Banking on Love

By Michael Bracken

Every Saturday morning for as long as I can remember, Jerry Wilson has deposited his weekly paycheck at the bank where I work, and nearly every Saturday morning for at least six months, I’ve been the teller who waited on him. Because I enjoyed flirting with him, I always had a question ready so that I could keep him at my window longer than necessary.

One Saturday morning I asked, “Why don’t you have direct deposit?”

“I work for a small company that doesn’t have it,” he said. “Besides, if I had direct deposit, I’d never get to see your smile.”

My smile grew wider as I said, “And I wouldn’t get to see yours, either!”

When Jerry smiled, his green eyes twinkled, and his entire face seemed to light up. I wondered if mine did the same. We grinned at each other a bit too long because the elderly woman in line behind Jerry cleared her throat with obvious irritation.

After Jerry made his deposit and left following a similar bit of flirting the next Saturday, SaraBeth, the teller who occupied the station next to mine, leaned over. “I wish I had someone who looked at me the way Mr. Wilson looks at you.”

There were no customers awaiting my attention, so I turned to her. “How does he look at me?”

“Oh, come on, Nikki, he’s smitten!”

“That’s such an old-fashioned word,” I said.

“But it’s true!” she insisted. “He’s always flirting with you, and he never flirts with me when I wait on him. You should have seen the look on his face that Saturday last month when he realized you weren’t here.”

“Really?”

“I waited on him that day and the first thing he did is ask where you were,” she said.

“What’d you tell him?” I asked.

“What could I tell him?” she asked. “I just said you’d taken a day off.”

I had actually spent my day off taking my mother to visit her parents’ grave on the anniversary of their passing. “If he’s so interested, I wonder why he’s never asked me out.”

“Maybe it’s the ring.”

I glanced at my left hand, where I wore my grandmother’s wedding ring, and said, “I never thought of that.”

“Wearing a ring on that finger confuses men, especially the nice guys,” SaraBeth said. “Only real creeps will hit on you when you wear a wedding ring, and Mr. Wilson obviously isn’t a creep!”

When I saw Jerry enter the lobby the next Saturday, I slipped off my grandmother’s wedding ring and tucked it into my pocket.

He smiled when he reached the counter and I asked, “What can I help you with today, Mr. Wilson?”

“The usual,” he said with his usual charming smile.

When he pushed his I.D., deposit slip, and paycheck across the counter to me, I took it all with my ringless left hand. Because Jerry appeared to be enraptured with my smile, he didn’t seem to notice.

After I finished with Jerry’s deposit, I pushed his receipt across the counter with my left hand, but I didn’t release the receipt when he reached for it. He finally looked down, realized what he was looking at, and caught my hand. Heat raced up my arm and my heart beat a little faster. Without releasing his hold, Jerry looked up, into my eyes. “What happened to your wedding ring?”

“My wedding ring?” I asked, innocently. “I’m not married.”

“But--” he sputtered. “You wear a ring.”

“Oh, that?” I said, still playing innocent. “You must mean my grandmother’s ring. I’ve been wearing it ever since she passed away.”

“Well, that changes everything,” he said.

“What does it change?”

Before Jerry could say anything else, the woman behind him sighed impatiently and he stepped aside.

“Well, now he knows,” SaraBeth leaned over and said the next time there was a lull. “What do you think he’s going to do now that he knows you’re not married?”

I knew what I wanted Jerry to do, but I really had no idea what he actually would do.

I only had to wait a week to find out. After Jerry deposited his weekly paycheck, I asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“Actually, there is,” Jerry said. “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

“Okay,” I said. “How much?”

His eyes twinkled. “I’d like to withdraw you from behind that counter and take you to dinner tonight. Do you think that would be possible?”

The woman standing behind Jerry cleared her throat, but this time we both ignored her.

“I think that would be a wise investment,” I said with a wink. I knew at that moment that all my flirting had paid a huge dividend.

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Michael Bracken (www.crimefictionwriter.com) has written romance and women’s fiction published in True Love, True Romance, True Story, and many other publications.w