Story Time on the Teller Line

I've been working in a bank for a little over a year now.  My first position was in the "loan vault;" a dimly lit, dusty room filled to the brim with multicolored folders containing the financial history of our customers.  It was my job to organize and track these files, as well as to help launch an online filing system.  I grew to know our customers from their tax returns and title lien statements.  I spent hours alphabetizing and shredding and stacking and shipping and typing and color coding.

I loved every minute of it.

I excelled, and four months later I was promoted.  I moved to a smaller branch in a bigger city, and was given an office all my own. My official job title is "administrative assistant."  What that basically means is that I can do almost every entry level job in a bank.  I help no less than five loan officers manage their loans from start to finish, I open new accounts, and I help cover on the teller line when we're shorthanded.  I have business cards with my name printed in glossy black ink, and instead of learning about our customers through their pay stubs and promissory notes, my hand is one of the first they'll shake.  I attend community events in the name of the bank, quote rates, promote specials and punch my calculator with a fury I didn't know I possessed.  I help young families acquire their first homes.  I help fund the dreams of my community's up and coming entrepreneurs.  And, yes, I still do my fair share of shredding, shipping and filing.

There is little I don't enjoy.  Loans are a brilliant, ever-changing puzzle, and new accounts test my ability to win a customer's loyalty.  But the teller line... The teller line is a welcome reprieve from all the other tasks.  On the teller line I hear about my customers' daily struggles and triumphs.  I know whose daughter won the spelling bee, and whose uncle took his first Caribbean cruise.  I am the confidant of war veterans and elementary school teachers and exotic dancers alike.  It amazes me how intimate total strangers can be.  We swap our deepest secrets without a second thought.  Once a customer leaves my bank, they can choose melt into the ever-flowing crowd of faces on the sidewalk and never see me again. Or, if they wish, they can return and strike up a friendship.  Either way, most customers leave behind a story.

This week, for instance, I was told one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever heard.  It goes something* like this --

Leonard was 15 when he first lay eyes on Maisey.  He told her he loved her after two weeks, and felt it all the way to his toes, the way young people do.  He was taken in by her too-loud laugh, but lost his heart the first time he saw her dance.  Maisey was clogger, and when she danced she was light as air.  Maisey was Leonard's first real girlfriend, and Leonard was the first boy Maisey ever kissed.  They spent two years together before Maisey went away to college, and Leonard took a job out of state.

They kept in touch for a few months, until distance made them forget things.  They forgot the shape of each other's hands, and the angle of each other's smiles.  Maisey forgot the way Leonard ran his finger down the bridge of her nose.  Leonard forgot the way Maisey's plaid skirt swirled around her knees, he forgot that her perfume smelled like lavender, and eventually, he forgot to write.  This was all well and good with Maisey, because by then, she'd have forgotten to check the post.

Leonard met Beatrice when he was 24.  She had dark brown hair, bright red lips and eyes wild and gold as whiskey.  For five years they bickered and kissed and bickered some more.  Then, on a night when Leonard had resolved to break things off with Beatrice, he found himself asking her to be his wife.  Though she made him furious, he knew he'd rather be angry with her than happy with anyone else. She accepted, against the advice of everyone they knew, and the two were married in autumn under a cloudless sky.

As Beatrice walked down the aisle toward Leonard on their wedding day he was struck by two astounding thoughts-- First, Beatrice was without doubt the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.  Second, that he would never again run his finger across the smattering of freckles on Maisey Davis's nose.  Leonard hadn't thought of Maisey in years, and wouldn't think of her again for many more.  As he and Beatrice exchanged vows, he looked deep into her golden eyes and knew he was a damn fool, but couldn't bring himself to regret his decision.  Nothing made him feel more alive than loving and cursing Beatrice.   

They loved and cursed each other through two long moves (one to California, and one back home to Kentucky), three dark haired daughters (Bess, Louisa and Jennifer), two battles with cancer (one each) and twenty long years of holy matrimony until, one day, Beatrice asked Leonard for a divorce. 

He acquiesced, and without a drop of remorse.  At some point they'd stopped kissing, but they'd never quite quit bickering.  Beatrice kept their house, car and children.  Leonard moved into a small apartment, but not much else about his life changed.  He kept the same job, saw the children every second Saturday and mailed a hefty check to Beatrice on the first of every month.  He didn't bother dating.  He was content listening to rooms filled with silence each evening as he drifted in and out of sleep in his lay-z-boy recliner, and he gained a certain satisfaction from polishing off an entire two-cup coffee maker's pot of Maxwell House each morning.

A decade passed in this way.  Leonard's daughters became women, he retired from his job, Beatrice lost her second battle with cancer, and his apartment slowly became cluttered.  Then one morning, while sipping on his second cup of Maxwell Premium Roast, in an obituary for a perfect stranger, he discovered that Maisey Davis had become Maisey Davis Evans, a widow.  He sipped his coffee until there was none left to sip. 

He started a second pot.

While it brewed Leonard thumbed his way to the section of the phone book marked E.  He picked up his phone and dialed.  It rang once... twice... three times...  At once he remembered the distinct way Maisey's skirt swirled around her knees.

Leonard hung up.  

He poured a cup of coffee and began to sip.  He picked up the phone and dialed again. The phone rang once... twice... three times... fou--

"Hello?"  

"Maisey?  Maisey Davis?" Leonard contemplated hanging up. 

"Yes?"

"Maisey, it's Leonard.  I was just calling... I wanted to offer my condolences.  I was... I saw in the paper here..."  Leonard felt like a damn fool.  He felt it all the way to his toes, the way that old people do.

"Leonard?"  There was a long pause, and then,"Is this a prank?" 

"No, no, it's not a prank.  I was just reading the obituaries and I saw your name and I just thought...  Well, I just wanted to offer my condolences, really."  Leonard tugged at a tuft of his hair.

"Well this is certainly unexpected." 

"I'm sorry, I...  So," he paused. "Say, do you still dance?" 

There was a too-loud bellow of laughter from the other receiver before Maisey answered.  "I haven't danced in three years.  Frank was sick with the cancer.  I couldn't leave often." 

Leonard took a breath. 

"Do you have any plans Saturday night?"

His eyes glistened as he spoke about Maisey.  He said they've been out dancing every Saturday since that phone call.  "We're like kids," he told me.  "It's like not a day passed between the last time we were together, and the that first day I took her out."

"Good for you!  I'm glad." I said, and I mean it.  I am truly happy to have heard his story, and he seemed happy that I listened.  As he shuffled back out to his car, I couldn't stop smiling, both with humor at the thought of Leonard clogging, and with amazement.  I am always surprised that love stories like Leonard's really happen.  It gives me hope.

*Names and identifying details were changed to honor the privacy and confidentiality of customers.