Payment Plan

The maintenance associate prepared the invoice and called the man over for payment. She explained the procedure the vehicle needed—extensive engine repair, decades-old wear—and told him it would be a few days, maybe a week, before it was finished.

“We’re remodeling our house,” he told her. “Anything to keep the cost down?”

She offered him a finance plan: a credit card that would be mailed to him. He could look up the APR himself. There seemed to be a card for everything these days—the dentist, the vet, the grocery stores, the box stores. Recently the dealership had gotten into the business, but a guilt gnawed at her trying to sell it.

“Let me see if I can find a coupon.”

No. 073

Envelope

Pride had been standing in his way for too long. Spencer grabbed a pen and began to draft a letter to his father. When he left for L.A., he had received encouragement and nothing else. His masculine nature allowed him the confidence in independence to leave for a new city where he knew no one, and a new career without anybody to lift him. His father hoped the boy would learn this hubris and come to understand his place in the world was apprenticing with his father, taking the business deep into the 21st century. Spencer detailed the terms for a proposed loan, enough to get him through these difficult months. Finishing it, folding it, fitting it into an envelope, he stared at the blank space, forgetting the address to put on the front.

No. 062