Everyone told me that there would be trouble if I went through with it, but I’m hopelessly optimistic that everyone will see my side of things, so I ignored them and forged ahead with my plans. Even so, I had to give myself a good talking to in the mirror on that morning I went to the bank; staring at myself and saying things like “You are capable” and “it won’t be a problem” and “he’s the best one for the job, and you know it. He knows it. Everyone knows it.” Except there was one person who didn’t know it, and who thought all of it might be a front for something that would never happen.

               Nevertheless, as I found myself pulling into the parking lot of the bank on that chilly November afternoon, my spirits were high. Nothing had gone wrong—yet—and maybe it never would. Maybe everyone else was just blowing it out of proportion. Maybe, after we opened the business, she would see that it was just that—a business. Then she’d see that I was not a threat to her.

               I was wrong, of course. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

               Dickerson was already in the parking lot when I arrived. When I’d first met him—freshman orientation weekend—he had introduced himself with only his surname. His given name was Barret, but he said that was one of those stupid names that rich people named their kids, so he didn’t use it. His dad was an investor, and his mom was an attorney, and they did a lot of things that were beyond me, a barely middle-class woman, who had to rely on scholarships to even attend business school. Dickerson was standing outside of his car waiting for me, his ears turned deep red from the biting wind. Why he wasn’t wearing a hat was also beyond me. Didn’t want to mess up his hair, I suppose. His hair was meticulously combed, as always, just like his sharply ironed and pressed clothes. His beard on the other hand looked like it belonged on a dwarf. He had oiled it up real nicely today. I could smell it as soon as I opened my car door.

               “Hey Nattie,” he said. My name is Nat. No one, not even my mom, ever called me Nattie. Except him. He had done it since that first conversation we’d had 8 years ago on the steps of the co-ed dorm, when the administration had let us have an hour of free time before mandating that we should all be in bed. Why he gave me a pet name before we’d even become friends was just a quirk of his personality. I liked it.

               His wife did not.

               “Hey,” I greeted, practically running past him to get to the bank. “Why are you standing out here? It’s freezing!”

               He laughed. Sometimes that was all the answer he had for his behavior.

               He trotted ahead of me, opening the door, and giving me one of his wide, endearing smiles. That face was why everyone loved him. He sure knew how to turn up the charm. He made everyone feel as if they were the whole world to him. All the time. It was his special gift.

               I went through the door of the bank, waited for him in the outer atrium, and then went through the inner doors a step ahead of him. We glanced around the lobby, and one of the tellers caught my eye, and called out, “I can get you over here!”

               Dickerson went ahead of me and I could hear the smile in his words as he said, “We have a meeting with the loan officer.”

               “Of course!” I noticed how she looked at the pair of us, like we didn’t belong together. I flashed a smile at her and it did the trick to pull her away from her internal wonderings. “Let me take you to him.”

               She let us into the west side of the building, to a man sitting behind an enormous wooden desk. It was littered with picture frames, awards, notebooks, assorted boxes, a half-eaten sandwich still in the restaurant wrapping, several unused napkins, a calculator, and right in the middle of the desk, an enormous calendar that had at least four items scratched out onto every single day, including weekends. “Heath? These people are here for you,” the teller said, before she melted away.

               Heath stood and stuck his hand out towards me first. “Heath Arnold. Pleased to meet you,” he said as he shook each of our hands in turn.

               “Nat Coleman,” I said. “And this is my business partner, Barret Dickerson.”

               “Oh! You’re here to close on the loan…for the bar?” he asked.

               “That’s right,” I said, swelling with pride. This was my dream, and Dickerson was just along for the ride. Because he was the best accountant I knew. I trusted him to do it right, because he not only cared about doing it right, he cared about me. He was the perfect person for the job.

               When I first approached him about it, I had asked him to meet me for coffee. At the time he was working for his dad, but he was craving to get out from under his thumb. Mr. Dickerson, as I always thought of him, because he’d never told me to address him by his first name, was the kind of man who continually second-guessed everyone around him. Not because he was the smartest person in the room, but because he thought he was the smartest in the room.

               “I want to open a bar,” I said, blowing on the hot coffee in my mug.

               “A bar?” Dickerson asked, smiling brightly. He stroked his beard. “And let me guess…You need me to manage the books for you.”

               “Can’t think of anyone else I’ve rather have. Plus, I figured you were tired of your old man.”

               He laughed, sparkling. “Am I ever.” He took a sip from his own mug. “And let me guess again…you want Dad to invest in it?”

               “God, no,” I said, shuddering at the thought.

               “Good idea. He would want to stick his nose too far into our affairs.”

               In hindsight, I’d have rather had Dickerson’s father poking around. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

               “So what do you think?’ I asked.

               He mulled it over for a minute or two. “Ellie might not like it,” he said.

               It was the only hesitation I had. Ellie, his wife, would be jealous over a pretty waitress, or someone’s mother who smiled too much, or an overly friendly dog. They had only had about ten people at their wedding since she didn’t like or trust anyone. Sometimes it seemed like she didn’t like or trust Dickerson either. “It’d be a lot of late nights,” I said.

               He nodded. “Doesn’t bother me.”

               It would be a lot of late nights with me. I should have said it, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to ruin it.

               And I wanted to believe that it wouldn’t matter, even as the thought that it would not be crawled through me.

               Heath handed us paper after paper after paper to sign. Dickerson smiled the whole time. “Alright,” he said, when we’d reached the bottom of the stack. “You’re all set.”

               Dickerson and I looked at each other. We were practically kids, who barely knew what they were doing, trying to do something exciting together. “Yeah, we are,” I agreed. I felt ready to take on anything, and I knew that I had the right person at my side to make it happen.               

I just wish Ellie would have seen it that way too.