What happens in the insurance office?

Wait and see (and help and talk)

The stamina boost from Steel-Driving Man keeps you from getting tired as quickly, but it doesn’t make you faster, and by the time you arrive at the office building for your 11:45 appointment, it’s already 11:44. But at least you’re not panting and wheezing and aching.

(Plus, okay, being able to run like that was kind of fun.)

What with picking your way through a crowd, and waiting for the elevator, and riding to the eighth floor, by the time you reach the insurance agent’s office it’s... shit, 11:50.

It occurs to you that someone who shows up late for an appointment, panting and wheezing, gives a different impression than if that same person is breathing normally, but you’d feel weird putting on an act. And you’re not that late, really, are you? Not so much that your insurance agent will care, right?

You open the door and walk in. It’s a standard waiting room: a few very austere chairs, a potted plant, a reception desk. The receptionist looks up at you; she’s black, and busty, with really ornate braids.

“Can I help you?” she says with a polite professional smile.

“I’m Jacob Carter, I have an appointment with Ms. Santiago at 11:45, I’m really sorry I’m late.”

She nods, then tilts her head in the direction of the inner office, whose door is closed. “That’s all right – the previous client is running long. Would you like to take a seat?”

“Sure,” you say, and you sit down. “Your hair is incredible, by the way.”

“Oh!” she says, and it’s amazing to see the difference between what her smile looked like thirty seconds ago, and what it looks like now. “Thank you!” She touches her hair self-consciously. “It was a birthday present.”

You feel a buzz from your phone.

“Oh, well, happy birthday, then!”

“A week ago.”

“Well... happy week-after-your-birthday?”

She snickers. “And happy however-long-it’s-been-after-your-birthday to you too. Really, I’ve gotten braided before, so the real present was the live entertainment that went with it.”

“The…?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

She gets up from the reception desk and sits down in the chair next to you, then pulls out her phone and shows you a video.

On the screen, she’s getting her hair braided by someone mostly off-camera as two small children excitedly sing to her – or do their best, anyway. They manage “Happy Birthday Aunt Belinda,” and the alphabet (the younger child finds the existence of the letter ‘P’ hilarious), and have just gotten started on an unseasonal “Jingle Bells” when she pauses the video.

“I’m not going to subject you to the full thirty-five minutes,” the receptionist – Belinda – says with a grin.

You chuckle. “Not sure what’s more amazing – the hair, or the kids being able to stay on task for that long.”

“Ha! Well, Florence only lasted ten minutes, but she’s not even four yet, so that’s still pretty good. Agatha basically went into hyperfocus, although by the end she was repeating herself.”

You start to lean forward, squinting, then catch yourself. “Could I – …?”

“Oh! Sure, take a good look!”

Belinda holds very still while you examine her braids from a few inches away. You’ve never looked at anyone’s hair this closely before, but… wow. Also, she smells really, really nice, and you can hear her breathing and see the fluttering of her pulse in her neck.

“This is really impressive. And it only took thirty-five minutes?!”

“No, the singing was thirty-five minutes. The braiding took Jorge three and a half hours. Which is still amazing, though – my mom estimated it’d take her six.”

“I don’t have any experience in judging… hair art, I guess, but… this is really, really good. How much did it cost?”

“Mom made a blueberry-tequila cheesecake for Jorge and his boyfriend.”

“Are there any favors I can do for your mom?” you ask.

She laughs, and you grin. “Also, how many beads are there? I keep losing count.”

“A hundred and fifty. Oh, and you see this?”, and she takes one of the braids in her left hand and shows you a large purple bead. “Hand-painted. Agatha was so excited when she found out I was turning twenty-three, because two and three make five, so she made me twenty-three braid beads. They’re purple, because one time I said I liked purple. I figure after I get the braids out, I’ll upcycle the beads into a necklace or bracelet or something, wear it whenever I visit.”

“Oh,” you say.

“Hm? Something wrong?”

You shake your head. “No, I just – I never thought about braids being temporary. How long do you keep them?”

She nods in understanding. “Yeah, my personal max is two, two and a half weeks. For one thing, they make showering trickier. Shower caps and everything… when I’m all hot and sweaty, I like being able to just strip nude and –”

She stops abruptly: throughout your entire conversation with her, there’s been some noise coming from the inner office, muffled but getting steadily louder. Now it’s obvious that someone is yelling. And screaming.

There’s a THUMP from inside the office, then silence.

