Michael would need to. Unlike Michael, the bank was no so open minded when it came to guarantees.
Michael sat opposite the banker, who was dressed in a brown suit with slicked back hair, a drab office of steel filing cabinets and dark wooden fittings. "I'm sorry, we can't accept this."
"Why?"
"The guarantor does not meet our lending criteria."
"Her company is worth several million dollars, what exactly is the problem?"
The man mumbled something about "'Her' company."
"Oh, I see. I didn't think we lived in Happy Days anymore."
A totally underrated TV sitcom about the 1950s, that included the talents of a brilliant character, Richie. And some others, who remembers their names…
"We don't live in Happy Days sir, I can't shout, 'heyyyy', and expect the Fontz to just, show up."
Barry Zuckerkorn stuck his head in around the door. "Do you have a moment? I have some contracts that need to be pushed out."
"I'm sure we have til the end of the day." The banker brushed off.
"No, pushed out physically, they're stuck in the shredder." Barry pointed and mumbled.
"Just, ah, I'm with a client."
"Oh right." He nodded at Michael. "Hey, aren't you George Bluth's son?"
Michael nodded, maintaining a glib smile.
"Heyyyy." Barry winked at him, then left them to it.
The stern bank manager returned to Michael. "Sorry, our lending policies are as they are."
"Can you be more specific?"
The man gazed up, eying an 'equal opportunity in the workplace' poster, and the totality of female employees- being the typing pool, huddled in a small ground around the water cooler. "No, I cannot."
Michael returned, intending to deliver news.
He shut the door behind him, catching sight of Maeby stretched out on his couch, dress having travelled up her thighs, the majority of her legs exposed.
"Heyyy." He averted his eyes, trying to not commit the view to memory.
"Oh, hi. Sorry, I had just been reading through some of the last folders. How'd it go?" she spread her skirt over her legs.
"We've got a problem. They won't accept it as she's a woman."
"Well…how did she get around that when she got the loan?"
"She slapped her brother's name on it."
"Okay."
"What are we going to do?" Michael sighed, crestfallen.
Michael had hope beaten out of him, and back into him, and out of him, within the space of two weeks. Being deflated and reflated like a jumping castle made Michael feel like one. Maeby wasn't expecting to be asked for advice, let alone advice in a crisis.
"You're asking me?"
"Yes."
"Slap her brother's name on it."
"No, but that would be…fraud." Michael uncurled into the leather chair.
"You don't think refusing to honour her guarantee because she's a woman is cheating her?"
"Well…I guess."
"We re-submit to another branch which hasn't had access to the first application, saying that the first were happy given there were tight deadlines for another branch to process it. So the jerk who you saw doesn't know, they think a man's backing us. I mean, 'heyyy'?"
Michael pursed his lips. "I don't know."
"You have to trust me." She leaned over his desk. "Do you trust me?" she gazed deep into his eyes.
"Okay." He gulped.
He didn't see too many other options. Of course, he could have called on the Bluths' other traditional financers, being Uncle Jack- who wasn't really an uncle, and whose gymnasiums were only just beginning to pick up steam in the 'lets get physical' 70s – or go begging to his father to sort something out. And it wouldn't be necessary anyway.
In the cream office of light brown-finish wood furniture, the bright eyed banker smiled ruefully, "Okay, well that all seems to be in order."
"So you'll um…grant it?"
"Yes. Why wouldn't we? It's not like we'd need to check up on the owner as of 1970 of Austerity."
Michael gulped again, nodding.
It wouldn't be for over a week until something else happened; despite her poor arithmetic, Maeby noticed money dripping into a shadowy account on the books, for an 'N Bluth'.
She stood in front of his desk, holding a wad of paper. "It's been collecting money for well over a year."
"I don't think we can draw any conclusions on that, why would they steal from the company?" Michael shrugged.
Maeby narrowed her eyes in scepticism.
Michael confronted his family about it.
Lucille gestured to the Hispanic delivery men, four holding a very heavy looking hot tub. "Put it out on the patio."
