“Liz, pick-up.” Susan’s voice sounds scratchy through the cheap, plastic speaker on the front of the phone. For just a moment Liz is disoriented, still recovering from the heart-stopping squawk that preceded the disembodied voice.

“I’m terribly sorry but I have to answer this page,” Liz says to Mr. Weiss. She holds up her index finger to interrupt his monologue on building materials, specifically grades of wood, lumber quality, and the benefits of a particular fire retardant.

Whatever Susan has to say must be urgent, or else she wouldn’t have used the All Call function. Liz has her phone forwarded to voicemail, as it always is when she’s with a member. Few of her co-workers practice this common courtesy. Don’t they know how unbelievably rude it is to take a call during a meeting? Just because someone applying for a loan would never complain, especially not during the application process, doesn’t mean that poor etiquette is acceptable.

The intercom, though, that’s different. No one uses the intercom function. Instead of the quiet, rhythmic pulse of the phone’s inside line, the intercom makes an upsetting squawking noise like the sound of a strangling goose, which sets the intended subject of the squawk on edge. And the intercom is not private unless the squawker says “pick-up,” informing the squawkee that the exchange is to be personal and to pick-up the handset, lest the whole of the office hear her private business broadcast indiscriminately.

From Susan’s bypass of the voicemail system and use of the intercom, followed immediately by “pick-up,” Liz knows for certain someone is dead. Not a famous, abstract person like Dame Judy Dench or Michael Jackson, someone for whom it would be imperative to learn about, but can wait ten or fifteen minutes for the inevitable telling. Maybe her father had suffered a sudden heart attack, passing away at some early-bird dinner buffet near his retirement condo in Arizona. No, certainly it is Jenny who is dead, hit by a bus while on her bike.

Liz doesn’t want to know the terrible news that awaits her. She doesn’t want to hear Susan say whatever tragic thing it is her unfortunate duty to relay. Although she knows she will regret it, Liz picks up anyway.

It has been nearly eight weeks since the last bomb threat. Counting this one, it’s the third in the last twelve months.

Her first experience with a bomb scare occurred only four months after starting at The Unified Telecommunications Credit Union. She was only a teller then and was terrified when her team leader passed a hastily penned note down the teller line which instructed all the girls to finish the transaction they were working on and to close their windows. It was horrifying. Liz trembled as she counted back the bills to the member who did not quite know what was happening, although he knew something wasn’t right. She was nauseated, and barely held back her tears as she handed him his receipt and asked him to come again.

Each successive threat scares her less, and now she views these events as welcome little break in a hectic workweek. Of course, all of this is predicated on the fact that there is no bomb, which in the seven years she has worked at The Credit Union, there has not been. After a while, bomb threats lose their power.

Liz hangs up the phone and Mr. Weiss continues with his spiel.

“See, here is where the built-in seating will be, all around the perimeter.” Mr. Weiss points to the blueprints, which he has brought along in the hopes that they will help convince Liz to give him the home improvement loan. In reality, these “blueprints” are hand drawn on butcher paper in a blue pencil with an almost professional attention to detail. It probably would have been more helpful to Mr. Weiss if he had left his blueprints at home.

“Mr. Weiss,” Liz says calmly, “we have a small emergency. There’s no need to panic, but we do need to gather our things and go outside.” Mr. Weiss looks frightened. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing, it happens all the time. Just go out the back door and wait in the parking lot. I’ll meet you out there.”

Mr. Weiss hurries into the hallway. “Grab the blueprints,” he yells back, before disappearing through the rear door under the illuminated EXIT sign.
Liz puts on her fleece socks, boots and coat, then takes Mr. Weiss’s blueprints and tucks them safely under her arm. Experience has taught her to keep her personal belongings with her.

The bomb threats have been coming with increasing frequency. Perhaps the national climate has created this change. Possibly recession restlessness. Or the increased popularity of radical-fringe political parties. Or maybe American criminals have finally appropriated foreign terrorist methods, not unlike the adoption of techno-pop, tapas, and the Brazilian bikini wax. The authorities never traced the origin of that last call.
It occurs to Liz as she hurries to catch up with Mr. Weiss that the last bomb threat came in at the same time: late afternoon, around ten till four. This timing works out well for Liz because it means she will most likely get the rest of the afternoon off without being docked.

Mr. Weiss, having never experienced a bomb scare, is understandably shaken. As they stand in the parking lot, Liz tries to reassure him with soothing words. “I’m sure it’s nothing. This kind of thing happens all the time,” she says. But oddly, this doesn’t make Mr. Weiss feel any better.

Liz ends their interview in the parking lot by complimenting him on his renderings and telling him that he is approved for the loan. Of course she can’t put it though until tomorrow morning, unless The Credit Union blows up and then she cannot guarantee his approval, a comment which Mr. Weiss does not find one bit funny. He will still have to sign the paperwork, but she’ll call his office in the morning and verify that the processing went smoothly. Mr. Weiss is more than glad to leave.

Liz had thought ahead and prepared herself to stand outside for an hour. Some of her co-workers were not as proactive. It’s always better to act than to react. But those girls hardly even reacted. Some of the tellers are wearing strappy heels. Why do they dress like that? What’s wrong with them? One girl is even wearing white pumps after Labor Day. This offers all the fashion evidence Liz needs.

“How’s it goin’?” Bob from Risk Management asks.

“Look at them. Those girls have on sandals. What were they thinking when they got dressed this morning? I know what I was thinking—I was thinking ‘I’m cold.’”

“Well, maybe it gets warm on the teller line. You know they stand all day long.”

“Believe what you want, but I know they’re idiots,” Liz says, snuggling her coat close to her chest.

Note: This is the chapter that ultimately started the book. It has a little giddy-up to it and sets a goofily menacing tone. My editor was right to move this to the front.