Mis En Place

Fiction: A Loan for a Special Purpose

“Never expected that,” she said.

We were walking our dogs, up the long paved path that ascended the hill. I nodded. She was not the sort to say she did not know something. She once argued with a dog groomer for ten minutes that her pup was hypo-allergenic while the man attempted to placate her without lying to her.

So I nodded, but my eyebrows rose a bit. She did not see it.

She brushed some dirt from her tweed skirt.

“You never expected…?” I was not like her dog-groomer, trying to placate her. It was her voice I was seeking. Like her skirt-fabric it was coarse-woven, fibres going each which way. Brown notes gave it structure, but sometimes you could hear a few minor notes echoing from her mountains.

She glanced at me. Her eyes were the most particular blue, as if they had been carved from gemstones. Maybe Scandinavian, though her shining dark skin would suggest not.

“I never expected to get such advice from a bank officer,” she said. “I went in to talk about extending my credit line. Thought it wise…”

Well she might, it seemed to me. She was born to do business. She always found a buyer for her works, people who were fascinated and honored to have them. She was an artist, with rough wood-carver’s hands. But she was as well a wise investor who turned her artwork into real estate, that she had rehabilitated and then decorated with her own carvings to make them even more valuable. Perhaps it was a sculpted doorpost, or a snake-banister. Never the same accent twice. Her credit line let her speculate a little, and kept her in English country clothes.

“Such a boring man, he seemed to me. He talked a little about my credit history, and asked what I wanted to do with the extension. I said, ‘It lets me make choices, take opportunities.’”

We were near the summit now. You know the curly rock where people go to make wishes? It was almost there, and the dogs became respectful as though they believed the stories people tell. The two dogs walked side-by-side as if they had been friends for many years.

“‘Oh,’ said the no-longer-boring man. It seemed suddenly as if he had other work, other doings than sitting under corporate art in an old bank, ‘It is so smart to do that. If you have things ready, all lined up, you can make a great meal. Mis en Place is what the French call it. I have seen your carvings. They are wonderful. Yes. We would be honored to help you claim opportunities.’ He pushed documents to me, papers I did not know he had prepared.”

She shook her head, smiled that rare smile that is so worth waiting for. We had crested the hill. We could see the far distance, woods and farms.

“How was he to know I was borrowing money for a wedding?” I found she had taken my hand.

“You will marry me, won’t you?”