You and Belinda stare at each other. Was that the sound of someone being hit? Falling to the floor?

“I’ll just go see what that was,” you say, and she nods worriedly.

Before you can reach the inner door, though, its knob twists and the door swings open in a way that makes it clear that someone wanted to shove the door open hard, but it’s got one of those pneumatic anti-slam slow-open things installed. A very angry man storms out as soon as it’s open wide enough, and tries to shove the outer door open, but it has the pneumatic thing installed too. Once it’s open, he stomps out into the hall without even acknowledging you and Belinda, grabs the doorknob, tries to slam the door, and is again defeated by… however the anti-slam thing works. Then he yells “FUCK!” and storms off.

For a second, you consider whether you should try to memorize what the angry man looked like, in case you need to describe him to the police, but then realize that if he was talking to Ms. Santiago about his insurance, then presumably she already has his full name and address.

You catch the door to the inner office just before it clicks shut, and push it open.

“Hello? Ms. Santiago? Are you okay?”

Belinda hurries over and peers around your shoulder. “Maggie?” she says.

Inside the office, the visitor’s chair is lying on its side, and papers are scattered all over the floor; a lot of them look ripped in half and crumpled. Ms. Santiago is sitting behind her desk, staring into space and blinking slowly. She looks dazed. Her eyebrow piercing gleams.

“Ms. Santiago?” You walk into her office, taking care not to step on any of the papers, then pick up the visitor’s chair and set it upright. “Do you need help? Do you need us to get a doctor?”

Her head turns in your direction. She gazes at you, then takes a big shuddering breath. “No,” she says very quietly. “Thank you, no, I don’t need a doctor. Thank you for putting the chair back.” You feel a buzz from your phone.

“What the hell was that all about?” you ask.

“That gentleman wanted something we are not legally able to provide,” she says, still quietly. “Which apparently means I’m a stupid fucking cunt.”

You bite back the impulse to reassure her that she is not, in fact, a stupid fucking cunt. Even you know better than that.

“Did he hit you!” Belinda demands angrily, and rushes to Ms. Santiago’s side to examine her for signs of injury.

“No. He never touched me. I don’t think we even have grounds to cancel his policy.”

Belinda grumbles at that, then gets down on her hands and knees to start picking up the pieces of paper. “Let me help with that,” you say, and get down on your hands and knees too.

“Uh, sir, thank you for offering,” Ms. Santiago says, “but a lot of those are confidential.”

“I’ll close my eyes?” you suggest.

She blinks, and the corner of her mouth twitches upward. “Okay,” she says.

Crawling around on the office floor with your eyes closed is less efficient than doing it with your eyes open – especially since you bonk headfirst into not only the desk, but also Belinda’s ass – but working together, the three of you manage to collect all the pages reasonably quickly.

Also, you’re pretty sure you heard Ms. Santiago giggle when you ‘headbutted’ Belinda.

Eventually, Ms. Santiago – speaking in a more normal tone of voice – says “okay, I think that’s everything,” so you open your eyes, get to your feet, and sit in the visitor’s chair. To your left, Belinda is holding a cardboard box full of the paper you three just rescued; when she notices you looking at her, she pats her own ass a few times and winks at you.

“Get started on reassembling those,” Ms. Santiago tells Belinda. “If you can’t get them finished by close of business, I’ll give you overtime.”

She turns to you. “You’re my 11:45, I assume?”

You nod.

“Okay. First – thank you so much for helping. I’m supposed to be the one who’s helping you, but –”

You wave that off. “Altruism makes things go easier for everyone, right?”

She smiles faintly at that, and you feel a buzz from your phone. “Yeah, it does. Second,” and now she looks apologetic, “do you have any ID?”

“I do,” you tell her, and show her all the ID you showed Sigrid earlier, plus the power bill you salvaged from your mailbox.

“Thank you, Mr. Carter,” she says.

“Please, call me Jacob,” you tell her.

She smiles. “Only if you call me Maggie.”

Then you feel a different buzz. “Could you hold on a minute?” you say. “I was going to have lunch with my manager and talk about time off – I just need to –”

“Go ahead,” Maggie says.

FROM: Penelope J

Hi Jacob!!! Where would you like to meet for lunch?
How about the food court across the street from the office!

FROM: Jacob C

Hi Penelope.
My appointment with the insurance company is taking a little longer than I expected. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.
And yes, the food court sounds great.

FROM: Penelope J

Okay! See you then!

