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"Mandy seems adorable," I said as Kelly took her seat next to me.
"Thank you! I'd say she's a keeper."
"How was your day? Any shenanigans?"
My question was apparently hilarious because Kelly suddenly burst into a fit of infectious giggles.
"What did I say that was so funny?" I asked with a mock hurt tone.
"Two things," she said while trying to catch her breath. "1. What person under the age of 80 uses the word ‘shenanigans?' and 2. There were INDEED shenanigans."
"Maybe I too am cursed with an anti-aging gene," I said in a silly tone.
"Not possible, especially since you already told me you were 40, so unless you're lying to me, which I don't think you are, you're still too young to say ‘shenanigans."
"Well I'll let you in on my secret," I whispered conspiratorially. "Outside of work, most of my friends reside at the Danville Seasons Retirement Village."
"Do you have family living there?" she asked.
"I do! My dad and mom have a cottage by the golf course, and after his heart attack last year, the kids and I spend most of our weekends with them," I confessed. "The kids love all of the attention they get from the residents. Too many people our age go months without visiting their parents there, so the kids have become something of a commodity. It's quite sweet how much the residents have become a part of our family."
At some point during our conversation, and without realizing it, I had shifted my hand so that her pinky was curled around mine. The tenderness of our magnetic pull caused me to slowly squeeze my pinky against hers in an attempt to show her how affected I was, even if we were currently on a dating hiatus.
All of my senses were begging me to grab her hand so that the other parents on the playground knew that she belonged to me. But I refrained and was forced to look away so that I didn't scare her off.
Kelly was someone worth waiting for, and I needed to remember that.
Deciding that moment was a great time to check on the children and re-group, I glanced over to the play area just in time to see John helping Mandy climb the stairs to the slide.
Following the direction of my gaze, Kelly caught the interaction of our children and let out an audible gasp.
"Is he always this good with younger children?" she asked in awe of John's tenderness.
"I think this may be the first time John has been around a younger child. Most of my friends have children who are older. "
"What made you wait to start your family?"
"Well, it wasn't intentional. Years ago, we were told by Maggie's doctors that it was unlikely for us to conceive naturally because of the scarring caused by Maggie's endometriosis."
"That must have so difficult for her," Kelly stated empathetically.
"Honestly, looking back, I think she was relieved. Sometimes I wonder if she only married me because my father was a judge and had access to an exclusive country club. But when you're 25 and in love, your brain gets clouded."
"I completely understand that," she said in agreement. "Geoff was my first long-term relationship and though I wasn't naïve per se, I was inexperienced. Before dating him, I had one serious boyfriend at 25 and then spent four years contemplating if I should enter the religious life or mission work. When things became serious with Geoff so fast, I thought that it was God's way of telling me that I was meant to be a wife. Unfortunately, I was wrong about Geoff being my match, and my religious leanings against divorce kept me in the marriage a lot longer than I should have been... I kept worrying that I was missing a lesson in faith."
"You're Catholic?" I asked surprised at having something else in common.
"I am! But I was raised Baptist."
"What made you convert?"
"Well, after my breaking up with my boyfriend back in 2005, I felt ashamed for having sex out of wedlock and found solace at my friend's church," she explained.
"Wait, were you a virgin until you were 25?" I asked doing the math quickly in my head.
"I was. But please don't look at me like I'm a freak. My views on human sexuality have obviously changed, but back then I saw sex as something that only married couples could enjoy."
Worried that she'd feel self-conscious and wanting to reassure her, I said, "Kelly, I promise I don't think you're a freak. I only wish you had had a more positive experience."
"I try not to feel regretful. After all, my experiences in relationship failure did give me two beautiful girls."
"You do make pretty babies, Miss Kelly," I said flirtatiously.
"Ditto, Mr. Wilson."
"Now tell me about these shenanigans."
"Well, how much do you know about health insurance?" she asked.
"I'm vaguely familiar with policies, but most of my experience is dealing with my Dad's Medicare when he was recovering from surgery."
