The International Writers Magazine - Our Tenth Year: Families

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The Loan • Martin Green Paul Lerner put down the phone and went out to the enclosed patio, where his wife Sally was working on a painting.  “Who was it?” asked Sally. “You’ll be surprised.   It was your son Nick.  He and Maria are at the Galleria, shopping, then they’re coming to see us.”

The Galleria, Roseville’s premier mall, was about ten minutes away from the Northern California retirement community where Paul and Sally had been living for almost ten years.
     “I bet I know what they want.” said Sally.
     “Maybe they just want to visit us,” said Paul.
     Sally snorted.   “Nick’s going to ask you for that loan.   I knew it when they announced those furloughs.”
    
     Nick, their oldest son, was within three months of his 40th birthday.   Like Paul before he retired, he worked for a State of California agency in Sacramento, but he’d advanced much further in the ranks of the state bureaucracy.   .  Nick,  Paul thought, was a good-looking man, tall, a little over six feet,  in good shape because he worked out daily in a health club.    Maria, his wife of 15 years, was an attractive woman.   Paul knew she was 37 years old, but she could have passed for much younger.   She was a fair-skinned blonde with cool blue-gray eyes, also rather tall, slender, with shapely legs.   Nick had met her when they both worked in a State office, but Maria hadn’t stayed there very long.   She’d gotten a job with a non-profit agency their department worked with and now had a high-paying position, or she had until six months ago when the agency, in the economic slump, lost its funding and closed down.
 
     The furloughs for State workers were also a result of the economic slump.   The last time they’d seen Nick and Maria, Nick had hinted that, without Maria’s salary, they were having a hard time meeting their bills.   This wasn’t surprising as Maria had persuaded Nick to buy one of the large (and expensive) houses that had been springing up all over the area before the housing bubble burst.   Sally thought the house was unnecessarily big as Nick and Maria had no children (she held Maria responsible for this) and it came with a large mortgage.   Like most of their generation, Nick and Maria liked to live large.   Besides the new house, they had two new cars, Maria went for “beauty treatments’ every week and Nick’s health club was the most expensive in Sacramento.
“You may be right,” said Paul.   “The furloughs are supposed to cut pay by ten percent.”
“Did Nick say anything about Maria’s getting a job.”
“No.   I guess she’s still looking.”
“I should hope so.   And what’s she doing shopping when she has no job and Nick’s getting a pay cut?”
 
     Paul shrugged.   “I’ve been looking over our finances,” he said, “and I think we can swing a loan of $5,000 without disturbing things too much.”    Paul didn’t think that Nick and Maria had any savings to speak of.   He knew that Nick had the State’s equivalent of a 401k plan but with the collapse of the stock market its value had probably dropped by at least one-half in the past few months.   Luckily, Paul, who was of the conservative generation, had put most of their assets in treasury bonds since retiring.   They had a modest return, but, as investors who’d lost their money in the stock market had discovered, they were a safe haven in a recession.
“That’s a lot.   Can we afford it?”
“I think we can.”
“Well, we’ll see.”       
       
     Nick and Maria arrived about an hour later.   Maria carried several packages plus a bouquet of flowers, which she gave to Sally.   She came over to Paul and gave him his usual kiss.   In her heels, Paul noted, she was two inches taller than him.    When they were seated in the living room, they talked about what they’d been doing since the last time they’d been together.   Nick and Maria had been to a concert at Arco arena and to a play downtown.  They’d also discovered a new French restaurant. Paul had been recovering from his annual winter cold and Sally was preparing to have cataract surgery the next month.   The Lerners’ big male cat, Rascalman, came ambling out and promptly sat in Maria’s lap, something that always irked Sally.   After a few more minutes of idle talk, Maria said she wanted to show Sally the clothes she’d just bought, which Paul knew would irk Sally even more.   Nick asked if he could talk to Paul while the women were occupied.   Here it comes, thought Paul.   They went out to the enclosed patio and Paul shut the glass door.
“You’ve heard that they’ve started the furloughs?” said Nick.
“I read about it in the Bee.”
“Things were tight already and that’s really going to make it tough.   I was wondering if you could make me a loan.”
“How much do you think you’ll need?”
“I was thinking of something like $10,000.”
Paul was taken aback.   “10,000!” he said.
“Well, we’ve fallen behind on our mortgage payments.”
“Why didn’t you let me know sooner?”
“I thought we could handle it.   We’re really trying to cut down.   I’ve given up the health club and Maria is cooking three nights a week.”
Great sacrifices, thought Paul.   “I assume Maria is still looking for a job?”
“I admit she was a little slow in getting started.   She liked being free, as she called it.   But she’s really started trying.”
“Any prospects?”
“You know how tough it is out there.   There’s one lead.   They said they’d call her back, but you know how that is.”
“I know.   Well, let me think about it and talk it over with your mother.”
“It’s a lot to ask but I hate to keep asking you for money in dribs and drabs and I figure $10,000 will hold us for six months.   Something’s bound to happen in that time.”
Yet, our new president says things will get even worse, thought Paul.
“I’ll call you during the week, all right?”
 
     When, after having the coffee and cake that Sally insisted they have, Ken and Maria had left, Paul told her about his conversation with their son.   “I knew he’d be asking for a loan.”
“You were right about that.”
“But $10,000, that’s outrageous.   We can’t afford that.”
  “We can if I sell some treasury bonds.   I was thinking of doing that anyway.   They’re higher than they’ve ever been.”
  “No, I don’t want to sell anything.   Those bonds are our safety net.   Didn’t you tell me that?”
  “I suppose I did.   Why don’t I offer to loan them the $5,000 we talked about?”
  “That’s a lot of money, too.   If you think we can afford it, all right.   We can’t let them get thrown out of their house.”
 
     The next week Ken called.   Paul picked up the phone; Sally had gone to a club lunch.   “Hi, Dad.”
  “Hi, I was going to call you.”
  “About the loan …”
  “Your mother and I talked and we can let you have …”
 “That’s why I’m calling.   We don’t need a loan any more.   Maria got a job, another non-profit.   They’ve just gotten a big grant, one of Obama’s things.   She’ll be getting even more than in her old job.”
  “When did this happen?”
  “Remember that lead I told you about.   They did call her back, on Monday.   That’s why Maria was shopping.   She was hoping they’d call her.   She went in there Tuesday and wowed them.”
  “That sounds great.   How about the mortgage?”
  “Maria got an advance so we can take care of it.   Look, I have a meeting.   Maria and I are celebrating this weekend, but the next weekend we want to take you and Mom out to dinner.”
  “All right, I’ll let her know.   We’ll be in touch.”
 
     When Sally returned, Paul told her the news.   She snorted and said, “It’s just like them to go out celebrating even before she starts.   When will they ever start saving?”
  “We’re the saving generation.   They’re the spending generation.”
  “They’re going to get into real trouble some day.   I know it.”
  “The governments pouring billions of dollars into the economy.   Maybe things will get better.   Anyway, we have a dinner coming.”  

He’d still set aside the $5,000, just in case.

© Martin Green April 2009
mgreensuncity@yahoo.com. 

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