ANOTHER YEAR… More adventures (Part 168n)
The cop was on his
hands and knees bent over Lynda, talking to her. I couldn’t hear what he
was saying but I did hear Lynda ask to sit up. Hobie stepped in and
gave her a hand and the cop, still on his knees gave her a tug from his
side. Her face was pale, even for Winter. Hobie suggested helping her to
get up and over to one of the lobby benches. That’s when I stopped in
to grab the hand the cop had been holding. She, still a bit stunned,
didn’t immediately recognize me. That was fine by me. We pulled her up
and guided her to the bench. Once seated she asked where her other shoe,
a high heel, was. The people, customers and employees, had started to
go about their business but a customer who’d heard the question walked
up with the missing shoe. Taking it from her I noticed two things… the
strap that was used to hold it on her foot was broken and a small nail
used to tack the leather to the bottom of the high heel was protruding.
It was when I handed the shoe to Lynda that she finally recognized me.
She’d been asked numerous times if she was OK but I went ahead and also
asked her. The original crowd that had gathered when she fell had
diminished and was now down to just the cop, Hobie, Trish, a customer I
didn’t recognize and me. She looking at the damaged shoe, asked how she
was going to walk what with it snowing and only one good shoe. It was about
that time I saw Mike, the messenger/custodian, walking in the back door
with a snow shovel. I turned to Lynda and asked if she had any other
shoes at work. My idea was that if she did I would send Mike over to
fetch them. She answered that she did but she would need to call the
office to talk with Ruthe to have her find them. That meant
getting her over to the platform and to my desk.
As I helped her
to stand up the cop, once again, asked if she was OK and she nodded that
she was. Hobie then asked if she knew what had happened and she shook
her head in a negative fashion. She now had both her shoes in her hand and I,
remembering the protruding nail, asked to see them. I went to the nail
and attached to it were some threads. I looked back to where she’d
fallen and could see what looked to be a small mound in the carpet. I
walked over to it and bent down to inspect it. I pushed the mound and it
went back down to pretty much match the rest of the carpet. I was
pretty sure I knew what had happened. I went back over to them and
explained. I was 95% sure that the protruding nail had gotten caught in a
loop of the carpet. When it did, Lynda, moving forward was stopped and
caused her to fall and in the process the strap on the shoe broke. No
one else said a word. Not wanting to ‘beat a dead horse’ I suggested
that Lynda, Mike and I go over to my desk so she could make the call.
This
was the first time I’d seen Lynda since the meeting with Stan, her
boss. I sure as hell didn’t want to revert to that and asked why she’d
come over to the bank. It was a somewhat legitimate question because the
only time she’d set foot in the place was right before the end of the
year to open an account. It was a simple answer… her husband, in the Army reserves and
stationed out West, needed her to wire money to him. I wasn’t going to
take that lead any further but Lynda carried on. He was an amateur
photographer and had made money doing freelance work in the area. He’d
made some contacts and had been hired to some contract work but he
needed a new, special lens. He’d found one but the guy wanted cash and
had asked Lynda to wire it to him. I learned more about her husband in those
minutes than I had since being introduced to Lynda. She was very much
at ease with me which I took to be a good sign. However, there still was
the question of Stan, her boss. Lynda had made the call and connected
with Ruthe and Mike had returned with a pair of shoes that would allow
Lynda to return to work. I’d made the withdrawal for her while he was on
his mission so our time together was over. I felt good about it but
when she got up to leave she stopped and said something that sort of
startled me… “I owe you… BIG TIME!”... and then headed out the entry gate
of the platform.
By noon the snow was really coming down. Lobby
traffic had slowed to just an occasional customer. I wanted to shut the
whole bank down to let the employees get on the road before snow drifts
started to appear but to do so we had to have approval from the State
banking department. I got permission to send everybody home that lived
more than five miles away Of course, that included Mae. I can still
remember her reaction when I told her to head on home… it was somewhere
along the lines of “What’s wrong with these people? What are they?
Wimps?” But she took off with the rest of them I still had three tellers
which was more than enough. Bert, the president ended up telling me to
get everybody out as close to 3pm as possible… and that included me.
Before leaving, when putting the material away that I’d been working on I
noticed something next to the side chair at my desk. I reached down to
get it and saw the it was the envelope with the money that I’d withdrawn
for Lynda. I called over to her office and all I got was the phone
ringing in my ear. As I’d mentioned earlier… I knew the day was going to
be eventful right from the start.
There were three people who
would have Lynda’s telephone number. I already knew it was unlisted. Her
husband worked for his father’s Chevrolet dealership and dissatisfied
customers would call at all hours. So, to protect Lynda while he was
gone he’d gotten an unlisted number. The three people were: Stan, her boss who I
was still uncertain about how he’d actually taken the meeting we’d had
with him: Ruthe, who I knew wouldn’t answer the phone because of her
abusive husband and, Bill, the office manager. I dialed the number for
information (remember those days?) and got two different numbers. Of
course, the first one I tried was wrong… it was Bill’s father. There was
no answer at the second number. So here I was with over $400, in cash,
that didn’t belong to me and knowing that Lynda must be out of her mind
worrying about it. There was nothing more I could do but head home.
It
was an awful trip. There was no way to know just how much snow had
fallen because the wind had blown most of it into huge snow drifts.
There was one particular area that was always a problem. It was where
two townships boundary lines were. There was no coordination between the
highway departments of the two which meant travel problems when it
snowed. Sure enough, when I approached I could see the back-up of cars
and trucks. There had been talk of getting the State involved to make
sure the road would remain open and clear but that hadn’t happened.
There was still time for me to turn around and ponder taking either of
the two other East bound roads. But, they were both secondary and I
didn’t want to take a chance. It was less than a mile back to the last
town I’d driven through and I knew that Davo and his girlfriend Leigh
lived right in town. If I could find them home I figured I could call Elle and
let her know I was OK. Leigh was… and so began my next ’adventure’.
To be continued…
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