The Loan Folder Came Out Before Sunday Dinner Was Served
Part 2 · 3 min read ·
Mireille read the letter at our kitchen table while I washed chalk from my hands.
"She did this in front of customers?"
"The speech came first. The letter came after."
She set it down flat. Mireille always straightened paper when she was trying not to shake.
"I told her to pay you on the due date. She said you had agreed to wait."
"I didn't."
My wife stared at the empty chair across from her.
I took the gray folder from our fire box. She knew about the loan. She had sat with me when I chose how much of my savings I could risk.
The money came from years of theater contracts and the sale of my small workroom in Indianapolis before we moved north. It was meant for a new shop, with a cutting table I could walk around on every side.
Instead, $48,000 had gone by wire to Hemlight Costume House LLC.
"I thought saving the stock would save our jobs," I said.
"It did," Mireille said. "She had nearly a year to do her part."
On Saturday, we met with Ruth Vann, the lawyer who had drawn up the loan. Her office smelled of coffee and damp wool coats.
Ruth put three papers in a row.
"The note," she said. "The security agreement. The filing receipt."
Colette had signed as the company's manager. The loan charged no interest and came due in one payment on September 30. The security agreement covered the company's costume inventory and money from its sale.
Schedule A listed the racks, bins, and storage rooms. I had helped count all 1,140 costumes before the wire went through.
The agreement let the company make normal rentals. It allowed sales of worn pieces worth less than $500. A bulk sale required my written consent.
I had never given it.
Ruth tapped the state receipt. She had filed a UCC financing statement under the company's full legal name after checking for earlier inventory liens.
"This gave public notice of your claim," she said. "It didn't make you the owner. You can't just carry the coats away."
"I want repayment."
"Then we start there."
She sent a demand to the company and its lawyer, with copies by certified mail. Under our agreement, the company had five business days to cure the missed payment. That deadline fell at five on Monday, before the planned Tuesday pickup.
She also demanded that the inventory be preserved and offered an inspection time.
"Does this make her open the books?" Mireille asked.
"Not by magic. We can request the records tied to the debt and inventory. If we file suit and she withholds them, we can ask the court to order production."
I liked that answer. It had edges I could see.
Sunday dinner was still on the calendar. Colette had sent a message saying there would be no business talk.
We went anyway, with the folder.
Ansel opened the door. He had brought bread from a bakery near his apartment. He kept turning the bag's folded top between his fingers.
Colette served rice and beans into four bowls.
"Food first," she said.
"The company owes Joachim $48,000," Mireille said. "We're talking first."
Colette's spoon struck the pot.
"That was family help."
I opened the folder to the note.
"This says loan."
"I signed a stack of things while my business was drowning."
"Ruth sent you a draft three days before we met," I said. "Your lawyer sent back changes. We accepted them."
Ansel sat down without taking off his coat.
"You told me it was an emergency grant," he said.
"I spared you worry."
"You told the staff I begged to work there," I said. "You knew I had paid for the shipment."
She waved at my folder.
"You were happy to have a place."
"I was happy to have work."
For a moment all I heard was a car passing through water outside.
Mireille pushed her bowl away.
"Ansel and I each own twenty percent. We need the statements."
Their father had left them those shares. Colette held sixty percent and the manager's seat. Since his death, she had sent them a single page each year marked No Distribution.
"You want to count your mother's groceries now?" she asked.
Ansel opened his mouth. Then he reached for the bread.
I closed my folder.
"Monday at five," I said. "Ruth's letter gives you the ways to pay."
Colette stood and brought an envelope from her purse.
"The dealer already paid a deposit. Your little filing won't scare him."
She slid the sale agreement across the table.
On its last page, above her signature, she had promised that all 1,140 costumes were free of any lender's claim.