Liz has seven items on her to-do list. Four of them are easily accomplished: check the ticker on her computer screen for the current weather in Los Angeles; buy a stamp, which she can do at any teller window; put stamp on envelope; place bill in mail box. The other three items are prohibitively difficult: get a new girlfriend, get a new job, get out of town.

She draws a line through the first item. It’s fifty-eight degrees in Los Angeles. Here though, it’s well below freezing, nearly thirty degrees below. Except for the obligatory, “Pretty cold out,” or “It’s a chilly one,” her co-workers at The Unified Telecommunications Credit Union appear unaffected by the harsh weather. Don’t they know they are risking their lives each time they walk out their front doors? Aren’t they afraid of the elements? Can’t they understand their lives are at stake? All she wants is to be away from the cold, to feel the sun on her face. Real sun, not the icy, impotent sun of January, but the warm sun of springtime that coaxes out flowers and makes freckles on noses.

She cannot bring herself to complete the next task. This would entail getting up from her desk, taking off her soggy, polar-fleece socks, slipping on her work loafers and walking all the way though the lobby to one of the teller windows. It would mean making chitchat with the girl on the teller line. Liz isn’t ready for this. It’s too early in the day for any of it. If she already had the stamp, everything would be different. It would be easy to place that stamp on the envelope, allowing her to cross another task off her list.

Liz returns the to-do list to her top desk drawer. She flips through her member files. These are the roadmaps of her workday. Nothing out of the ordinary: car, car, boat, car, consolidation. The usual kind of loans for which usual people apply.

Each of her manila folders contains a whole life: work history, previous addresses, prior marriages. No explanation. Facts only. Sometimes Liz fabricates stories to fit the paperwork—elaborate, convoluted tales of ex-husbands and cancer scares, sub-prime mortgages, or misplaced fiscal trust. Stories that explain slow pays and defaults, long periods of unemployment, foreclosures and excessive credit card debt. Constructing the individuals who accompany these files is one of the few perks of her tiresome job—divining the reality of the nervous applicant who arrives for the loan interview simply from a page of numbers.

People talk one way and live another. People are liars. Credit reports tell the truth.
Liz tries to envision her own life on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of no residence. She uses The Credit Union as her permanent mailing address. This will eventually come back to haunt her. It’s a red flag—the kind of thing that stands out to anyone looking for something amiss, someone like her. But she can explain it all away by one bad romance and an intrinsic lack of good judgment.

If she were smart, she could pass this off to her superiors as a kind of hyper-vigilance about security and prevention of identity theft, a neurotic side-effect of her job—the way nurses sanitize telephone mouth pieces and mechanics stockpile parts for cars they no longer own. She has a right to be cautious. Privacy invasion happens every day. Still, more than two years with nothing but a business address is suspect, even to Liz.

She scrolls down the recent transactions page of Theresa’s checking account. A new charge for seventeen-fifty at the Contemporary Art Museum. Every month Theresa uses her check card at either the gift shop or café (both keep distinct accounts and therefore are reflected independently on member statements). But this charge isn’t to either of these. It reads only Contemporary Art Museum—no modifier. What could this charge be for? Seventeen-fifty is less than the membership price. Besides, Theresa already renewed her membership last month. Perhaps she has bought an advance ticket for some impending blockbuster. She takes a sip of her coffee and makes a mental note to check for upcoming shows in the Arts section of the complimentary newspaper in the break room.

Her first appointment of the morning is scheduled for nine-thirty. It’s only nine-twenty, but from the convex security mirror that hangs in the corner Liz can see Mr. and Mrs. Richter waiting in the lobby. She knows it’s them because they look nervous. Her members are always nervous. They whisper and fidget and try to sit still, but never can. Mrs. Richter fiddles with the thick, brown accordion file on her lap, tapping her fingers and snapping the elastic. Mr. Richter gives her a reprimanding look each time she does this, which she either doesn’t see or pretends not to. Liz already knows what’s in that file. It’s the entire financial history of their married life. Even from their distorted reflection, she can tell they are that kind of people.

Liz logs off Theresa’s checking account and pulls up the Richter’s history page. She won’t need their excessive documentation. All she needs to calculate their loan eligibility is a copy of last year’s tax return or, preferably, the pay stubs from their last two paychecks. She will obtain the balance of the information from the terminal on her desktop. It’s simple. Salary. Debt-to-income ratio. FICO score. That’s it. Nothing more. It’s all so intimate and electronically available.