Michael, walking in on the scene, watched with interest. "Wait, mom, where did you get the money for that?"
"Oh, just a little bit set aside. Scrimping and saving." Her eyes fixed in no particular direction.
"Right." And then he noticed Busters' new hook. "And how Buster he get that…thing?"
"He won second prize in a beauty pageant." George Senior twiddled the joystick, a big stack of cartridges sitting next to the machine.
"And all of those." Michael pointed next to the Atari.
"N Bluth card?" Buster mouthed to Lucille, who turned her head and ignored him.
"Wait…that account? Are you spending company money?" Michael gasped.
"No…It's family money." George Senior mumbled.
"I can't believe it." He stormed out, almost running down Maeby as she walked up the dark hallway. "Maeby!" He clasped his hands on both her bare forearms.
Her eyes barely caught them gripping her before she drew back to his exasperated face.
"They were using the N Bluth account to steal from the company." He hissed. "You were right."
The entire interaction took maybe only a few moments, but in that time, the change was huge. The naïve Michael had been shaken, trust in what he'd wholly believed was his central purpose, to rebuild a crumbling company to stoke the family's name, irreparably damaged. Michael's deep disappointment had dashed the last flicker of hope, like the dampening of the only candle a child with nothing had on Christmas. And before him stood a hardy yet undeniably beautiful flower with dark mysterious eyes, one who he'd never really known, but who the back parts of him cried out for familiarity, a tiny light at the back of a now darkened mind. For her part, the brief closeness with the older, well built man brought something out of Maeby, something she didn't want to see, a splinter of human frailty that seem to punctuate this hard woman, a softening.
"I feel like you're the only one I can trust." He added.
As their shift sunk into them, the continuum continued unabated down the hall, his mother calling his name breaking the embrace.
She asked them as they entered the large room, "Are you going to join us in the hot tub?"
"Sure, sounds…good." Michael nodded slowly, her deceit of several minutes ago having slipped his mind completely.
Michael approached the big beast of a machine behind Lucille, a big wooden structure, square and room for three abrest, spotting Buster, GOB and George Senior, with George Senior leaned over the edge, twiddling the Atari remote on the nearby TV.
"You'd fit into Busters, I think Lindsay has left some behind." Lucille critiqued Maeby's arms. "Good they don't need to cover those ham hocks."
"Mom." Michael chided.
Lucille shrugged off the rebuke. "I can't help what's there."
Michael to the tub with his family, but his focus was elsewhere.
Maeby returned to the tub, her arms crossed over her bosom.
"See, I said she did." Lucille pointed at Maeby's arms.
"You know, in magic school, they saw this same problem. I think it's because she's not standing straight. And arms back." GOB suggested.
She revealed a triangular bikini top made for a less endowed woman.
Michael diverted his eyes from display, as she poured out of the bikini. He straightened himself, back against the wall of the hot tub, trying to enact GOB's advice. "She's not fat." He stretched backwards over the edge of the tub.
Maeby climbed in beside GOB. Her eyes brushed over the man that had clutched her arms earlier, and was temporarily distracted by his naked torso, feeling the imprint of his hands into her forearms again. She gulped, and plastered on a fake smile and focused on Lucille's cocktail glass which perched on the edge of the tub.
"Michael, see the photo of me and Tony Wonder." GOB bragged, hanging it out in front of him.
Michael leaned forward, catching sight of Maeby, the triangles of fabric stretched over her floating breasts. He gulped and focused all his energy on the photo. "Mm, it's a very good look."
"Are you joking? I look terrible." GOB shot him down, "No, we both look terrible." Grinned GOB. "We both look hot, that's our thing, and here, nobody looks hot. That's the joke?"
"Oh yeah, hah, yeah, it's exactly what I can see right now." Michael nodded, and gulped.
The awkwardness of the situation bubbling under the surface refused to permeate the situation. But what lead to this growing tension was more interesting than a dip in the hot tub.
