matter how plausible it seemed to her. That glitch in her payment history was so old that Emmy had been alive then. Alive and still trying to do her home-based bookkeeping business, and still making pancakes on Saturday mornings sometimes when she felt Up to it, still smiling her wonderful smile. Oh, Emmy.
The loan officer gave her a look of professional regret. “I am sorry. If you come back with proof of employment, something full-time, maybe then we could come to terms on some amount—maybe something less than what you’re asking for here. Or if it was a capital improvement on your property.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t have time to wait, and I have to have the money.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said again.
Madeline left the bank. She’d have to take a cash advance on her credit card, that was all. She had that much available on one of them.
Only she didn’t.
“What do you mean?” she asked the associate who finally took her call, pressing the receiver to one ear and covering the other ear with her hand so she could hear above the traffic whining by on the highway through Crosscut and the clang of equipment inside the tire repair shop where the pay phone was.
“Your credit line has been adjusted to a lower level. You were sent a notice.”
“I didn’t get any notice.” Or didn’t read any notice, was maybe closer to the truth. Madeline thought of all the mail she’d been tossing in a box for the last few weeks, meaning to get to it, never quite finding the time. That wasn’t like her. None of this was like her. But other people did this kind of stuff, she