Asleep in the lounge chair, Seymour’s dream plays out, vivid and thick.
Nineteen sixty-eight. The tellers’ windows are open, nothing dividing the customer from the banker. Not like now, with the bulletproof glass and slots and holes to speak into. Seymour’s back from military service, from fighting in Vietnam. Atlantic Bank on Thirty-Eighth Street and Madison. The tellers’ windows. Friday afternoon, four-thirty. And a teller is waiting. Stavroula is waiting, seems like she’s always been waiting, always been there. He’d only had to look, to find her. She’d been waiting.
It’s the first time he sees her. She’s pretty, but pretty in an odd, disproportioned way; her eyes are too big for her face and her jaw line’s too sharp, like sheared stone. When he sees her, something long and viscous breaks and percolates a whiskey heat through him.
Check in hand—his pay for the week’s work on the construction site—he smoothes his hair, licks the tips of his moustache, then approaches her window. “Stavroula,” he says, reading her nameplate on the counter. Pronouncing her name fairly well, he smiles. “It means ‘The Cross’ in Greek.”
Her large eyes are dark, like they swallow light. She’s surprised. “Yes,” she says, “it does. How did you know?”
“I know a few things,” Seymour says. He likes this woman, her peculiar face, her voice, the way she holds herself. He likes her and can no more explain why he likes her than he can explain the workings of the sun. It is there; it offers warmth. This he understands.
She asks him if he speaks Greek. He admits he can’t. “I work with a Greek,” he tells her. “His wife’s name is Stavroula. It’s such a pretty name.” He looks at her directly, looks into her oversized eyes. “It fits you.”
Stavroula’s face blossoms. She fumbles for a pen. “How…how would you like this, Mr. Bliss?” she asks, clumsily stamping his check. “Would you like this in tens?”
“Fives,” he says, and watches her long, elegant fingers meticulously count out the bills.
After that, Seymour makes certain to always go to her window, waits an extra ten minutes just to have his transaction completed by her. She’s glad to see him, her greeting different with him than with others. As she slowly lays out his money, they talk of the upcoming weekend’s weather or a new movie coming out. He compliments her on her dress, or on how nice her hair looks. She looks away, flustered and appreciative of the attention.
He asks her out. “I’m thinking bowling, maybe, then dinner. Or the other way around.”
“I…no, I can’t,” she says, then quickly adds, “Bank rules. Tellers aren’t allowed to fraternize with clients.”
“I don’t want to fraternize you,” he says. “Just take you to dinner.”
Still, she says, she can’t. “If you weren’t a client here, if I’d met you elsewhere,” she says, “then…” Her voice trails off.
“Stavroula,” he says, then stops himself before saying anything more. He nods, then leaves without another word.
The following week, he arrives carrying a small bundle of tight budded yellow flowers. Tulips. “I can help you over here, sir,” an open teller says to Seymour. He stands in Stavroula’s line, waiting for an elderly woman to complete her transaction. She has a year’s worth of collected coins spilled out on the counter, is counting them out.
“I’ll wait,” Seymour says to the free teller.
“But I can help you here, sir,” the teller insists. “I’m open.”
“No,” he tells her, adding, “thank you.” He motions toward Stavroula, the old woman counting coins. “I’ll wait.”
When it’s finally his turn, he strides up to Stavroula and holds out the flowers. “I’m taking you to dinner, tomorrow night,” he says.
“Mr. Bliss,” she says, “I—”
“Seymour,” he tells her. “I want you to call me Seymour. And I don’t bank here anymore,” he tells her. “I closed my account. So you can go to dinner with me and it wouldn’t be fraternalizing.”
Stavroula looks confused, uncertain what to say. “I don’t know how to answer,” she says.
“Answer yes,” he says.
“It’s just—” She breaks off.
“It’s just what?”
“You can’t come to my house,” she says.
“Then meet me here, out front of the bank, six o’clock.” Without waiting for an answer, he turns. “Tomorrow,” he says, and walks out before she can answer.
Chapter 9
The Trouble with Bliss Page 9