The days after Doyle’s visit moved fast, the way trouble often does once it gets a foothold. The bank called again on Monday. Same story as before. Vague and polite and impossible to argue with. A routine review of the credit line. Nothing personal. Clare knew better than to believe that. Word of the bank trouble reached the shop floor faster than she would have liked. Small towns don’t keep secrets well, and a factory is smaller than most towns.
Ruth Callahan cornered her near the time clock two mornings later, arms crossed, voice low enough that only Clare could hear it. “We hearing rumors or should we be worried?” Ruth asked. “Rumors mostly,” Clare said, hoping it sounded more certain than she felt. Ruth gave her a long appraising look, the kind a woman gives after thirty years of reading faces on a factory floor. “You tell us the truth when it’s time to tell us,” she said. “Whatever it is, we’ve weathered worse than one greedy man in a suit.”
“I appreciate that, Ruth.” “Wasn’t a compliment,” Ruth said almost smiling. “It’s just a fact. This floor’s outlasted three recessions and a flood. It’ll outlast Marcus Doyle, too.” “You sound awfully sure of that,” Clare said. “I’ve buried better men than Marcus Doyle,” Ruth said, not joking at all now. “This town has a way of outlasting people who think they own it. Always has, long before either of us were born, and it’ll keep doing it long after.”
Harold Whitaker fell into step beside Clare as she headed back toward her office, holding his coffee with both hands the way he always did in the colder months. “Heard about the trouble,” he said. “Bank stuff. Newspaper nonsense hasn’t started yet, but give it time.” “News travels fast around here,” Clare said. “Always has,” Harold agreed. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t forgotten what Walter did for me a few days back. If there’s ever anything an old lathe operator can testify to or sign or stand up and say out loud, you let me know.”
“I’ll remember that, Harold.” “See that you do,” he said, patting her shoulder once before heading back to his station. Clare watched him go, feeling steadier than she had all morning. Whatever else was coming, she was starting to understand she wasn’t facing it with just one unlikely ally. She was facing it with an entire floor full of people who remembered exactly who had stood up for them and when.
She brought the bank problem to Craig Mercer, her chief financial officer, the same way she brought every hard number to him for the last four years. Craig was steady, careful, good with a spreadsheet in a way Clare had never learned to be. He had come to Whitfield Precision not long after her father passed, and Clare had leaned on him more than she probably should have admitted out loud. “We can shift some receivables,” Craig said, studying the numbers on his screen. “Buy ourselves thirty days, maybe forty-five.”