Calculated Risk (23 page)

Mom smiled. “I said you loved him. I told him he could trust God to guide you, that through your faith you were growing more confident of who you are and to Whom you belong. Your dad thought a minute and then said he wished he'd been more supportive of you and DJ going to church.”

Wow. Was it possible Daddy could understand that redirecting her allegiance to Jesus would allow Daddy and her to have a richer relationship? This morning's calls came to mind. Could it be that she'd called to apologize for asserting herself after he'd read the verse in Ephesians? Had the verse touched his heart, softening his response to a whisper?
That's OK, honey. I'm sorry I hung up on you.

Cisney bit her lips together to keep from losing it while the server topped off her iced tea. After the waiter left, she took a sip. “I'm glad Daddy is trying, but I don't know if I can watch him learn humility.” Her voice squeaked. “It's been hard seeing him as weak as a baby these last few days.”

“Well, you'll have to, since I'm going to the hospital, and I'm your ride for the evening until Nick comes to pick you up.”

Cisney chuckled. “I could head off Nick in the parking lot.”

Mom narrowed her eyes in mock anger.

“I'm kidding. In my heart, I know Daddy submitting to God is good. It's a chance for him to become twice the man he is.” She laid her hand on Mom's arm. “Please pray God gives me new eyes in seeing Daddy.”

Especially tonight when Daddy met the actuary of her dreams.

 

****

 

Cisney stuck her head inside the hospital room. “Hi, Daddy. We're here.” She made room for Mom in the doorway.

Daddy lowered his newspaper and smiled. “Ah, my girls.”

“You're chipper today.” Cisney kissed his cheek and sat in a chair near the bed. Mom checked the water in his flower vases.

“Yes. They're going to let me out of here tomorrow.”

“I hope you rest at home until you get your strength back,” Cisney said.

He wagged his head and pushed his body into a more upright position. “Let's not talk sick stuff.” He appraised her. “You look very nice after a long day's work, honey.”

Mom pulled a wilted flower from a vase and spoke over her shoulder. “Cisney's going out tonight.”

Daddy frowned. “Yeah? When?”

Mom had foiled her plan to keep quiet about the brevity of her visit. In case God was working in baby steps to change Daddy's heart, she'd thought having Nick arrive without Daddy expecting him would limit the time Daddy had to come up with a strategy to scare Nick off.

She checked her watch. “In a half hour.”

“Half hour! I've waited all day for your visit, and you're spending a measly thirty minutes with me?”

Mom dropped her collection of drooping flowers in the trashcan. “She has a date.”

Daddy beamed. “You and Jason made up.”

“Daddy!” He'd have abandoned such hope if he knew his interfering call had ticked Jason off. But she'd never tell him.

Daddy held up his hands. “Sorry.” He inhaled and exhaled a slow breath. “OK. So who's your date?”

“His name is Nick LeCrone.”

“LeCrone. What kind of name is that?”

Mom leaned close to Daddy and whispered, but not so softly that Cisney couldn't make out the words. “Don, I think you're exasperating Cisney.”

He shifted in his bed. “Forget I asked. Why don't you tell me about Nick.”

“You'll meet him soon.”

“All the better you tell me about him now.”

Daddy did his homework before he connected with new clients. But Nick wasn't his client. Yet, wouldn't any normal father want to hear about his daughter's date?

Cisney put her finger to her chin. “Let's see. Nick is kind, smart, fun, caring—”

“OK, he's a nice guy. What does he do for a living?”

The time had come for Daddy's biggest test, if he didn't want to frustrate his daughter. Could he hold his judgment of Nick in check?

“Nick's an actuary. An FSA—a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries.”

His face looked as if he'd eaten his least favorite vegetable. He turned a pained look toward Mom. She cocked her eyebrow as if warning him to tread lightly. Daddy sighed and worried a loose thread on his blanket.

