Threading the Needle by Marie Bostwick Page A

awe. Inside the sacred confines of New Bern National, no one speaks above a murmur, and no one questions the manager, Mr. Fletcher, a well-fed man, not quite sixty.
    Until I saw his face, I didn’t realize that Mr. Fletcher was, in fact, Aaron Fletcher, one of the few boys whose attentions I had utterly rejected in high school, partly because my taste trended toward athletes but mostly because his superior attitude irritated me. Apparently, Aaron was unchanged.
    He rose halfway from his chair with an acid smile and gestured for me to take a seat in one of the low chairs opposite his desk.
    â€œMadelyn. Or should I say Mrs. Baron?” he asked in a voice slightly louder than necessary, a tone that attracted surreptitious glances from customers standing in the tellers line. “How nice to see you after all these years. How can I help you?”
    The moment he called me Mrs. Baron, I knew I was in trouble, but I had to at least try to win him over. I smiled as sweetly as I could and murmured some nonsense about it being good to see him as well and how impressed I was that he’d risen so far but that I wasn’t really surprised, that even in high school it was apparent he was destined for big things. When I ran out of compliments, I leaned a little closer, close enough for him to spy a glimpse of cleavage (yes, I was that desperate), and made my request.
    He listened, sort of, with his eyes glued to my décolletage. When I was finished, he looked up and proceeded to subject me to a ten-minute lecture on the links between the soft housing market, the credit crunch, toxic assets, bank failures, the Wall Street meltdown, rising unemployment, sinking tax revenues, and, if I recall correctly, the falling test scores among eighth graders in math and science, and the “shenanigans”—he actually used the word “shenanigans”—of Bernie Madoff and people like him .
    The writing was on the wall. Aaron Fletcher was not going to give me a loan. Not today. Not ever. I gathered up my things.
    Aaron rose from his chair and placed his hand on a stack of papers in the top tray of his in-box. “I’ve got sixty applications for home equity loans here, Mrs. Baron. All from honest, hardworking people who’ve done nothing wrong but have lost their jobs or their savings because of the greed of others. I doubt I’ll be able to help more than one in twenty. Most of them owe more on their homes than the homes are now worth.”
    â€œYes, I understand, Mr. Fletcher. Thank you for your time.”
    Being polite was an effort, but I made it. When you live in a small town, politeness is more than just good manners; it’s a survival skill.
    â€œDo you understand? Do you, Mrs. Baron? ” He was grandstanding now, playing to the crowd of onlookers. His fleshy jowls wobbled as he moved to the other end of the desk and laid his hand on another pile of papers even higher than the first.
    â€œThis is the paperwork on loans that are in foreclosure or about to be. Some of them belong to my friends and neighbors, people I’ve done business with for years.”
    He glared at me. “These are decent folks. People my grandkids go to school with! For one reason or another, they can’t make their house payments. Either they lost their jobs, or their mortgages adjusted to higher rates, or some fly-by-night operation put them into a loan they didn’t understand and weren’t qualified for in the first place . . .”
    I had had enough. I circled around the desk, trying to make my exit. Aaron moved his beefy body between me and the wooden gate that separated the king from the commoners, then reached out a pudgy finger and poked me—poked me! Right in the chest. As though I were an errant spaniel or a disobedient child.
    So much for good manners.
    Advancing toward him, raising myself up to my full height, which gave me a good two inches on the fat financier, I put my face up next