You Don't Love This Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

were damp spots on the front of her navy blue company-issued polo shirt, and balled-up tissue lay next to her on the sofa. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said, fighting the return of tears.
    â€œDon’t be,” I said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
    â€œNo,” she said, shaking her head miserably. “I screwed up. My safe wasn’t locked. My straps shouldn’t have been out, and I didn’t hit the button. I didn’t even look at the guy who did it. A guy robbed me, but I have no idea what he looked like, so now I can’t even help the police.”
    Amber was an undergraduate pursuing a degree in psychology, and was the best natural cash handler I had ever employed. I assume she was aware of this talent, because she began painting her nails bright red not long after starting as a teller. We had a number of male customers who came into the branch even for simple transactions, apparently hoping to stand before Amber and her mane of blond corkscrew curls as she counted out their cash. I had heard odd denomination requests from these men, too—they asked for sixty dollars in fives, or twenty in ones, or anything, I suspected, that might increase the number of bills and thereby the glamour, cousin perhaps to the allures of Vegas, in Amber’s fanning of the things across the counter. Once I even heard a customer, after Amber was done counting out his cash, say, “Can I touch the money now?”
    I sat on the front edge of my desk. “Do you think you shouldhave refused to give the guy the straps of hundreds from your safe?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “But they shouldn’t have been out.”
    â€œIf your safe had been locked and he had asked you to open it and give him everything in it, should you have refused?”
    â€œNo. You’re not supposed to get in a conversation with them.”
    â€œWhen he passed the note across the counter, should you have passed it back and told him he wasn’t allowed to rob you, but you wouldn’t be able to explain why, because you’re not supposed to get in a conversation with him?”
    â€œAre you making a joke?” she said angrily.
    â€œNo,” I said. “I’m just reminding you that a teller’s job is to give a robber whatever he wants so that he leaves the bank as quickly as possible. And it sounds like your guy couldn’t have been here much more than a minute.”
    â€œBut he got a lot.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’m not supposed to have more than two thousand out.”
    â€œThe bank doesn’t care about six thousand dollars,” I said. “The bank spills more than six thousand dollars in the streets every day.”
    She looked suspiciously at me. “That’s not really true,” she said. “But fine. I still think I’m just going to try and forget the whole thing. I’m going to pretend it never happened.”
    â€œDo you think you can do that?” I asked, surprised.
    â€œRepression can be a useful coping mechanism,” she said, warming to a topic in her area of study. “I’ll have to tell my mom, though. I won’t be able to keep it from her.”
    â€œWon’t she tell other people?”
    â€œYeah,” she said, annoyed. “She’ll probably tell my sisters rightaway, because my mom thinks everyone needs to know everything about everybody else. And I’m going out with my three best friends tonight, and I’ll probably want to tell them, I guess.”
    â€œAnd the problem with talking about it in public is that other people might hear it, too,” I said.
    â€œDo I have to keep it a secret?” she said, alarmed. “It’s not like some security deal or something, is it?”
    â€œI just mean if you’re trying to repress it.”
    â€œOh, right,” she said. “I have the order backwards. People repress first, then acknowledge later. I would