Page 131 of Here One Moment

“Yes,” says Allegra. “Didn’t I tell you that? She’d say I expect…and then she’d give the cause of death, followed by the age of death.”

“I expect,” repeats her mother. “That’s interesting.”

“Why?” asks Allegra.

“Her choice of language. I wonder if she works in the insurance industry. Expect. Expectations? Life expectancy. Age of death. Cause of death.”

Allegra doesn’t answer. She is not interested in the lady. The lady means nothing. She is taking out her phone and texting Jonny.

Can we please talk…

Delete.

Thank you for the link…

Delete.

I actually really like…

Delete.

The problem is I think I maybe love you.

She thinks of herself as a little girl running as fast as she could and jumping off her grandmother’s back veranda, arms straight and horizontal like wings. It wasn’t really that high, but you couldn’t see the ground before you jumped, you just had to believe it was there, and every time there was a terrifyingly glorious moment of freefall.

She presses send.

Her regret is instant. Her back clamors for attention. Her pain soars to a nine. Such a weird message. You don’t say “I love you” for the first time in a text. You don’t say “I love you” when you’ve not yet confirmed you’re in a relationship. He’ll go running for the hills!

Her mother says, “She sounds just like an actuary.”

Allegra doesn’t respond because she is looking at the words that have appeared so quickly on her phone it feels like magic, it feels like a miracle.

The ground was there all the time.

She just flipped her whole day. Maybe she just flipped her whole life.

It says: It’s not a problem, Allegra, and it’s not a maybe for me.

Chapter 105

I’m retired now, but yes, that is correct, I was an actuary.

In other words I was a “fortune teller of the business world.”

An actuary uses probability, statistics, and financial mathematics to project the future. I love my profession! Quite passionately. I have delivered many speeches on its fascinating history! To be clear, I delivered these speeches at industry events, not to cornered people at parties.

Well, all right, there was one cornered person at a party, but he seemed very interested. I will resist the temptation to share it with you. (But you should look it up!)

People prefer jokes to history, so here are some actuarial jokes:

Old actuaries never die; they just get broken down by age and sex.

I find that quite amusing. You may not.

How can you tell if an actuary is an extrovert? He looks at YOUR shoes when he talks to you!

That one is a little offensive, as it makes fun of our social skills. It’s true we tend to be analytical, introverted people and some of us are “boffins” who disappear into a back room and emerge forty years later for our retirement party, but that is no reason to call us “strange” or “weird.” Everyone is different!

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