“No, I meant that thing that happened yesterday.”
“Nothing happened yesterday,” I say, feeling panicked. “I can’t do this mountain girl act for another second.” I hand Carron my sack of produce and positively gallop into the café, almost pushing aside a teenager about to sit down.
“Excusez-moi,” I say.
“American,” the kid says, and rolls his eyes.
My fingers tremble as I bring up my work screen in this place that smells like wet wool and smoky coffee. First I see my email in-box containing 2,303 messages. There are alerts for every stock I follow, meaning they’ve moved at least 5 percent in price and they’ve all been downward moves. There are countless requests to be present on a company conference call held this morning; it’s already over.
I don’t even need to find the U.S. financial headlines, because those are the headlines everywhere. I learn that Bear Stearns was saved from bankruptcy by a $2-per-share offer from JPMorgan Chase, down from the $159 they traded at a year ago. They will be sold for less than the value of their worldwide office buildings. Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers stock both closed down 70 percent on the week. Both are rumored to be seeking either buyers or government intervention. Feagin Dixon has stopped trading and is rumored to be purchased by a midwestern bank. My $145-per-share stock looks to open at five dollars.
Banks all over the world are considering the implications for themselves with the inevitable tighter lending and the slowing of growth that will follow. It seems that the time I was so afraid of, that time when everyone came calling at the same time, is right now.
My chest heaves, my fingers shake, and besides the whir of an espresso machine and the clicking of keys, the world around me falls so very silent.
? ? ?
At first my sell orders have limits on them, meaning I will only sell at a certain price. But as thirty minutes of finding no buyers becomes forty-five, I’m crazed to sell at any price. Selling seems the only way to regain control. Nothing in my life is certain anymore and I need to feel something solid like cash in our account. The McElroy account loses columns of numbers with the speed of a spinning roulette wheel. I sell and sell.
My final trade is the sale of a small lot of EBS, that same stock that had rocketed upward for me so many months ago. I sold it below my purchase price despite how promising their cancer therapies appeared. I sell and sell like I’m ridding myself of toxins and washing myself clean.
? ? ?
Carron went home to make dinner for the crew. The moon rose over the picture-perfect mountains. The café fills with beautiful, athletic people who seem to have no worries. Seeing them reminds me of that time in my life, back when I was the more confident me that Carron had been speaking of.
I hope Bruce will understand what I’ve just done, that I’ve sold everything because I needed to know we still have something solid in our accounts. Then I’ll tell him we have to make us solid again too.
Hours later I walk back to my sister’s cabin on a winding road, ice and shale crunching under my feet. The stars are so bright I can’t take my eyes from them. Maybe it is the clean air or the fact I know my children are happy and safe somewhere, but an odd calm that closely shoulders the feeling of happiness comes upon me. Being fearful that a terrible thing is about to happen can be worse than when it actually happens. I like having a solid number in the bank, even though it is less than I thought it would be, and I like having three healthy kids and a semidecent husband who, while not perfect, loves their little souls as much as I do. Yes, tonight I feel hopeful.
Bruce spent the rest of the vacation broody and silent. He became the one who watched the panic in U.S. markets. When I tried to calm him by saying the government would probably backstop bad loans in some of these banks, making them easier to sell and calming investors, he would spit things at me such as:
“My United States will not throw taxpayer money to help out a bunch of rich people.”
So I stayed away from his anger by keeping quiet and avoiding the news. Bruce begged me to call into Feagin Dixon and touch base with my clients but I had nothing to say. Any news was on television and I didn’t need to call in to gossip. I was mad at a small band of men who destroyed the place with greed, bad behavior, and testosterone-fueled decisions but that bank wasn’t mine anymore. I stayed on the sidelines of a different continent and felt remarkably unafraid.