“Everything good?” Maggie asks.

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“They’re a good manager, I hope?”

“Well… technically, I don’t know yet – she only got promoted yesterday.”

“Sounds like she had a much better day than you did, then,” Maggie says, and then turns red and claps her hand over her mouth.

You sigh. “It’s fine,” you tell her. “You’re right – she did.”

“I am so sorry,” Maggie says.

You hold up both hands in front of you, palms up. “It’s okay,” you say. “You weren’t trying to be mean. I forgive you.”

“You need a sense of humor in this job,” Maggie explains. “Otherwise it’ll snap you like a twig. Or crush you like a bug, whichever. But you also need to keep it under control, which I usually can. Not… not tell jokes.”

“Seriously,” you tell her, “it’s okay. Besides, it wasn’t even really a joke, was it? More of a… an observation?”

“I guess,” she says, and you would have missed it if you weren’t looking right at her face just then, but for a fraction of a second she actually looks disappointed.

“Anyway,” she says, “you did have a very bad day yesterday, which is why you’re here, so let’s talk about that. This was the fire on Anglesey Street just off Preston, yeah?”

“Yeah. Could I ask what’s wrong, though?”

She blinks. “Uh?”

“When I said it was an observation, you looked… I dunno, sad?”

“...oh.”

She looks up at the ceiling for a moment. “Being in insurance isn’t really the sort of job you dream about having when you’re a kid, you know?”

You shrug. “I guess not. What did you want to be when you grew up?”

She sighs. “I seriously, honestly, wanted to be a stand-up comedian. So when you tell me I’m not funny…”

That’s not quite what you said, actually, but you let it go. “Ah.”

“When I was in university,” she continues, “I actually went to an open mic night – I wrote a full ten-minute set, and practiced it and practiced it and practiced it, and…”

“And they didn’t like it?”

She shakes her head. “No, I got stage fright. Went out there, grabbed the mic, looked at everyone, said ‘I’m sorry,’ and left. Christ, it’s been twelve years and I still remember every line of that thing. Thank you, everyone, I’m Magdalen Santiago, goodnight!”

“Hm,” you say. “On the one hand, I feel like I should say that you would’ve been great, but on the other hand, doesn’t that make it worse?”

Her eyes widen, and you feel your phone buzz. “Yes!” she says. “You get it! Nobody gets that! My parents, I love them, but they keep telling me how they’re sure I could’ve been on TV or whatever! Yes, thank you, I appreciate your faith in me, but you’re just reminding me that I was a chickenshit!”

“Stage fright sucks,” you say sympathetically.

“You too?”

“Sophomore year in high school, the drama club was doing Our Town. I memorized the entire script and froze up at the audition. Ended up on the technical team. Junior year they were doing Twelve Angry Men, same thing happened. Senior year, I didn’t bother.” Something occurs to you, and you tilt your head. “Actually, that’s probably connected to why I’m not great at giving presentations at work. Which… is probably one of the reasons Penelope got the promotion instead of me.”

Maggie bites her lip. “I feel bad for thinking this way,” she says, “but part of me is a little disappointed you didn’t give me that detail earlier, because then the ‘much better day’ line would’ve hit harder.” You can’t help but snicker.

“Anyway,” she says, “I’m getting hungry, and Penelope probably is too, so let’s get this over with and then we can all go for lunch. Do we know what caused the fire?”

“One of my neighbors said another neighbor fell asleep smoking, but I don’t know if that’s the fire department’s official reason or whatever.”

Maggie nods. For the next fifteen minutes, the two of you go over the details of your policy. You show her photos of what’s left of your apartment, and of the ruins of your various belongings, and she explains about payment schedules and depreciation and several other terms which go right past you; you make a note of them on your phone to look up later.

“Okay,” you eventually say. “So I can start replacing things today?”

“Uh huh,” Maggie says. “Try not to go crazy in terms of upgrades, but as long as your new stuff is basically equivalent to your old stuff, it should be fine with head office. And keep all your receipts.”

“I guess that’s everything,” you tell her. “I’ll let you know if I need anything else, thanks.”

You get up, and she follows you to the door of her office.

“Thank you, Maggie,” you say. “It was good to meet you.” You reach out to shake her hand, and instead she hugs you. Your phone buzzes.

“Thank you so much, Jacob,” she says, and then lets you go.

In the waiting room, Belinda is sitting at the reception desk, fussing with the pieces of confidential documents. “Nice to meet you,” you tell her as you reach for the door handle.

