The Banker, page 4
“Is that what others are doing?”
“Variations of it, depending upon circumstances and how stubborn and inflexible they are,” he agreed, smiling at her.
She laughed. Ranchers could give stubborn lessons to old mules, she thought. Her Dad used to say that. Pity he became that.
She shook her head, and walked Dave to his pickup. “I hear you’re going to have the Blessing boy work for you?” he asked.
“Bethany started back to school,” she said, not even bothering to ask how he knew. “She’s a senior, too far to drive after school.”
Dave nodded, satisfied with the explanation. “Be good for the Blessings,” he said. “A bit of extra cash never hurt.”
Marilee raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t look at her. “They hurting, Dave?” she asked quietly.
“We all are,” he said. “Ranchers have to hunker down. Then they can’t afford to hire labor either. Just like this fourth cutting of yours. I could use the work, but your field won’t hold up to it. And if we destroy the field trying to get another cutting off it, there won’t be work next year.”
She nodded. “Can you act as my broker and get me that hay out of Ellensburg?” she asked, changing the subject, but not really. “Charge me broker fees, too, you hear me? I need enough to make up the difference. And haul it in?”
He nodded. “I’ll let you know what it’s going to cost you,” he agreed.
She watched him drive off, and went into her study to jot down the ideas that conversation provoked. The trickle-down effect of climate change, she thought. Not just the ranches, but the communities.
It was dark when she came out of the study and went to the barn to bring in the horses. Needed to muck stalls tomorrow. Well that was a perfect job for her new ranch hand. She laughed a bit, and went into the kitchen to eat something — a bowl of cereal. She wasn’t very hungry. She sat on the back step to eat it and listened to the insect sounds. They were loud tonight.
“Rache1! Carson!” She called the dogs and went to bed.
Chapter 5
Marilee looked forward to girl’s night out on Fridays, but they stressed her too. She’d meet up with her friends, and they’d have a good time. And she’d ignore Trent Williams who also continued to show up after work, still wearing a suit. He drink a couple of beers, exchange a few words with those who stopped by his table, and then he’d go home.
He didn’t say a word to her, or to her friends. She ignored him. Really. Well she tried to. But she had to admit to herself, if no one else, she was hyperaware of everything he did.
And she found it interesting that people were talking to him these days. For months he’d sat there, speaking to no one. Then, he’d joined Marilee and her friends for that brief wonderful time. Now, he was back to his solitary beers, but the community seemed to accept him differently. She wondered what had changed. She wished she could ask him.
She wished there wasn’t this complete wall of silence between the two of them. Why couldn’t he come over and speak to them all? They’d all been friendly once. Why couldn’t she go up to him and ask if he wanted to shoot a game of pool?
And how was she going to break down that wall and tell him what she needed to tell him? She needed to do it soon.
But this Friday night was different. Rebecca had taken a trip to Seattle before the classes started, and Gail was up in Coeur d’Alene, with her new friend, the guy with the circle beard and kissable lips. Just Angie who always egged her on. She grinned. They were bad.
The band that was playing were once a bunch of local kids who were obsessed with music, and they’d actually made it big as a band. Not huge, but big enough that they made a living off it, and that was big enough. Marilee had gone to school with them, and she was excited to hear them play again. She’d sung with them occasionally back in the day when they were playing for high school dances.
So when one of them spotted her, they called a break so they could all say hello. She hugged them, and they joked and teased each other about the old times, until finally the lead singer says, “Sing with us one more time, Marilee?”
She hesitated, glanced at Trent who was sitting there as always, watching her expressionless.
The devil made me do it, she said later.
“Fine time to leave me, Lucille?” she said, laughing. “But I get to rewrite the lyrics.”
“To what?” said the band leader suspiciously.
“Well, it’s more likely that the man walked away leaving her with kids to feed, isn’t it? I mean really.”
“You’ve got one song and a napkin to hash out the words, girl,” he said with a laugh, knowing she could. She grinned. The band played another song, and then the lead singer said, “We’ve got an old band member in the audience, and she’s going to sing one for old times, Marilee? You ready?”
She was. They started the old classic Kenny Rogers song, Lucille. And then she sang her new chorus, before going into the new verse:
How do you make love work
between a man who won’t stay
and a woman who can’t leave.
No matter what they say
Love isn’t always enough.
But then she turned to him and she said:
You picked a fine time to leave me, my love,
With ten hungry horses and cows in the field
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times
But this time your hurting won't heal
You picked a fine time to leave me, for real.
A farmer’s problems never end.
There’s no water, there’s too much sun
The bills mount up and the banker’s no fun
But no challenge is as great as loving
A man who won’t stay
When you’re the woman who can’t go.
And she turned to him and said,
You picked a fine time to leave me, my love,
With ten hungry horses and cows in the field
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times
But this time your hurting won't heal
You picked a fine time to leave me, for real.
