"I'm fine, thank you."
"Great. Great." He sat. He woke up his computer and glanced at the screen and then at her and then back at the screen. "So. It says here you were interested in talking about a deposit."
"That's right."
"Wonderful. Well, you've come to the right place." He laced his fingers on the desk. "Now, before we get into specifics, I always like to understand a little bit about where our customers are coming from. Is this — are you currently banking with us?"
"No."
"With someone else, then?"
"With Bayou Federal. The credit union."
"Ah." He nodded with the gentle sympathy of a doctor hearing about a home remedy. "Sure. Lot of folks start out at the credit union. Great for a checking account. A little limited, though, once you start thinking about growing your money." He tapped the pen against his lip. "And are you still working, Mrs. Arceneaux, or —"
"Retired."
"Retired from?"
"Calcasieu Parish School Board. I drove a bus."
"A bus driver!" He said it the way people said a nurse! or a soldier! — with a warm brightness that meant they were already done thinking about you. "That's important work. Really important. My kids took the bus for a while, before we moved them over to St. Louis Catholic. Those drivers are saints." He clicked something on his screen. "So — pension, then, I'm guessing? Teachers' Retirement System?"
"Some of that. Some Social Security. Some of my husband's."
"Of course. And is your husband —"
"He passed."
"I'm so sorry." He said it fast, a little speed bump of a sentence, and moved on. "Well, here's what I'm thinking. A lot of our customers in your situation — on a fixed income, maybe a small lump sum from a life insurance policy or a pension rollover, something like that — what they really want is safety. Peace of mind. Am I right?"
Odessa said nothing. She had found, over twenty-nine years, that the most useful thing to do with a person who was talking was often to let them keep talking. Children would tell you who had the vape pen if you just let the silence sit long enough. Grown men would tell you a great deal more.
Grant took her silence for agreement. He swiveled the monitor a little toward her so she could see a bright blue page with a photograph of a smiling gray-haired couple on a porch swing.
"This is our Heritage Starter Savings," he said. "It's very popular with our seniors. No minimum balance after the first ninety days. FDIC insured, of course, up to two hundred and fifty thousand, which —" he chuckled — "I don't think is going to be a concern for us here. You get a debit card, you get online access if you want it, though a lot of our older customers prefer just to come in, and that's fine, we love seeing you. And it earns interest."