I gave Harvey a faint, scornful smile.
"Go ahead. I'd love to see just how good you are at holding on to your clients."
When I walked through the door, my mother was home.
Seeing me back so early, she pressed me, puzzled.
I didn't answer. I only said one thing.
"I pulled all two hundred million out of Southeast Bank."
She exchanged a glance with my father in the kitchen, and neither of them asked a single question.
I took after my father, born with a distaste for work.
I didn't even want to take over the family company. I only wanted to drift through easy, unhurried days.
They let me have my way, and gave me two hundred million.
I couldn't spend it all, and when my old classmate Frances Fox hit a wall in her career, I simply parked the money in her bank.
At the time she thumped her chest and swore up and down.
As long as her bank could be revived, she'd give me the absolute best service there was.
All my life, what kind of service hadn't I enjoyed?
The things she promised meant nothing to me.
Then she heard I was bored out of my mind every day, and she kept a seat open for me at the bank.
She practically begged me to come in, said it'd be a way to kill time.
But she'd gotten cocky now.
She'd started to lose all sense of where she stood.
In that case, I had no choice but to remind her.
Before the next day had even arrived, Southeast Bank was struck as if by a bolt from a clear sky.
The depositors decided the bank had no money and began demanding their savings back.
Harvey had just started the job and was desperate to make a good impression in front of the president, so he showed up at the door red-faced and frantic, lugging an armful of gifts.
After the steward opened the door, he turned a fawning smile on my mother, who was on the sofa watching the stock market.
"Ms. Head! You're our bank's biggest client, and seeing you today, your presence is truly stunning!"
"This is some red wine and bird's nest tonic I brought for you and your husband. Please accept it."
My mother had spent years dominating the business world, and there was nothing she despised more than this kind of flattery.
She stayed icy and said nothing.
Harvey's hand hung in midair, then dropped back down, awkward.
"Here's the thing, Ms. Head. I noticed you've had two hundred million on deposit ever since our bank opened. Why did you suddenly pull all of it out today?"
"You'll be losing quite a bit of interest this way!"
Displeased, my mother flipped her phone face-down, and the moment she opened her mouth she left Harvey deflated.
"You're wasting my time over a little interest like that?"
My mother's presence was overwhelming. Harvey turned pale with fright and instantly went to stammering.
"Ms. Head... I didn't mean... "
"I know your time is precious, you probably... no, you definitely think this is small change beneath you, but our bank's business... "
The crease between my mother's brows dug deeper and deeper. Her patience was utterly spent.
She tossed the phone aside and took a sip of tea.
"Russell, see him out!"
Harvey clutched at Butler Russell's hand, refusing to give up, still working his lips.
Except now he was grasping for anything to say, and what came out had practically zero tact.
"Ms. Head, our bank really needs this money. None of this year's projects are even finished yet!"
"You don't care about this kind of money anyway, so just leave it in our bank!"
Butler Russell understood my mother's temper best of all.
She wasn't tall, and she looked gentle and refined.
But her temper was worse than anyone's.
Butler Russell delivered a warning right into Harvey's ear: "Who do you think you are, telling Ms. Head what to do with her money? Get out of here, now. If you make Ms. Head angry, you can't possibly carry the consequences!"
He was right. My mother was already on the edge of blowing up.
She hadn't asked me anything, but she knew I'd kept the money in Frances Fox's bank out of friendship.
She also knew I'd always valued loyalty above all.
For me to suddenly pull the money out, they must have crossed my line.
That was when I came downstairs, fresh from a nap, and threw my arms around my mom in a fond hug.
I asked, half coaxing, like a kid wheedling for a treat.
“I'm starving. What did you make me for dinner tonight?”
The next second, my eyes met Harvey's, and he looked an absolute mess.