The band laughed and riffed the chorus again. And they sang it once more like Kenny Rogers had, and then again ala Marilee Dupont. She laughed and took her bows and hopped off the small stage and onto the dance floor as people applauded and the band swung into a cover of Kenny Rogers’ Know When To Hold Them. And she ran smack into an angry banker man.
“Dance with me,” he said tersely, and he pulled her into his arms. She didn’t protest. How could she, when it felt so right to be there? When she dreamt night after night of feeling his arms around her, just like this. They danced that song, and then the next. Slow dancing to songs made to dance fast.
He pulled her into the shadows of a corner by the bar, and he kissed her. Angrily. Then hungrily. And she met him with both, standing on her toes to reach him. And then he pulled back, and stopped.
Without a word he walked away. Walked off the floor and out of the bar.
And she stood there and watched him go, her hand pressed to her mouth so that she didn’t cry out.
But the next week, she was back. She and her squad.
And Trent Williams, who got a beer, and sat in the second booth from the door where he always sat, and he watched the people — all of the people but not the table where the four women sat. He studiously avoided looking their way. She thought of the previous week, but didn’t think her heart could stand provoking him again.
She was wearing a loose dress like she always wore these days, and she drank tonic water or iced tea and teased the young men about their pool game. She danced with a few, but she kept it light and friendly. No close dances. No looking for Mr. Right Now. That time was gone, she thought. Maybe forever. Her heart wasn’t in it.
Well, duh, she thought. Her heart had been given to the strong and silent man over in the booth by the door. The uptight asshole who thought she’d walk away from everything because his job was so important. Still pissed her off.
Having this much fun was exhausting, she thought. But she did it. Every Friday night at Pete’s.
“We could do Rico’s,” Angie said quietly one night. “We don’t have to come here.”
“Yes we do,” Marilee said, a bit grim about it. “My turf. Not his.”
Angie just patted her arm, and went to find someone to dance with. Someone who might distract her for a bit, Marilee thought. Speaking of grim. Angie was getting bitter about the relentless, never-changing realities of her life. Angie wasn’t writing, either, Marilee thought. And that was worrisome. When a writer quit writing? Not good.
Gail was thin and getting thinner. And that wasn’t good either. She was always slim, but she had real muscles, and a metabolism that wouldn’t quit. She could — and did — eat everything. Well she had. This whole thing with Jake was wearing her down. Stupid, really. Jake wasn’t an impressionable 20 year old. Yet the university would crucify her if she had a relationship with him, and look the other way at all the professors who were screwing their impressionable 20-year-old girl students. It pissed her off. But it was the reality of it, and during a tenure review year? She hurt for her friend. For both of them really — she liked Jake.
And producing that play of Jake’s wasn’t going to be a cake-walk either. She’d gone to the final reading of Afghanistan during the competition. It was a powerful, thought-provoking play. And she could see why Gail was determined to produce it. But damn. It was going to be controversial. And Gail’s chair was an ass. Then the whole thing with Andrew Blake and being stalked?
So Gail was grimly holding on too. At least Jake had the decency not to show up here on Friday nights.
Rebecca just watched them all, and kept her own counsel as she always did. And so they all chattered and teased and joked as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
It was exhausting.
“Wonder what would Trent do if I went challenged him to a pool game?” she asked Angie when Rebecca and Gail were at the bar getting more beers.
“Play it,” Angie said. “And not say a word, or crack a smile. And it would stress you out until you were in tears.”
“All too easy to do,” Marilee muttered. She kept count these days. Bursting into tears. Almost bursting into tears. Getting choked up and blink back the tears. So far she hadn’t lost it in class, or God forbid, a department meeting. Or at the feed store. She’d never live it down.
But she cried at songs on the radio. She cried at advertisements on TV. She cried at the beauty of a sunset, at the sight of her horses coming up to the barn. She was a weepy mess. Hormones.
So she didn’t ask him. After two hours, he left, and she collapsed in her seat, and pounded her head against the table. Rebecca rubbed her back gently. Marilee smiled at her.
“So,” she said. “That’s done for the night. Can we have fun now?”
And when some young man who thought he could play pool took her up on her challenge, she beat him, and made him like it. It was her contribution to a needed crusade to teach men that women could beat them, and it was OK. She danced with him as her victory prize. And he grinned.
Her friends cheered her on.
And she knew they would. They had her back.
And she had theirs.
Trent walked out of Pete’s wondering why he kept coming back. Kept putting himself through this every Friday night. There were other bars. In a college town? He could go to a different bar every Friday and not run out before Bethany graduated in the spring. Instead, he came back here and watched Marilee and her friends have fun as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
He knew that wasn’t true. Gail Tremont was putting herself on the line to produce a controversial play about Afghanistan. He was sure the others had their problems too. But on Friday nights they had a good time.
And he sat there, drank his beer, and pretended he wasn’t watching.
Truth was he missed being a part of that camaraderie.