“I know a few actuaries. One did well financially. Smart fellow.” Daddy nodded as he focused on toying with the thread. “The guy bought his work clothes at the flea market. I'd see him on different days wearing different plaid shirts with the same checkered pants.” He kept nodding. “He once told me he had a thousand plaid shirts.”

A smile crept across Cisney's face. She knew actuaries whose behaviors were almost as strange, but they were the exceptions in the growing actuarial profession. “I assure you, Daddy, I've never seen Nick wearing checkered pants.”

“That's encouraging.”

“He's also a faithful Christian.”

Daddy's eyes widened slightly. “An actuary, huh?”

Experience told her Daddy meant, “An overt Christian, huh?” OK. So she shouldn't have smiled about the actuary wearing other men's shirts, but to imply Nick was substandard was wrong.

She took a breath. “Daddy, that Nick is a Christian is what I like best about him. To me, that's what makes him wise, honorable, and strong. Nick's not perfect, but he's more of a man than any guy I've ever dated.”

Daddy looked up at her, and then his gaze darted away. Not the reaction she'd expected.

Mom's gaze followed Daddy's line of sight.

Cisney whipped her head around.

Nick stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets.

 

 

 

 

16

 

Cisney sat riveted to the chair next to Daddy's bed as heat crept up her neck. Nick was early. At what point in her confession to Daddy about Nick's character had Nick arrived?

Daddy motored the bed to a ninety-degree angle and up to full sitting height. Preparing to do battle with the actuary?

Mom swept shriveled leaves from the bedside table into the trashcan and settled on the end of the bed.

Their perfect-family tableau in place, Cisney made the introductions, and the men shook hands.

Daddy motioned Nick to Mom's chair. “So, Nick, I hear you're an actuary.”

Not already. Cisney glowered at Daddy. He ignored her, and crossed his arms over his hospital gown.

In the chair next to her, Nick looked relaxed. How long would that last?

As soon as Nick uttered his yes, Mom jumped in. “Cisney told me you've taken a new job in Charlotte.”

Daddy talked over Nick's response. “What? No one told me that. You're moving?”

“In two weeks. I took a job with a consulting firm.”

Daddy stared at Cisney as if accusing her of perjury. Then he laughed. “Oh, I see. I wish you the best in your new job, Nick. Charlotte is a great city.”

Daddy didn't fool her. He thought he had everything figured out. If Nick was moving out of state, either she and Nick weren't serious, or their interest would eventually dwindle with Nick so far away. Daddy thought he'd still have time to work on her for a better son-in-law.

“Nick's from the Charlotte area, Daddy. His parents live right on Lake Norman, and the views from their house are fantastic.”

While he kept his big marketer's smile working, Daddy sent her a puzzled gaze. “How would you know, honey?”

“Nick is the friend I spent Thanksgiving with.” Certainly Daddy wouldn't carry this protective father routine any further.

Mom laid her hand on Dad's leg. A warning. “We've traveled by Lake Norman on the interstate. It's huge. Do you fish?”

Nick nodded. “Yes. A favorite pastime of mine.”

Daddy was not about to be ignored. “In your job you give a lot of advice on health insurance risks, is that right, Nick?”

“That's my job.” Nick smiled at Cisney. Probably recalling how he enjoyed exercising or withholding his actuarial stamp of approval.

“You pull data together, look in the rearview mirror, so to speak, and make recommendations to the VPs, right.”

“Yes, more or less. We look at trends in the economy, the industry, the market, and the company. And you're right, we pull data from various sources, and with educated assumptions, model the risks.”

“Then from your numbers you make recommendations.” Daddy pronounced the word numbers like it was a dirty word.

“Yes.”

Where was Daddy headed? Why didn't a nurse come to give him meds or take his vitals? Nurses and aides were always interrupting them. Why not now, when she'd welcome their intrusion?

“That's very interesting, Nick. Do you ever sit down with the experienced marketing guy or doctor or salesman and find out what his gut tells him recommendations should be? I ask because it seems to me the guy who lives it, breathes it, and has his ear to the ground should be given a lot more credence then some bunch of numbers.” Daddy softened the punch with his friendliest grin. “Just saying, you know.”