“Oh!” she says, and gets up from her desk and hurries over to you. “Thank you for helping,” she tells you. Really, it shouldn’t surprise you when she hugs you, not after the way things have been going today, but you’re a little startled even so.

Then she lets you go.

As you walk down the hall to the elevator, you check the route planner app on your phone, and then text Penelope as you ride down to the ground floor.

From: Jacob C

Leaving insurance office now. Should be there in 25 minutes.
Hungry.

From: Penelope J

I’m hungry too! See you soon!!!

You run for the bus stop and get there just in time. Once you’re on board, you settle into a seat… and realize that you don’t need to recover from panting and wheezing. Thank you, Steel-Driving Man.

You relax, pull out your phone, and call up the app. You’re curious to see how the app categorizes Maggie and Belinda, since they’re neither your Superiors, Coworkers, or Family… and although you’re confident that they like you a lot now, you don’t think they should be categorized as Friends. Clearly the app’s makers agree, as there is now a Professionals option. You open it and see, as expected, profiles for Belinda and Maggie. Both profile pictures show them having lunch in what looks like a break room.

Name: Belinda Harmony Nkansah

Personal information -

Age: 23
Gender: Female
Marriage status: Single
Children: 0

Physical information -

Height: 5’6”
Weight: 172
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Bust: 38 DD
Waist: 28
Hips: 38
Sexual experience +

Name: Magdalen Juniper Santiago

Personal information -

Age: 33
Gender: Female
Marriage status: Single
Children: 0

Physical information -

Height: 5’ 7 1/2”
Weight: 170
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Auburn
Bust: 38 D
Waist: 24
Hips: 34
Sexual experience +

You decide to not look at their sexual details just now. You’re more interested in seeing what kind of results you got here, since you didn’t spend anywhere near as much time as with Sigrid and Eleanor, and the interaction wasn’t as involved.

Belinda Nkansah: “Your hair is incredible”. +4 (4)
Belinda Nkansah: Likes being told ‘happy birthday’, even if it’s late. +1 (5)
Belinda Nkansah: Is amused by the ‘week after’ thing. +1 (6)
Belinda Nkansah: Is pleased you were willing to watch even a small part of that adorable video with her. +4 (10)
Belinda Nkansah: You asked first. +1 (11)
Belinda Nkansah: Is unsure whether you’re genuinely interested in the braids, or just flirting. -1 (10)
Belinda Nkansah: Likes you enough that she’s decided it doesn’t matter. +3 (13)
Belinda Nkansah: Having you this close is actually pretty hot! +8 Lust (13/0/8)
Belinda Nkansah: Is impressed that you really are interested in the braids. +3/0/0 (16/0/8)
Belinda Nkansah: Likes that you’re funny. +3/0/0 (19/0/8)
Belinda Nkansah: Appreciates being able to tell someone about the beads. +1/0/0 (20/0/8)
Maggie Santiago: You asked if she needed help. You asked if she needed a doctor. +5 (5)
Maggie Santiago: You picked up the chair. +1 (6)
Belinda Nkansah: You got down on your hands and knees and started helping her, entirely of your own initiative. +3/0/0 (23/0/8)
Maggie Santiago: You offered to help salvage the documents. +1 (7)
Maggie Santiago: “I’ll close my eyes?”. +3 (10)
Belinda Nkansah: You made Maggie smile. +3 (26/0/8)
Belinda Nkansah: You bumped your head right into her ass while you were both crawling around on your hands and knees and she kind of liked how it felt. 0/0/+1 (26/0/9)
Maggie Santiago: You made her smile. +1 (11)
Belinda Nkansah: Enjoyed the chance to act sexy. +1/0/+2 (27/0/11)
Maggie Santiago: “Altruism makes things go easier for everyone”. +4 (15)
Maggie Santiago: Likes that you’re willing to be on a first-name basis. +1 (16)
Maggie Santiago: You forgave her for mouthing off. +5 (21)
Maggie Santiago: It’s okay if you don’t think it’s funny, but you don’t have to say it’s not funny. -1 (20)
Maggie Santiago: You asked about her feelings. +4 (24)
Maggie Santiago: You listened. You actually listened. +5 (29)
Maggie Santiago: You get it. +5 (34)
Maggie Santiago: Enjoyed hugging you. +3 (37)
Belinda Nkansah: Enjoyed hugging you. +4/0/+1 (31/0/12)