"Okay, but what I say here stays between us. The party in question is my company's biggest client and, though we jointly loathe this person, we should play nice since his account pays our office's rent."
"You have my word, within reason." As someone who is in charge of the well-being of four hundred children, I tend to stay away from absolutes.
"So, one of my clients, let us call him Al, threw a huge tantrum in our office today because his insurance rate raised by 60%."
"That's insane!" I said a little too loudly.
"Trust me, that was the cheapest one available in the entire county. But you won't feel too sorry for this guy when you hear what he wanted to do.
"Because we figured this would be his reaction, we have spent the last week preparing a presentation to show him all of the reasons why his rate increased and how to lower the costs.
"One of those reasons is that his wife and three of the men at his various locations turned 65 this year and are now of age for Medicare. Not to mention that he and four women in his offices are already over the age of 65 and still on the group plan.
"The other reason was that his MISTRESS, who he keeps on the payroll, but who doesn't even work there, had his triplets this year. Since they were born prematurely and each one of them needed an insane amount of surgeries, it jacked up the entire group's cost.
"Side note: I never share medical information unless the person has given permission to share it themselves, but I figure since she gave the local news station a detailed account of this medical history so that she could encourage fundraising, I don't need to feel guilty sharing it with you."
"Wait, hold on a second! Did my school host a fundraiser for this particular single mom?"
"I cannot confirm or deny your question," she said while nodding her head up and down.
Damn! That's Mary Jo Johnson, which means that the guy she is having an affair with is Franklin Nash the 70-year-old owner of most of the state's car dealerships.
"But Mary Jo is only 35 years old. Not only is it disgusting that he's cheating, but if this ‘Al' is who I think it is, then it's almost incestuous because he's her godfather."
Ew!
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, because if this man sinks any lower in my estimation, he'll come out in Mainland China," she said while a chill ran through her body. "Ugh!! After his negative reaction, we then proceeded to show him all of the data surrounding the cost of his group's health plan, hoping that once the increase was justified he'd calm down. Instead, he continued to tell us what freeloaders the older ladies are in his office and how he's just going to have to lay them off and force them to live off the social security check they have.
"Not move himself or his wife to Medicare, not purchase an individual policy for his second family, but lay off the FOUR little old ladies who have been working for him for the past 45 years.
––––––––
"DALE, I WAS DUMBSTRUCK!
"They barely make more than minimum wage, and it took everything in my power not to reach across the table and punch that man in the throat, and I am not a violent person. Luckily my boss was ready for him to pull something nasty out of his greedy little brain and had copies of the state labor laws on hand to show him that, that sort of obvious age discrimination would lead to not only a lawsuit but could potentially destroy his reputation."
"So, what did this asshole end up doing?" I asked incredulously.
"He signed up for the group policy we suggested. Then we convinced him to purchase supplemental and prescription Medicare policies for all employees over the age of 65. We explained if he did that and gave them each a one-thousand-dollar health savings account to cover the extra cost of their prescriptions, he would bring down his overall monthly insurance cost to 90% of the rate from last year. So, once he cooled down, it all worked out. But, what a piece of work he was.
"We've been telling him for two years that paying for his employees Medicare policies would be cheaper than trying to lump them into the group rate, but he wouldn't listen because his agent ten years ago told him that he shouldn't. There are a lot of yearly changes in the insurance world, so going ten years on expired advice is bad business."
Kelly's evident passion for protecting Franklin's elderly employees was a complete turn on. Most of the people I've known in the business world have been sharks, with little concern for the underdog.
"So, what made you become an insurance agent? Is your degree in business?"
"No, actually, my degree is in history," she said sheepishly.
"Why are you blushing? History is an honorable degree."
"It's unfortunately become a useless degree in this economy. Luckily, I worked for a bank during college, and my experiences there helped me to make a living in the business world."
Shortly after our discussion on shenanigans, we noticed some thunder in the distance, and decided to call it an evening and made plans to make Thursday's our weekly non-date.
Which is when Thursday became my favorite day of the week.