“You're right, Don. Probably twenty-five percent of my day is spent in meetings with company experts or on the phone with outside specialists, picking their brains. Actuaries don't just push data through models. We want to know what's happening in the trends we see. That's when we go to those on the frontline. But we can't dismiss observed trends on someone's gut feel. Yet these people can help explain an unexpected trend and help us decide whether it should be universally applied. Actuaries look to you experts to validate the front view and tell us the changes you see coming down the line that would modify trends in our models.”

Daddy opened his mouth, and then closed it.

Mom's slight nods toward her cheered,
He's perfect
.

Cisney bit down on a smile. Daddy had picked a fight, but Nick hadn't stepped into the ring.

Daddy shifted positions and cleared his throat. “Glad to hear that, Nick. Maybe you can tell me something else. Why is it that so many actuaries, present company excluded, aren't just a little different, but downright weird? I mean, some actuaries I know, I'm surprised the company lets them out of their cubicles. They make a bad name for the profession. Let me tell you about this one actuary I met. Pretty funny.”

Cisney slid down in her chair and would have kept on going if the gap between the bed and the floor was greater.

 

****

 

Nick drew Cisney aside to allow a hospital employee to steer an empty gurney by them in the corridor.

She looked up at him. “I'm sorry some of Daddy's comments were pushy.”

“It's OK. Your dad doesn't intimidate me.”

“I wonder if you'd say that if he hadn't been restraining himself. His comment about actuaries was out of line, no matter how charming he said it.”

“Which comment was that?”

They headed toward the elevators.

“When he tried to infer actuaries' formula-based predictions are less dependable than those of professionals who have cultivated a special intuition through their hard-earned experience—like himself, of course. But I guess, considering actuaries' reputations for oddness, it was better for him to make that dig than asking you to share the weirdest thing you've ever done.”

At the elevators, Nick pushed the down button. “His comment is partially valid. Often actuaries are guilty of discounting other professionals' theories, sometimes for good reason, sometimes from arrogance.”

She smiled and elbowed his ribcage. “I won't argue with that.”

They entered the elevator. She studied him.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“What part of my conversation with Daddy did you hear when you arrived?”

“Ah. You're curious to know how embarrassed you should be.”

“Something like that.”

“You said, ‘Nick's not perfect, but he's more of a man than any guy I've ever dated.' See nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just the truth.”

“Don't let it go to your head. I'm simply learning to stand up to Daddy.”

“You were lying?”

She gave him a withering look. “No.”

They stepped off the elevator and walked toward their exit.

Her lips formed a small smile.

“What're you thinking now?” he said.

Her smile transformed into a full grin. “You stood up to Daddy really well. I admire your style. It's like you have nothing to prove. I probably shouldn't tell you what else I was thinking.”

“But you will.”

“I can show restraint.”

“Go ahead. I'm intrigued.”

“Better not.”

“Suit yourself.” He'd give her a count of ten to spill her thought. One, two…

She stopped at the exit. “Well, if you must know, I couldn't help thinking how Jason always took the opposite viewpoint from Daddy and vice versa. They'd debate like they were vying for the state trophy. Like gladiators, they flexed their muscles and jabbed their spears at each other. I'm sure they both got high on the rush, but I didn't enjoy the display.”

“But you were OK watching me in the arena?”

“That's just it. Arguing with you was like Daddy was shadow boxing.”

“He probably missed the rush.”

“Well, I relished the show. And did you see Mom? She almost clapped after your response to Daddy's story about the weird actuary he'd told us about minutes earlier.” Cisney imitated Nick's deep voice. “‘You're right. Some actuaries exhibit odd behaviors that put people off and blind them to the solid track records of most actuaries' sound advice.'” She chuckled. “Daddy's face went blank for a split second as if he were determining whether he'd won or lost the point.”

Nick opened the door to the outside for her. “He tells a good story.”