He missed Marilee. Watching her hurt.
Not seeing her was unacceptable, however. He didn’t even want to think about last week. Salt in the wounds of his heart.
But the lyrics she’d substituted the previous week kept haunting him about love between the man who wouldn’t stay and the woman who couldn’t go.
His eyes burned, and he resolutely thought about something else: Interesting how other members of the community now stopped to say hello or chat for a moment. He wasn’t sure why. He knew more of them, that might be it. He had eaten enough chicken lunches this last six months, he should know them. It was kind of nice.
He walked back to his car and went home. Changed into some sweats and went for a run. Ended up at the gym and did a workout. Ran home. Exercise had become his go-to solution for the confusion he felt. When he ran, he didn’t think. When he did weights at the gym his focus was on the weights and the muscle he was working.
By the time he got home, Bethany would be home from her gym night, and she’d be excited and talking about it all.
What she didn’t talk about was Marilee Dupont.
She did tell him she’d been by her office on campus, and Marilee had given her good advice about what she needed to do to go to college.
“She says I don’t need to know what I want to do now,” she said. “Said that’s what my first two years will do — introduce me to a number of subjects, so I can try them out. Is that what you did?”
Trent had to think about that. It was 20 years ago! Had he known what he would major in when he went to college? “I knew I wanted to do something with business,” he said, thinking about it. “And I took a class about banking, and it was really intriguing. Don’t know why, really. But it clicked. So I took more classes in it. That’s probably what she’s talking about. You’ll find a class that works for you. And so you pursue it.”
Bethany thought about that, and nodded. “So I went to see my school counselor, and she gave me a calendar of things I need to do. I thought my senior year would be easy!”
He grinned at her. “Did you decide what to do about working out at the ranch?”
“I’m going to work Sundays,” she said. “Mark Blessing is going to work the other days.”
That struck Trent as curious. He didn’t think Marilee had workers out every day when he met her. In fact he was sure of it. He wondered if it was a seasonal thing. He didn’t ask. It wasn’t allowed.
Bethany was firm. If she wasn’t allowed to talk about her father to Marilee, then he couldn’t ask her questions about Marilee either. He’d agreed. Maybe he’d been wrong to agree to it — even though he started it. He was hungry for any little crumb of information she dropped.
He fixed himself a sandwich for a late supper. Marilee was wearing a dress tonight, he thought. That was relatively new. She looked good, glowing. He wondered if she was dating someone else.
And why was he torturing himself like this? He was disgusted with himself. He should be dating someone else. Take someone out to a movie. Or to Pete’s.
No that would be cruel, he thought. But he could and should find a woman to date.
He hadn’t so far. And he gave himself this same lecture every Friday night after he got home from Pete’s.
You’re going home in nine months, he reminded himself. That was your decision. Live with it.
He’d never hurt over a break-up before. It sucked.
Bethany came blowing into the house excited about the gym night and her friends.
He listened to her chatter and something eased inside him. He’d been right to bring her here. And a little bit of a sore heart wasn’t too much to pay to see his daughter, confident and happy.
He teased her about having a crush on the boy she was talking about and she just giggled. “Nope,” she said. “No crush there.”
And why did that sound like there was a crush somewhere, he thought with some alarm.
He was afraid to ask. If he did, then she had the right to ask him about his love life or lack thereof, and she’d been quite blunt that she thought he was a fool to give up Marilee Dupont for a bank.
He wasn’t sure she was wrong.
And that damn Kenny Rogers tune and her rewritten lyrics wouldn’t leave him alone.
How do you make love work
between a man who won’t stay
and a woman who can’t leave.
No matter what they say
Love isn’t always enough.
Chapter 6
Marilee Dupont had a productive meeting with the loan officer for the Farmers Credit Union. He would be delighted to fund her project, he said, which was good salesmanship, but also soothed her feelings from her first encounter with Trent Williams. She hadn’t realized she was still ouchy from his rejection of her loan request.
There was one slight problem, easily fixed, the smooth young man said. She needed to move her operating account to the Credit Union as well. “Or, in your case, your personal account, if that would be easier, Dr. Dupont,” he said. And he got that right as well.
She wanted to grind her teeth, but she just smiled at him. “Not a problem,” she said. “I’ll talk to my accountant about which one is best to move. Let me read over the documents, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Marilee didn’t know why she felt such loyalty to the bank in Moscow. They sure hadn’t returned that loyalty last spring. Maybe because she did see it as the family bank. Not just the Moscow branch of the bank she did business with.
She went home and into her office, and she called Benjamin Crane, to ask him if the bank could reconsider her loan request for the stock pond. He listened courteously, he was always courteous to her, she thought. All this banker courteousness.
“Let me run the numbers and get back to you, Marilee,” he said. She noted the use of first name. Well, he’d known her since she was young enough for a lollipop when her Dad took her along to do business. Did they still give kids lollipops when they visited? Probably not.