“These are our records. We thought you might need them,” Mrs. Richter says, setting the accordion file on Liz’s desk. “Everything’s in there, tax returns, W-2s. We had a loan before, maybe five years ago, but we paid it off. It was for a new bathroom. We remodeled. You know, to increase the value of our house. I think it was a good investment, don’t you? Those records are in there too if you need them.”

“I’m impressed by your organization,” Liz says, glancing through their paperwork.
Of course, there’s nothing in here she will use, but it’s interesting to see what the Richters imagine she might require to grant this loan. They even thought to include fresh credit reports from the big three reporting agencies. At as much as $39.95 each on the Internet, Liz is impressed by their forethought and commitment to their loan. But it’s not as if Liz doesn’t have more current, detailed, information readily available.

It’s sweet they’re so worried. They have no reason to be. It’s always the people for whom she can most easily approve a loan who express the greatest apprehension. She wonders if that is somehow part of the psychological make-up of a good credit risk—undue concern.

Mrs. Richter works for the phone company, some middle management IT job that Liz doesn’t really understand even after the woman explains it to her. Liz nods her head and says “that’s interesting,” even though it isn’t, not even to Mrs. Richter. Mr. Richter is a lineman. At least Liz knows what that is.

The Richters want a truck. A really big one, with a big price tag.
“It’s lovely,” Liz says as Mrs. Richter shows her the brochure.
“It’s got 245 horsepower,” Mr. Richter says.
“Powerful engine,” she replies, but doesn’t really know. It certainly sounds like a lot.
“We wouldn’t get it in red like the picture. That seems a little flashy. We were thinking navy blue. What do you think of navy blue?” Mrs. Richter asks.
“Oh yes, navy blue would be an excellent choice,” Liz replies.

She thinks they are making a terrible mistake. But Liz is not there to pass judgment on their choice of vehicle. It is not her place to say, “Why would you want such a big machine in the middle of the city?” or “What about the cost of gas?” or “Have you no concern for the environment or our nation’s dependence on foreign oil?” Liz approves their loan, not because they are friendly, or because of the quality of their visual aids, but because they have good credit and comfortable, reliable incomes.
In fact, their credit is so good Liz wonders why they have decided to secure their loan through The Credit Union instead of taking advantage of the 0% financing offered to well-qualified buyers at many of the local dealerships. Perhaps they like confining their bills to one financial institution, or credit unions’ policy of the debt dying with the debtor. Still, over the course of five years, the compounded interest will add up to thousands of dollars. But Liz will not suggest this more cost-effective option. Lending is how The Credit Union makes its money and currently they are in the midst of a Loan Drive.

Soon the Richters will be free to live out their fantasy of hauling things to the dump, pushing snow from the neighbors’ driveways, and helping their friends move. They are a well-suited couple and she hopes they will be happy with this, the newest addition to their family.

Liz escorts the Richters back through the security door that, despite its welcoming appearance, is really made of bulletproof glass. The glass is there to protect the staff from bank robbers, though Liz cannot see how a glass door could possibly safeguard anyone from a close-range, high-powered rifle.

They are good people, the Richters, and Liz wishes she could have what they have. Not the truck, but the relationship. One that is congenial, considerate, and safe. She wants to look forward to coming home at night and telling her girlfriend about her day. She wants to have someone to talk to about dull things like laundry and bills.
She walks back to her cubicle and sits at her desk. As she pulls on her fleecy socks, Liz wishes her cubicle had come with a radiator, just a little one to dry her wet feet and warm her hands. She looks stupid sitting there with her shoes off and her puffy winter coat on. All she wants is warmth. But that won’t happen until springtime.
Liz takes out her to-do list and studies it. She cannot get a stamp because that would require putting her shoes back on. She cannot pay her bill because she has no stamp. It is now a temperate fifty-nine degrees in Los Angeles.

Note: This is the chapter that originally began So Much Better. Here we get to see Liz in her natural environment. But my editor was right, it’s a little slow and my writing tends toward the slow anyway (or “quiet” if you are being polite), so pushing this back ended up quickening the pace of the novel.