A chapter from my unpublished first book. Enjoy :)
“What are you doing New
Year’s…..Neeeewww Yeeeaarrss Eevvee…” It was Friday morning, December 31. That stupid old song had been playing in
rotation on the Muzak since right after Thanksgiving. Normally that would have put me in somewhat
of a cranky mood. My mood on this
particular New Year’s Eve however, could not have been better. The day had finally come, that our entire
branch had been waiting for with bated breaths.
Yes,
today was the day that our fearless leader, after 36 years, was finally
retiring from Cardinal National Bank.
Lauren, as I mentioned earlier, was not exactly one of my most favorite
people. And most of our office, while we did respect her, we did not
particularly like her and were only too happy to see her off to a happy
retirement in Naples, Florida.
It
was a good day for other reasons too.
I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s.
Most New Year’s events in our area were prohibitively expensive once you
figured in cover charges, hotels, and transportation. Add to that the fact that I had no
significant other, or even a non significant other whom I wished to kiss at
midnight. This year was going to be fun regardless
however. Newly married Avery and Max
were throwing a party at their house and were expecting near 50 people. The two of them, with the help of her
contractor father, had taken their 1950s bungalow and retrofitted it to be a
pretty amazing party house. The finished
basement had a complete bar that was fully stocked. They had ample guest bedrooms, so driving
home was not an issue. And I had helped
Avery put together a menu that ensured nobody was going to go hungry. I was actually looking forward to the dreaded
New Year’s Eve, and only had to get through a ten hour day at the bank before I
could get there.
I’m
not sure if it was something specific to the area, something in the water in
Unionville that day, or if it was just a fluke, but that was the busiest
morning I had ever seen in a bank branch.
I thought I had my schedule planned so that I would have more than
enough coverage in the branch. But even
with me running a teller window, customers were lined up to the door. I frantically cashed checks, ran deposits,
and made payments alongside my teller staff all morning, while my “desk staff”
chatted with each other, served Lauren’s retirement cake to customers, and
basically sat back and enjoyed the confusion.
Adding to the crowd in the lobby were people who did not necessarily have
business in the bank, but stopped by to wish Lauren the best in her
retirement. I thrive on chaos and enjoy
being busy at work, but this was nuts.
It felt at times like there was money flying everywhere.
Fridays
behind the teller line traditionally were myself, Dawn, and Audrey all day, and
Lindsay and Christie for part of the day, alternating Fridays. I got to the point that I was watching the
clock, waiting for Christie to get there just to give us some relief. (And
that’s saying something. She was a sweet
person, but the world’s slowest bank teller.)
When Christie finally arrived at 1 and got set up in her window, it was
like someone locked the doors. We had
gone from the busiest day in the history of banking to the slowest day in the
history of banking. I started the
rotation of lunch breaks, baled down all the teller drawers (a fascinating OCD
project where you remove all excess cash from teller drawers and stash it in
the main vault) and finally had my piece of retirement party cake. Visitors for Lauren ambled in and out, but
for the most part, the bank branch was dead.
You’d
think someone who had worked for a company for 36 years would be somewhat
emotional about leaving it. But around
4:00 Lauren’s husband showed up with small buckets of homemade jello shots for
everyone. (Apparently at one point in her career Lauren was fun. She and her husband had thrown a Christmas
party some years back, and a handful of my seasoned staff remembered Lauren’s
skill at making jello shots). He and
Lauren distributed what she called her “parting gifts”, did one last sweep of
her office for her personal stuff, and then she was gone. And I was in charge.
Being
in charge was something I was evidently not very good at. Call it excitement for the holiday or
excitement at being manager-less, but I decided it was time to live a
little. I cracked open my bucket of
jello shots, pulled out a red one, and just went for it.
My
staff looked on in what can only be described as awe. We stood there in silence for a moment, in an
empty-of-customers bank branch. And I
kind of decided what the hell. I pulled
a green shot out of my jello bucket, and downed that one as well. At that point Christie spoke up. “Does that mean I can bring out the
champagne?”
“Excuse
me?” I replied. Christie struck me as
the type that wouldn’t even drink champagne at her daughter’s wedding, let
alone at work. “There’s champagne??”
“I
got some. It’s a special occasion right?
New Years, new start, no more Lauren….” she trailed off.
I
paused a moment and took stock. The
branch was supposed to be open for another two hours. We hadn’t had a customer walk in for almost
23 minutes. I had a ridiculous number of staff who had, for the most part, had
a hell of a day, not to mention a hell of a year. I made an executive decision.
“Christie,
pour out the champagne, we are going to do a toast. Then I am going to start sending everyone
home. We are going to lose one teller
and one desk person every fifteen minutes til closing, by seniority,” I
announced.
Again,
I got somewhat blank looks from the staff. “You’re serious?” Dawn asked.
I
smiled.
“Really?”
asked Julie, already making her way towards her desk.
“Yes,”
I replied. “This is dumb. There is no reason for everyone to just be standing
around. You guys have worked so hard and
put up with so much. We’re going to
close this year out right.”
And
that was exactly what we did. Christie
poured out glasses of cheap champagne, and we all toasted to the end of an era,
the end of a year, and the turning over of a new leaf. I started sending home the staff by
seniority. The occasional random
customer filtered in, mainly through the drive up, to cash a check or make a
quick deposit, but for the most part the branch was silent. Finally it was a mere twenty minutes to
closing, and the branch was deserted save me and Evan. He sat in the lobby waiting area, flipping
through this week’s Time magazine, while I sat on the customer service counter
texting various random friends to see who was going to be coming to Avery’s
party.
“Ev,
go ahead and get out of here,” I said.
“If anyone comes in here in the next twenty minutes I doubt it’s going
to be to refinance their mortgage. You
should go home.”
Evan
looked up from his magazine. “Yeah, I
don’t think so,” he replied.
“Seriously. No one is going to know. The cops are going to drive by at 6:15 anyway
just to make sure we all closed up okay.
Go home,” I insisted. It’s
actually a huge violation of bank policy to have a single employee alone in a
branch at any time, let alone closing.
But this was Unionville. The town
only has two traffic lights. “I’m sure you have something awesome to do tonight
that you can get a head start on.”
“Not
really. I’m just going to hang out with
my girlfriend. Maybe go to a hotel or
something,” Evan replied, unintentionally reminding me that he still lived in
his parents’ basement and his girlfriend still lived like she was in college,
in a crumbling duplex with four roommates just off campus.
“Evan,
really. You don’t have to stay
here. I’m probably going to shut it down
in ten minutes anyways.”
“Then
you can shut it down with me here,” he shot back. And then, he looked at me. I mean really looked at me. Straight into my eyes with those huge blue
eyes of his.
And
right then, that very second, something changed. I don’t know what and I don’t know how. Maybe something in the stars or the cosmos or
something like that. Jupiter in line
with Saturn, blah blah. That split
second, that moment…The course of events forever changed that New Year’s Eve.
Or
maybe it didn’t. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I'm making excuses. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe it was boredom. We closed up the bank that Friday night and
went to our respective homes. I don’t
know what he did after that. I went to
my best friend’s house. I drank too much
raspberry Stoli and ate too much pizza.
I toasted the New Year with cheap champagne and the guys that worked at
the Coke plant. I spent the night in
Avery’s tastefully decorated guest room.
But something nagged at me that night, in the back of my mind where only
I could hear, where only I could understand.
Something had changed inside of me that day, underneath my Juicy Couture
hoodie and overpriced designer jeans. At
least for me, something was different.
No comments:
Post a Comment