Chapters (38)
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- epilogue
Halle and I watched sitcom reruns and MTV until two a.m., when I drugged myself back to sleep with soup, vanilla ice cream and everything I could locate in the medicine cabinet.
Tuesday morning I felt like a cement truck had emptied into my sinuses. Still, I dressed and went to the bank. I parked my old Honda out of the staff’s sight, straightened my skirt and walked into their cool lobby trying to project confidence and wealth instead of phlegm. Was it too much to hope for tellers who didn’t handle my tiny transactions every week? I glanced toward the glass-fronted offices where officers usually ignored my beelines to the counter.
A pretty woman with sleek black hair and ocean-blue eyes rose to greet me. “Hello, I’m Kristin. Welcome to First National.” She took my hand and shook it. I hoped I hadn’t transmitted my germs to her. “How may we help you today?”
“I want to open an account. Well, I have a checking account with y’all but I want to put most of this in a different one.” I extracted the check from my purse and handed it to her, wondering if she’d raise an eyebrow. Maybe she’d call the police. What was someone like me doing with that much money?
Kristin waved me to a chair at her desk without any indication of shock. “You’re Veronica Johnson?” she asked. She was already pulling up my information on her computer.
“Yes. Please call me Ronni.”
“All right, Ronni.” She smiled and produced a sheath of papers. “Do you need to access the funds in this account?”
I offered one of my blanker recent looks.
“Do you need to write checks on the new account?”
“Oh, no. I want to deposit ten thousand in my checking account, and put the rest in a secure place where I can’t spend it. I mean, I don’t want to be able to access it for about a year. I read online about CDs?”
She smiled and nodded. “We can upgrade you to an interest-bearing checking account and the put rest in a certificate of deposit for a year. The interest rate is only about one percent right now, but your money will be safely invested and you can’t withdraw it without a penalty. Give me a few minutes and we’ll have you all set. I’ll need your driver’s license.”
I handed it over, stifling a cough. “Um, Kristin? I know it sounds stupid, but would you make a copy of the check for me?”