Chapter 3 – Scott
“Sir, you told me to call you if I heard anything about that business you were looking into.”
I perked up from the office chair and asked the bank manager what information he had for me. I had a lot of money in his bank and I was a good customer. He wasn’t supposed to disclose information about other clients, but he would for me. It hadn’t taken much pressure for him to give me exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was for him to tell me that my father was right about the company’s finances and we had an angle on Jesse.
“Okay, Bill, what do you have?”
“Well, your father was right. He said that she was in dire straits and she is. She was just here a little while ago to try for a loan.”
“Did you give it to her?” I don’t know why I was so worried that he had.
“No, no, I couldn’t. Her father left the business in quite a mess, and even though the profits are off the charts right now, there’s a cash flow problem that I couldn’t help her with. I wish I could, especially knowing that you know her.”
“No, that’s fine, Bill. Thank you for letting me know.”
“No problem, but can I ask why you wanted to know in the first place? This doesn’t seem like something that your father would be interested in.”
“You know how he is. He sees things that other people don’t.”
“Well, it is ripe for the taking. I don’t know how she hasn’t shut the doors yet. It isn’t worth how much they owe. I don’t think she’ll ever get it paid off.”
I thought of the determined woman that I’d come to know and care about. There was no doubt to me that she would do what was needed to keep the place open. She loved it there, that much was clear. Jesse wasn’t going anywhere if she could help it, and I admired her even more for that.
I thanked the man again and hung up with a little more hope in my heart. I’d seen her this morning, and although she had been sidetracked with something, I wouldn’t have guessed that it was as bad as Bill was making it out to be. But now I knew. I had my angle, and my father was right. It wasn’t something that I was going to say to him out loud, but it was there.
Instead of staying around the office, I left early, like I’d been doing for a while. My destination was clear in my mind: I was hoping to catch Jesse before she closed up for the day. I noticed that there wasn’t a line, and I was thinking that I was lucky. I wasn’t lucky, though. I got to the front and found out that it was closed. The one day that I didn’t come in for the morning and it was now closed. It said they would be back the next day, but I didn’t want to wait. My father was right, it was time to pounce, although I could have cared less about the business – it was the owner that I wanted.
I pounded on the door and waited. She usually came down after a few minutes, and it was starting to look like she wasn’t there. I knocked another couple of times after I noticed that her car was there. Again I knocked and waited, hoping that she would come to the door. I knew that the place was closed, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to see her. I hadn’t been able to that morning and I was regretting it like I would if I’d wasted all of my oxygen and there was none left in the world.
“Hold on.”
I heard the voice clearly and realized that she’d been downstairs the whole time. When Jesse came out of the kitchen, it was obvious that she had been drinking a little. Or a lot. She was way beyond tipsy. I’d never seen her that way, and for such a straight-laced kind of girl, it was quite entertaining.
“I didn’t see you this morning.”
“I uh, had an early meeting that I couldn’t get out of.”
While I liked the idea that she had noticed my absence, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about it. Jesse didn’t even bother to shut the door after I came in.
“Well, I’m not cooking today. I haven’t had a day off since the funeral, and I’m not even cooking for you, Scott, no matter how cute you are.”
My smile broadened and she made a face at me. Jesse hadn’t meant to say it, but the alcohol seemed to have loosened up her lips. I liked the results. I felt like I could tell her anything, ask her anything.
“I’m just here to say hi, no more, no less.”
Her lips pursed and then pouted. “Oh, well, hi.”
I chuckled, unable to stop myself. Jesse found a seat at one of the chairs in the front and it didn’t look like she was planning on leaving that spot any time soon.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded that she was fine, but it wasn’t hard to see that that was the furthest thing from the truth. Jesse wasn’t fine. There was something going on, and I was sure that it had to do with her visit to the bank earlier in the day. I wanted to tell her about it, tell her that I could fix everything, but then she would know that I was checking up on her, and I was sure that Jesse would not find that endearing at all. I was pretty sure that she would hate the very idea of it, and I didn’t want to make her mad.
“You don’t look okay. Let me help you upstairs so that you don’t get any ideas and try to open this place up.”
Jesse giggled and told me that she had no intention of working. By the smell of her breath that was a very good idea. “How much did you have to drink?”
She shrugged and then told me to go get her bottle.
“I will, just let me get you upstairs and into bed. Then I’ll go get it for you.”
I tried at first to just help her along, but Jesse wasn’t doing her part, so by the third stair I gave up on that approach and just picked her up in my arms. She felt like she weighed nothing, and I felt a protective feeling come over me. I don’t know what it was about this woman, but everything about her clutched at my heart and made it hard to think straight. What was she doing to me?
“Thank you, Scott.”
“Any time, Jesse. I don’t think you’re a very good drinker.”
She laughed again. Whatever she’d been drinking, she had had far too much of it for this time of day. I supposed that she’d come back from the bank and started in. I wanted to talk to her about it, get her to say something, but it was the wrong time. She may have been pliable, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Her body was warm and in my arms and I didn’t want to do anything to erase her smile.
“Do you want me to put you in bed?”
“Please, but no funny business.”
I promised her that I wouldn’t, though every fiber of my being was dying to.